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rowan.bradley

Create a report containing saelected descendants of a person

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Rowan,

 

I think if you want to exclude's B's line you may need to temporarily de-link B from A. You could give B a dummy step-father and make that relationship temporarliy primary which would also work.

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Thanks for your reply. This sounds a rather tedious and risky (in case you don't restore the relationship exactly the way it was) way of doing something that ought to be pretty simple. I would have thought there could/should be a way of displaying people in some kind of list or report, maybe with selection checkboxes, selecting everyone in a branch of the family tree (e.g. A and all his descendants) and then deselecting some of them (by control-clicking them, dragging a box around them, a context menu or similar), and then producing a report using only selected people.

 

I started trying to do it by creating a custom flag, and then going through the descendants of A that I wanted to include in the report and setting the flag to Y, but even this is pretty tedious. It takes several mouse clicks per person to set the flag, so if there are a lot of people it takes a long time.

 

If anyone has any better ideas I'd love to hear them!

 

Thanks - Rowan

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Excluding a single child from a descendant line is not the sort of operation that you would normally do or at least not frequently.

 

Deleting the relationship tag is an option but if the tag has citations, that is more of a pain. A simple solution is to create a dummy parent. Edit the relationship tag and change the ID# to that of the dummy parent. After you have run the report, change the ID# in the relationship tag back to the correct parent.

 

You haven't specified which type of report you wish to run... narrative or chart. Journal or Descendant Indented Narrative? Descendant Intented Chart? A flag would only be useful if you wanted a list report. Flags can be set in bulk using the Secondary Output option of the List of People report. For example, in one operation with the proper filter, you could set a flag for one person and all of the descendants of that person.

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Hi Rowan,

 

As Jim suggested, setting Flags for people can be very useful. And with the Focus Group features the Flag values can be quite easy to set for descendants and/or ancestors.

 

There are many ways you might do what you wish, but the one that would be easiest for me would be to set a Flag with different values for people I might want to exclude. Then I would use this Flag to filter a List of People report, and set the report Options on Secondary Output to create a temporary separate dataset or project. Once you predefine this filter and a separate report configuration for the List of People report, all this takes is running that predefined report. I would then run my desired report on that temporary dataset or project. I then would delete this temporary dataset or project and continue my normal data entry on the main project and dataset.

 

It is harder to explain than do. But once the Flag and report configuration is done it is quick and easy.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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Excluding a single child from a descendant line is not the sort of operation that you would normally do or at least not frequently.

Let me explain why I want to do this. I have recently discovered a lot of information about the ancestry of my great grandmother. I would like to contact all my great grandmother's living descendants of age greater than 16 (for example), and maybe also excluding those I know to be senile, to ask them whether they would like to see this new information. Before I do this I want to ask my uncle (the last surviving member of the family of my mother's generation) for his memories, and whether he knows how to contact all these second cousins and related people. I therefore want to create some kind of narrative report showing all I know about my great grandmother and all her descendants, but in order to keep the document manageable and to avoid confusing an 85 year old uncle I want to exclude all those who are children or senile, and I also want to exclude the descendants of my grandfather (i.e. my uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters and first cousins, and all their spouses, children and grandchildren), all of whom I know and am in contact with.

 

I would have thought that it was not that rare to want to do some such thing, and that with a good family history program it should be dead easy - certainly easier than hand crafting the document which is what I'm currently trying to do.

 

Thanks - Rowan

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It is dead easy to do, Rowan. Identify the people you want and don't want with a Flag. Temporarily extract out a dataset that is only those people. Now run whatever reports you want. Dead easy. And no hand crafting any document.

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Rowan -

 

Separate narrative reports for each of your great grandmother's children (with the exception of your line) might be more manageable and less confusing for your uncle to follow. Along with the narrative reports, it might also be helpful to include one-page descendant charts for each line. If you do not want the youngest children included, it would be simple to remove them from the chart.

 

Virginia

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Rowen,

 

Excluding a single branch from a descendant report is simple - find the parent/child relationship tag that connects the person you want to exclude to the rest of the family and temporarily make it non-primary.

 

Just go to the first person in the line you want to exclude, click on the Father or Mother tag at the top (whichever one connects that person to the primary subject of your report), right under the primary Name tag. Press the " * " key, or click the [ * ] button, and respond yes when asked whether you want to make that tag non-primary.

 

Now run your report, and that person and all his or her descendants will be excluded.

 

When you have the report finished, return to the person you "disconnected" and find the Father or Mother tag, which will now be down with the other tags rather than at the top. Repeat the same procedure to make the tag primary again and your linkages are restored.

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find the parent/child relationship tag that connects the person you want to exclude to the rest of the family and temporarily make it non-primary.

Thanks Terry and all others for all these helpful suggestions. I'm learning lots of useful stuff.

 

Making a parent/child relationship non-primary and later reverting it to primary does not risk losing any information at all - citations, memos or anything? My database will be exactly the same afterwards as it was before?

 

What is the non-primary feature actually designed to be used for? Another thing I've never penetrated until now!

 

Thanks - Rowan

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Hi Rowan,

 

Okay, you asked. :rolleyes: The feature is not "non-primary" but "Primary". There are (at least) four reasons to mark a tag Primary:

  • some reports or charts can or will only output tags designated as Primary
  • for multiple tags in the Birth and Death tag groups, the ones marked Primary determine the lifespan reported
  • for relationship tags, ancestry and decendency is only tracked through the Primary relationships
  • for multiple Name tags, the one marked Primary will be the default name to use for tags and unspecified name parts in non-primary Name tags will be filled in from the Primary Name tag

Multiple tags of various tag types in the same tag group can be linked to the same Principal(s). Only one tag among similar tags can be marked Primary, but "similar" depends on all three factors being identical: the tag group, both of the Principals, and possibly the tag type. For all tag groups except “Other” only one tag regardless of tag type within that group with the same Principal(s) may be marked Primary. For the tag group “Other” only one tag of the same tag type with the same Principal(s) may be marked Primary. Both the one tag in the Name tag group and the two (mother/father) tags in the Relationship tag group that are marked Primary are displayed in their special locations on the Person View and not among the chronological list of tags. Every new tag will be marked Primary when it is added if it will not conflict with an existing Primary tag. The new tag will be marked Primary if it is the first of that group with that set of Principals, or in the “Other” group the first of its type with that set of Principals.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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Thanks Terry and all others for all these helpful suggestions. I'm learning lots of useful stuff.

 

Making a parent/child relationship non-primary and later reverting it to primary does not risk losing any information at all - citations, memos or anything? My database will be exactly the same afterwards as it was before?

You're welcome, Rowan. No, there is no harm to your data from making some Relationship tags non-primary, so long as you remember to restore them afterwards. As far as relationship tags go, making them non-primary makes them non-functional - that is, it causes them to no longer link the two generations. But the tag itself, and all the data in it, are retained unchanged.

 

 

What is the non-primary feature actually designed to be used for? Another thing I've never penetrated until now!

 

As Michael says, it's probably easier to think of what Primary status does. Primary status is important in specific areas, and not at all in others.

 

- Name Tags - you can have an many Name Tags for a person as you like, but only one can be Primary. The Primary Name Tag appears at the top of the Details view, in the Children and Siblings window, at the top of genealogy reports, and in charts of all sorts. Non-primary Name Tags can appear in the body of genealogy reports, and can be used in the output of other types of Tags in narrative reports.

 

- Relationship Tags - you can have as many Relationship Tags as you like. But each person can have only one Primary mother and father. They appear under the Primary Name at the top of Details view. The Primary Relationship Tags determine whether or not a person appears as a parent or child in the Children and Siblings window, and in all genealogy reports and all charts. Non-primary Relationship Tags appear in the list of Tags (Tag Box) but are otherwise ignored unless they are made primary.

 

- Birth Tags - you can have any number of Birth Tags, but only one Primary one. The Primary Birth tag establishes the birth date in all cases where a lifespan is displayed in screens, reports, or charts. It is used to calculate ages wherever ages are displayed or appear in reports. Non-Primary Birth tags appear in the Tag Box, and can create output in genealogy reports.

 

- Marriage and Divorce Tags - you can have any number of Marriage and Divorce Tags. Only one can be primary for each couple. Having a Primary Marriage or Divorce tag (or having children who list the two as parents) causes the two people to appear as spouses in the Children and Spouses windows, and in those reports and charts that depict a marriage-like relationship. The date and place in the primary Marriage tag will appear in genealogy reports, and in charts that include that information. Non-primary Marriage and divorce tags can appear in genealogy reports.

 

- Death and Burial Tags - you can have any number of Death and Burial tags, but only one of each can be Primary. The Primary Death tag establishes the death date in the lifespan wherever it is displayed in screens or in reports or charts. The Primary Death and Burial tags appear in charts that display than information, and in genealogy reports. Non-primary tags of both types can appear in genealogy reports.

 

- Event Tags - you can have any number of Event Tags. One Tag of each Tag Type can be Primary for each person, and with each different other Principal. Only Primary Tags of each Tag Type can appear in box charts. Primary and non-primary Event Tags can in genealogy reports, but not in other types of charts.

 

So, in summary, the Primary status controls the display of information in the various TMG screens, and controls which tags can appear in charts that have room for limited data. It controls parent/child relationships and marriages when they are depicted, names used in some circumstances, life-spans, and ages. For genealogy reports, output can be restricted to Primary Tags only, or can include both primary and non-primary Tags.

 

Note: In the above "genealogy reports" means all narrative reports, Family Group Sheets, and the Individual Detail Report. "Narrative reports" means those reports that output in complete "narrative" sentences, using TMG's Sentence Structures. "Charts" means Pedigrees, Indented Descendant charts, and all box charts.

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