Household split across two census pages

[Phred 0]

Hi,

 

I'm seriously considering switching to TMG (currently using Family Tree Maker and online Ancestry member trees). I like the census approach documented by Terry that records a source per household. Was wondering what one does with the case of a household split across two census pages? And the case where two households of interest are on the same page?

 

A related question - I can't seem to find instructions on how to attach (for use of a better term) a .jpg image of the census page to the source. Could someone point me to a "how to"? And does TMG on export to a gedcom create multimedia gedcom objects for things like images attached to sources?

 

Thanks for everyone's time.

[Terry Reigel 0]

I'm seriously considering switching to TMG (currently using Family Tree Maker and online Ancestry member trees).

If you are looking for more control over how your data is entered and output, I think you will like TMG.

I like the census approach documented by Terry that records a source per household. Was wondering what one does with the case of a household split across two census pages?

I just put both page numbers in the Page source element, separated by a hyphen.

And the case where two households of interest are on the same page?

There are a number of approaches you can take. I create a separate Source Definition for each household. If you are going to do something different you would have to use a different format for the Source Templates than I do.

A related question - I can't seem to find instructions on how to attach (for use of a better term) a .jpg image of the census page to the source. Could someone point me to a "how to"?

You attach images as exhibits. You do that by clicking on the button with the camera icon at the upper right corner of the screen, and then clicking on the Add button in the Exhibit Log that opens. This applies to Tags, Sources, Citations, and Repositories. For images attached to People the button is on the main toolbar.

And does TMG on export to a gedcom create multimedia gedcom objects for things like images attached to sources?

Sorry, I haven't a clue on that one.

[Jim Byram 0]

And does TMG on export to a gedcom create multimedia gedcom objects for things like images attached to sources?

Not objects but links are created for all images that the GEDCOM specs support. I believe that includes source exhibits. TMG does not embed images in GEDCOM output.

[Michael Hannah 0]

GEDCOM and Multimedia

The GEDCOM standard identifies two ways for software creating a GEDCOM transmission file to deal with multimedia:

"The MULTIMEDIA_LINK ... structure provides two options in handling the GEDCOM multimedia interface. The first alternative (embedded) includes all of the data, including the multimedia object, within the transmission file... The second method allows the GEDCOM context to be connected to an external multimedia file. This process is only managed by GEDCOM in the sense that the appropriate file name is included in the GEDCOM file in context, but the maintenance and transfer of the multimedia files are external to GEDCOM."

The standard is clear that a software package is free to choose either method for creating GEDCOM export files. Many (I think probably most) software packages choose the second (linkage) method since it ensures that the GEDCOM file remains strictly a text file and a much smaller file.

 

Other thoughts on considering TMG

If your focus is GEDCOM, you should realize that TMG, like most modern genealogy software, has many advanced features and capabilities which the (very, very old) GEDCOM standard has absolutely no way to express. To name only one such TMG feature which you have mentioned, a single TMG Census tag which is linked to all the people in a household cannot be fully exported to GEDCOM. GEDCOM has no way to identify multiple people linked to a single event, the advanced (and extremely useful) feature TMG calls Witnesses.

 

Most serious genealogists recognize that GEDCOM is only capable of transmitting basic genealogy information and choose to use reports or carefully constructed web pages to share more subtle or advanced information. If you are looking at TMG, for producing web pages you should also look at John Cardinal's excellent product SecondSite with a link here. I have no formal connection to either TMG or SecondSite, but am simply an extremely satisfied user who highly recommends both.