Embedded Citations & Footnotes in TMG Reports

[Bafburns 0]

I am having problems with the handling of embedded citations in reports genereated from Memos in Event Tags in TMG v.7.04.0000. TMG runs on my desktop under Windows XP Media Centre Edition. I migrated my TMG data from Ultimate Family Tree (UFT) a couple of years ago using the GenBridge conversion utility supplied by Wholly Genes. I am sending this query to Wholly Genes in hopes that you may have heard about this problem before from other former UFT users and might have a solution.

 

Briefly put, my installation of TMG does not treat Embedded Citations the way it treats other Citations in reports. An example may help illustrate the problems I am having.

 

Here is a typical Memo field from my TMG database that includes embedded citations, from a Death Tag:

 

 

Daniel may have died before 1871, as he was not found in the Census of that year at Bodmin, St. Austell or Truro.

 

In 1983 I conducted an extensive search for a record of his death in the period 1845-1910 in the Indexes of the General Register Office in London but could turn up no entry which seemed to fit clearly with what little I knew about his name and whereabouts. Unfortunately, as I was then unaware of the Byrne surname variant, I did not search under that name.

 

I have even speculated (on the basis of no evidence whatever so far) that Daniel, having come to Cornwall from Ireland, might have done business in his country of birth and possibly returned there after the marriage of his son. The fact that his dependant grand-daughter, Ellen, who was living in his household in 1861, had moved to the household of his married daughter Elizabeth Burn(e) Hawke by 1871 [CIT:]1099:2[:CIT][CIT:]1101:2[:CIT] may be a sign that Daniel had either died or left the Bodmin area.

 

I have speculated that Daniel may have returned to Ireland and died there, but there is no evidence to support this.

Note that the numbers in the embedded citations are valid source IDs in my TMG Master List of Sources.

 

Below is the text which TMG generates from this Memo in Individual Narrative and Journal reports (the only two reports I have tested), no matter which options (other than “None”) I select under Options: Sources on the Report Definition screen (i.e., “Footnotes”, “Endnotes”, “Embedded”, “Embedded with parentheses”):

 

 

Daniel may have died before 1871, as he was not found in the

Census of that year at Bodmin, St. Austell or Truro.

 

In 1983 I conducted an extensive search for a record of his death in the

period 1845-1910 in the Indexes of the General Register Office in London

but could turn up no entry which seemed to fit clearly with what little I

knew about his name and whereabouts. Unfortunately, as I was then unaware

of the Byrne surname variant, I did not search under that name.

 

I have even speculated (on the basis of no evidence whatever so far) that

Daniel, having come to Cornwall from Ireland, might have done business in

his country of birth and possibly returned there after the marriage of his

son. The fact that his dependant grand-daughter, Ellen, who was living in

his household in 1861, had moved to the household of his married daughter

Elizabeth Burn(e) Hawke by 1871 (Entry for household of Daniel Burns,

Census of England and Wales 1861.) (Entry for household of George Hawke,

Census of England and Wales, 1871: Cornwall County, Bodmin, Town of, Lower

Bore Street, Enumerator's District 6, (Public Record Office RG 10 2249).

Transcribed 17 April 1990 by Barrie A.F. Burns from copy held at LDS Family

History Centre, Salt Lake City, Utah (microform reel no. 834,877).) may be

a sign that Daniel had either died or left the Bodmin area.

 

I have speculated that Daniel may have returned to Ireland and died there,

but there is no evidence to support this.

In short, my TMG 7.04.0000 always and only generates the embedded citation references embedded within parentheses, rather than as footnotes which are the much preferred solution.

 

If I select “Footnotes” or “Endnotes” in the Report Definition (Options: Sources) TMG should generate the following text from this Memo (I have invented the footnote numbers below, assuming other footnotes from other Tags would precede this memo in the hypothetical report) but doesn't in my implementation:

 

 

Daniel may have died before 1871, as he was not found in the

Census of that year at Bodmin, St. Austell or Truro.

 

In 1983 I conducted an extensive search for a record of his death in the

period 1845-1910 in the Indexes of the General Register Office in London

but could turn up no entry which seemed to fit clearly with what little I

knew about his name and whereabouts. Unfortunately, as I was then unaware

of the Byrne surname variant, I did not search under that name.

 

I have even speculated (on the basis of no evidence whatever so far) that

Daniel, having come to Cornwall from Ireland, might have done business in

his country of birth and possibly returned there after the marriage of his

son. The fact that his dependant grand-daughter, Ellen, who was living in

his household in 1861, had moved to the household of his married daughter

Elizabeth Burn(e) Hawke by 1871

^{23, 24}

may be a sign that Daniel had

either died or left the Bodmin area.

 

I have speculated that Daniel may have returned to Ireland and died there,

but there is no evidence to support this.

Ultimate Family Tree generated such text with the footnotes if footnotes were requested in reports involving this Tag.

 

I have contacted Terry Riegel (TMG Tips) about this and he cannot replicate the problem on his installation of TMG. He wonders whether my problem might be due to some “artifact” carried over in the data migration from UFT, although he can see no problem in the data structures of my embedded citations and so can see no reason why my TMG is handling embedded citations the way it is.

If I have some oddball “artifactual” hangover from UFT, would this problem somehow be corrected in TMG version 8, which I understand will include a completely rewritten Report module?

 

Another question is whether one can somehow automatically convert such embedded citation text in TMG reports to footnotes or endnotes within Microsoft Word after they have been exported there? I haven’t looked into this yet.

 

Can anybody out there help with this?

[Jim Byram 0]

If you want Support to respond to this, you need to write them at:

support@whollygenes.com

 

If footnotes or endnotes are selected on the report Options / Sources tab, then you're correct in that the embedded citations should be output as selected.

 

If I have some oddball “artifactual” hangover from UFT, would this problem somehow be corrected in TMG version 8...

Automagically? That's unlikely since this would appear to be some sort of data issue.

 

Could you use the Secondary Output feature of the List of People report and send one person with such memos to a new project and then send me the project backup for testing? The backup should include only the project files, accents and filters. You can contact me by clicking on the link below.

 

btw... Before sending, be sure to test the new project to determine that the copy process didn't fix the issue.

 

Jim Byram

[Paul Lawrence 0]

I am having problems with the handling of embedded citations in reports genereated from Memos in Event Tags in TMG v.7.04.0000. TMG runs on my desktop under Windows XP Media Centre Edition. I migrated my TMG data from Ultimate Family Tree (UFT) a couple of years ago using the GenBridge conversion utility supplied by Wholly Genes. I am sending this query to Wholly Genes in hopes that you may have heard about this problem before from other former UFT users and might have a solution.

 

Briefly put, my installation of TMG does not treat Embedded Citations the way it treats other Citations in reports. An example may help illustrate the problems I am having.

 

Here is a typical Memo field from my TMG database that includes embedded citations, from a Death Tag:

 

 

Daniel may have died before 1871, as he was not found in the Census of that year at Bodmin, St. Austell or Truro.

 

In 1983 I conducted an extensive search for a record of his death in the period 1845-1910 in the Indexes of the General Register Office in London but could turn up no entry which seemed to fit clearly with what little I knew about his name and whereabouts. Unfortunately, as I was then unaware of the Byrne surname variant, I did not search under that name.

 

I have even speculated (on the basis of no evidence whatever so far) that Daniel, having come to Cornwall from Ireland, might have done business in his country of birth and possibly returned there after the marriage of his son. The fact that his dependant grand-daughter, Ellen, who was living in his household in 1861, had moved to the household of his married daughter Elizabeth Burn(e) Hawke by 1871 [CIT:]1099:2[:CIT][CIT:]1101:2[:CIT] may be a sign that Daniel had either died or left the Bodmin area.

 

I have speculated that Daniel may have returned to Ireland and died there, but there is no evidence to support this.

Note that the numbers in the embedded citations are valid source IDs in my TMG Master List of Sources.

 

Below is the text which TMG generates from this Memo in Individual Narrative and Journal reports (the only two reports I have tested), no matter which options (other than “None”) I select under Options: Sources on the Report Definition screen (i.e., “Footnotes”, “Endnotes”, “Embedded”, “Embedded with parentheses”):

 

 

Daniel may have died before 1871, as he was not found in the

Census of that year at Bodmin, St. Austell or Truro.

 

In 1983 I conducted an extensive search for a record of his death in the

period 1845-1910 in the Indexes of the General Register Office in London

but could turn up no entry which seemed to fit clearly with what little I

knew about his name and whereabouts. Unfortunately, as I was then unaware

of the Byrne surname variant, I did not search under that name.

 

I have even speculated (on the basis of no evidence whatever so far) that

Daniel, having come to Cornwall from Ireland, might have done business in

his country of birth and possibly returned there after the marriage of his

son. The fact that his dependant grand-daughter, Ellen, who was living in

his household in 1861, had moved to the household of his married daughter

Elizabeth Burn(e) Hawke by 1871 (Entry for household of Daniel Burns,

Census of England and Wales 1861.) (Entry for household of George Hawke,

Census of England and Wales, 1871: Cornwall County, Bodmin, Town of, Lower

Bore Street, Enumerator's District 6, (Public Record Office RG 10 2249).

Transcribed 17 April 1990 by Barrie A.F. Burns from copy held at LDS Family

History Centre, Salt Lake City, Utah (microform reel no. 834,877).) may be

a sign that Daniel had either died or left the Bodmin area.

 

I have speculated that Daniel may have returned to Ireland and died there,

but there is no evidence to support this.

In short, my TMG 7.04.0000 always and only generates the embedded citation references embedded within parentheses, rather than as footnotes which are the much preferred solution.

 

If I select “Footnotes” or “Endnotes” in the Report Definition (Options: Sources) TMG should generate the following text from this Memo (I have invented the footnote numbers below, assuming other footnotes from other Tags would precede this memo in the hypothetical report) but doesn't in my implementation:

 

 

Daniel may have died before 1871, as he was not found in the

Census of that year at Bodmin, St. Austell or Truro.

 

In 1983 I conducted an extensive search for a record of his death in the

period 1845-1910 in the Indexes of the General Register Office in London

but could turn up no entry which seemed to fit clearly with what little I

knew about his name and whereabouts. Unfortunately, as I was then unaware

of the Byrne surname variant, I did not search under that name.

 

I have even speculated (on the basis of no evidence whatever so far) that

Daniel, having come to Cornwall from Ireland, might have done business in

his country of birth and possibly returned there after the marriage of his

son. The fact that his dependant grand-daughter, Ellen, who was living in

his household in 1861, had moved to the household of his married daughter

Elizabeth Burn(e) Hawke by 1871

^{23, 24}

may be a sign that Daniel had

either died or left the Bodmin area.

 

I have speculated that Daniel may have returned to Ireland and died there,

but there is no evidence to support this.

Ultimate Family Tree generated such text with the footnotes if footnotes were requested in reports involving this Tag.

 

I have contacted Terry Riegel (TMG Tips) about this and he cannot replicate the problem on his installation of TMG. He wonders whether my problem might be due to some “artifact” carried over in the data migration from UFT, although he can see no problem in the data structures of my embedded citations and so can see no reason why my TMG is handling embedded citations the way it is.

If I have some oddball “artifactual” hangover from UFT, would this problem somehow be corrected in TMG version 8, which I understand will include a completely rewritten Report module?

 

Another question is whether one can somehow automatically convert such embedded citation text in TMG reports to footnotes or endnotes within Microsoft Word after they have been exported there? I haven’t looked into this yet.

 

Can anybody out there help with this?

 

I converted from UFT several years ago and I have no problems with the embedded citations in memos. I have many of them and I cannot duplicate the problem you describe using either Endnotes or Footnotes.

 

What is your Report Destination?

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Could it be something like this from the mailing list archives?

 

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/r...5-07/1121085695

 

Virginia

[Bafburns 0]

Virginia:

Thanks for the pointer. Yes, this sounds like it could possibly be the root of my problem but if it is, it is good news and bad news for me. I currently have no <[M]> variables in any of my sentences. I had split memos in my sentences as a result of the Genbridge migration of my data from Ultimate Family Tree but I subsequently removed them all as part of a restructuring of some of my event tags because I wanted to be able to print event sentences in reports without the memos (some of my memos are VERY long). The removal took a very long time.

 

Does this mean that I now have to add an <[M]> variable to all of my event sentences in order to able to get the embedded citations that are in memos to generate footnotes in reports? If so, and the addtion of the <[M]> variable means that I can't ever print the sentence without the memo on reports, this seems like an unreasonable compromise in a state-of-the-art piece of software like TMG.

 

I guess I would have the same questions about this treatment of embedded citations in TMG as Pete Hill had in his Ancestry TMG_L posting. It sounds like a not very well thought out tradeoff. Are Wholly Genes going to fix this problem in version 8?

 

Thanks for your help,

Barrie

 

 

Could it be something like this from the mailing list archives?

 

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/r...5-07/1121085695

 

Virginia

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Note that tmg-l thread is from 2005 and an earlier version of TMG so perhaps there has been a change or workaround since then. I don't use this construct, so if it is in fact contributing to the problem I'll leave possible solutions to someone more familiar with embedded citations.

 

Virginia

[Jim Byram 0]

Virginia found the explanation. I've been corresponding directly with Barrie about how this works.

 

Basically, this is by design. Memos output from the report options have the same design and limits as citations output from report options. And, in essence, you can't output footnotes from footnotes for technical reasons. So embedded citations located in memos that are output using the report options will be embedded in those memos in the output.

 

Are Wholly Genes going to fix this problem in version 8?

You appear to be asking if there is any reason to believe that the design is going to be changed in Tmg v8. There is no reason to think so. And for reasons of recursion and infinite loops, the design can't be changed without completely redesigning how reports output memos that are not included in sentences.

[Terry Reigel 0]

As Jim says, that is the issue. As for a fix, how did you change the Sentences to exclude the [M] variable? Did you do that in the Tag Type, or in each individual Tag Sentence?

 

If you changed the Tag Type, it is easy to add it back in, assuming there are not too many Tag Types involved. If there are some tags for which you might want to exclude the Memo text at times, I would suggest putting the Memo text in a separate custom Tag Type, and then excluding that Tag Type from the report when you don't want the memo included.

 

If, however, you edited the Sentences in the individual Tags, adding the [M] variable would be a big task. It may be possible to remove the local sentences with John Cardinal's TMG Utility - maybe he could say for sure. If you could, then adding them to the Tag Type Sentence would be simple. It may also be possible to add the [M] variable to all Local Sentence with the Find and Replace function in that Utility.