Lots of new user questions

[Courtemill 0]

I am a new user of the program and have a lot of questions about best management practices regarding data entry. Is there a sample real world data set I could look at before I start entering a bunch of material and later find out I have done it all wrong

 

Is there a better place to ask newcomer questions rather than this forum?

 

Thank you.

[Terry Reigel 0]

Welcome - we love new user questions!

 

The Sample project included with TMG is in fact a real world project, by Bob Velke, the owner of Wholly Genes software. Still, many would argue about whether it represents "best practices" simply because there are so many divergent views about what constitutes the best way to enter any particular data in TMG. There are many alternatives, and each method has its virtues and faults. The one that is best for you depends largely on your objectives.

 

Some suggestions are included on my website - see link below. A more comprehensive "new user" discussion is in my Primer (shameless plug!).

 

You will receive lots of helpful advice if you ask on this forum. However I think there is a wider set of experienced users who respond to questions posted on the TMG list on Rootsweb, so I would advise asking "how to" questions on that list.

[Robert Jacobs 0]

I'm not sure I can present any best practices, but I know I made a number of serious errors when I started out with TMG. Most of them involved a much too facile approach to the software. I didn't learn enough of its capabilities at the outset.

 

1. I failed to take advantage of the "witness" facility. For example I'd take a census report and make multiple copies of a residence tag for each of the people in it. That was both overly time consuming and, from the point of view of making smooth reports, cumbersome.

 

2. Sloppy citations. For example, in citing a document for information about a person who is not the principal subject of the document, I often did not include the principal's name. Months later I would find that I couldn't remember original source or quickly find it. Of course sources can be located, but if I had done it right to begin with one click would have provided the needed information.

 

3. Although it doesn't speak to your question about data entry, I'll just add that I also failed to appreciate the power of focus groups and filtering, both to ease the work and to make properly tailored reports.

 

I'm sure I could add to this list without even revealing the time that I added four tags to the wrong person, but why embarrass myself further? I hope the suggestions above are helpful.

 

 

Robert

 

 

P.S. Terry Reigel's plug for his book is far too modest.