Journal Report

[John K 0]

I would like to produce a written genealogy organized in a similar manner to Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines, and am trying to figure out how to do this with TMG.

 

My goal is to generate a series of journal reports in the following format:

 

Smith Family

Great Grandfather Smith (showing all information about him)

Great Grandmother Smith (showing all information about her)

The children of GGF and GGM Smith were as follows (listing just birth, death and marriage info for each child)

 

Grandfather Smith (all info)

Grandmother Smith (all info)

The children of GGF and GGM Smith were as follows:

 

Father Smith

etc.

 

 

So, each report would provide complete information only about direct ancestors in a specific line, starting with the oldest ancestor in the line and working down. However, it would also list all the children of each direct ancestor and provide birth, death and marriage information for each child.

 

This seems like something TMG should be able to do, but I have not been able to find a way to include the Smith wives or to avoid having separate paragraphs for each of the Smith cousins.

 

Could anyone point me in the right direction?

 

Thank you

[Jim Byram 0]

I going to assume you're starting from a single person and producing a descendant journal report.

 

Try the following changes in options...

General tab - under Style, select 'Custom format' (that lets you make the next two changes)

Miscellaneous tab...

Select 'Include spouse events'

Select 'Follow surname'

[John K 0]

Thank you Jim.

 

1. Your assumption is correct.

 

2. "Include Spouse Events" does exactly what I want.

 

3. While "Follow Surname" is a step in the right direction, it still produces a report that is much too long.

 

The chapter on the first generation is exactly what I want. It talks about Great Grandfather Smith (using my previous example) and his wife, and then lists their children.

 

However, the chapter on the second generation has separate numbered sections on each of Great Grandfather Smith's children. My goal is to have this chapter talk only about Grandfather Smith and his wife (and then list their children). In other words, while I want Grandfather Smith's siblings to be listed in the list of Great Grandfather Smith's children, I do not want them to have their own separate listings in the chapter on the second generation.

[Terry Reigel 0]

John,

 

I think the easy way to get what you want is to use an Ancestor Journal instead of a Descendant's Journal, and use the Follow Surname feature. It think this will give you the information you want, but listed in the opposite order, with the youngest generation first.

 

You can get exactly what you want, but it is a bit more work. You have to create a temporary Project that doesn't include people you don't want in the report, and run the Descendants Journal from that Project. To do that, I suggest this method:

 

1. Open the Focus Group, and remove anyone who might be in it.

 

2. Add the father of youngest person of the surname you want in the report to the Focus Group.

 

3. Select that person in the Focus Group, and under "add others" check Ancestors, and set the generation count to the number you desire, and click the Add Others button. This adds all the direct line you want.

 

4. Click the Select All button, and under "add others", uncheck Ancestors, check Descendants, set the number of generations to one, and click the Add Others button. This adds siblings of the direct line.

 

5. Click the Select All button, and under "add others", uncheck Descendants , check spouses, and click the Add Others button. This adds spouse of the siblings and any "other" spouses of the direct line.

 

6. Click the Select All button, and under "add others", uncheck Spouses, check Ancestors, and set the generation count to one, and click the Add Others button. This adds the parents of the spouses, completing the selection process.

 

7. Open the List of People Report, and set the "Focus Person(s)" to the current Focus Group (you have to uncheck "Use current person" if it's checked). Click Options, and on the Secondary Output tab, check Create New Project. Run the report, and allow the new Project to be created.

 

8. Now open the new Project, and run your Descendant Journal from that Project. It will now show only the direct line and include the siblings, but not their children.

[Jim Byram 0]

However, the chapter on the second generation has separate numbered sections on each of Great Grandfather Smith's children.

Yes. That's exactly how the report is designed to work. Each child with descendants is carried forward as a subject in the next generation of the report.

[John K 0]

Terry,

 

Thank you. Your second suggestion produces exactly what I am looking for.

 

 

You were correct that it takes a little work to create the temporary Project - but thanks to your superb directions (for which I am most grateful) it was really a piece of cake. The troubling thing is that once I have defined the Focus Group, it takes the computer a considerable amount of time to create the new Project. If I only had to do this one time, that would not be relevant, but my understanding is that I will need to create an updated version of this new Project every time I make a change to the underlying database. (I must confess that I am a tinkerer. Whenever I decide to print a genealogy report, I spend months proof reading the report, making changes to the database, reprinting the report and starting the process over again. If I have to wait 30 minutes each time for the computer to create the new Project, it will definitely change my approach.)

 

I assume there is no other way to get what I am looking for, but just to be sure I thought I would ask if there was some way to avoid the need to create a new Project every time the database is changes. For example, might it be possible to flag the people I am interested in for the report and having TMG ignore everyone else? (If so, that would be terrific, since the flags are already in place chanks to your 2004 TMG Tip on Creating a "Related-By" Flag.)

 

Thank you again for your help

[Terry Reigel 0]

You are welcome, John.

 

Yes, you do have to create the temporary project unless you are willing to make all the edits in both the temporary and main project - something I'd not recommend. I don't know why it should take anything like 30 minutes to create the temporary project. Something's amiss.

 

I'd suggest setting a custom Flag to mark the people to be included if you plan to repeat this with the same group (if your Related-by flag marks the right people, you could use that instead of creating a new one). You can do that with the Focus Group and the Secondary output of the List of People report. Try creating the Flag instead of the focus group to create the temporary Project - I wouldn't think that would make any difference, but you never know. You could also create a temporary Data Set within your current Project - that might be faster, I don't know. I didn't suggest that because I really don't like adding and deleting stuff to my working data, even though in theory it's safe (as long as there is no use error).

 

Another approach might be to create a website with Second Site for proofing, which can use the same flag to include only those you have marked in the site. Then, once you are happy with the text you could create the report - no need to create a new project for every test run.

[nbradley 0]

John

 

It might be stating the obvious but my 4 year old 1 meg XP machine was only just coping from a speed point of view. I have just had my son build me a new machine ( 4meg, dual core, fancy mother board etc) and the difference in speed is amazing.

 

If it's taking 30 minutes to create a new project from a focus group you might have a similar problem to mine.