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Bob Hammersley

How do I Report/Output Specific Tags for People

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I use the UK gold edition. I have created tags for each census e.g. 1841, 1851 etc and have called them Census1841 Census1851 ....they are in the tag group "other" and I have assigned these to people as I have found them on the census. I have reached the stage where I would like to create a report (or output to an xls file) that lists all the people in my project in alphabetical order and shows which of the census tags have been assigned to them. The idea behind this is that it will then be easy to work out which people in which census I still need to find - or is there another way to achieve this end? I have spent some time playing with the report writer but haven't come up with a way to do it. I am fairly new to TMG so please forgive me if this is an obvious/silly question but I would be grateful for any help.

 

Thanks

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List of People

filter

(some tag name) # of Tags > 0 END

 

Set the output columns as you wish (which columns and sort)...

and output the report to Excel.

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Having come across this post by accident, this is exactly what I would like to do. I have also created census 1841, census 1851 etc in the tag type list and they are all in the Tag Group "Other Event" apart from my Census 1911 which for some odd reason is in the Tag Group "Address".

I tried to produce a report as your suggestion, using 8 filters, 1 for each census tag but on the excel report, it only had 2 extra columns, 1 titled Addresses, which I initially presumed that denoted the people who have 1911, but having checked 1 person noted by a "1" under addresses, they have a location tag in my records, but no 1911 Census tag. The other is titled events, but that columns doesn't tell me which Census info, just says 2, 3 etc. events.

 

The other thing is, I've just checked 1 of my people and he is showing 5 events but he only has 2 census tags and 1 witness census tag and I've another person who actually has 5 census tags, not showing on the excel report at all.

 

Is it possible that you could step by step tell me how to produce this report as I'm sure i'll never be able to work it out on my own, I think it's a miracle that I managed to produce any report.

 

Many thanks in anticipation.

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Angela and Bob -

 

I also have separate census years. This report may not do exactly what you want, but is simple, works for me, and may give you ideas. It is a List of Events. My individual year (US) census tags contain the word Census (i.e. Census 1900). Your census tag titles may differ and you can adjust the filter for that. This report is to screen, but you can also send it to Excel or Word if you wish Below are screenshots of each step:

 

Make filter - Set Columns - Report.

 

Filter.jpgCensus3.jpgListCensus.jpg

 

Note also that you can if you wish edit the tag titles to include the word Census, or a variation like Cen-1841 or 1841 Census, and that would then apply to all of the existing census tags.

 

Ask if you have any questions -

 

Virginia

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Hi Angela and Bob,

 

I will first answer Angela's specific questions, but then show at the end how to get exactly the report I think you both want. It is a simple, seldom mentioned, report.

 

Having come across this post by accident, this is exactly what I would like to do. I have also created census 1841, census 1851 etc in the tag type list and they are all in the Tag Group "Other Event" apart from my Census 1911 which for some odd reason is in the Tag Group "Address".
Angela, there is a way to move all your "Census 1911" tag types to the "Other Event" group to join all the other Census tag types, but I suggest you ask that as a separate post.

 

I tried to produce a report as your suggestion, using 8 filters...
Angela, Jim recommended a List of People (LOP) report. So each line/row of the report will only tell things about that one person. You don't say what column types you chose for output, but I am guessing that you chose "# of Address Group tags" to get the "addresses" heading and "# of Events" to get the "events" heading. Those columns are telling you the total number of Address Group tags for which that person is a Principal, and the total number of Event tags of any type for which that person is a Principal.

 

It sounds as if you used all 8 filters in one report. Jim's suggestion is to run a separate report for each type of tag. That way you simply know that anyone listed in that report is a Principal on that type of tag. However, it sounds like both you and Bob want people who are either assigned as a Principal or as a Witness to the census tag. (Notice the List of Events report mentioned by Virginia will only list the Principals of the tags.) As an example of the LOP, to get both Principals and Witnesses I suggest expanding his filter to:

census 1841...		   // # of Tags // > Is greater than // 0 ORWitnessed census 1841... // # of Tags // > Is greater than // 0 END

That will give you a separate report only listing the people assigned in any way to a "census 1841" tag.

 

===============================

Bob and Angela,

 

Now to give you both a suggestion that is simple and is what I think you want.

 

If you want a single report of all the census narratives of everyone assigned either as a Witness or a Principal to any census tag, and list the tags to which they are assigned, then you could do the following.

 

[Edited: I made this more complicated than necessary in an earlier post.]

 

Run a seldom mentioned report, the List of Witnesses report (LOW). The filter for the LOW should be:

  Tag Type...  // Label  // Begins with // CENSUS // END

For Output Columns I recommend at least:

 

Witness ID

Witness Last, Given

Witness Is Principal

Tag Type Label

 

I would probably sort first on the Witness ID, then on the Tag Type Label.

 

That LOW report will give you a list of all people that are linked in some way to any of your census tags, and identify the specific census tags to which they are assigned. This report can either be output to a file, or to a spreadsheet.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

Edited by Michael Hannah

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As Michael suggested, if you use the Witness feature for Census tags - as most folks do, you will want to include those people in your report. I use Copy Tag - which gives each person their own census tag and is suitable for the tabular reports I prefer, for example, this List of Events Census report using split Memo entries and sent to Excel:

census.png.

 

Virginia

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Many thanks for all the suggestions.

 

The witness report gives all people who have Census entries which is a good report for checking which census dates are missing from each person. However, there are some people who don't have any Census entries and should have. In this case I have ran the report with filter tag types that do not contain "census". The beauty of that report will give the tag "birth" and therefore date of birth, also death and date so at a glance I can see when they should have 1st appeared on the census and up to what date.

 

Once I am able to add a census to everyone without a census tag, they should appear on the report suggested, but I will lose that birth and death date.

I think running both the reports will be the solution. I may even be able to add some formulas to the Witness report, without filters, to put the birth date on the same line as the census. I'll have to play with that one.

 

But i have reports I can now work with. Of course, the big problem now is, I can see how much work I have to do with all those missing Census entries.

 

Again, many thanks to all.

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Many thanks for all the suggestions.
Glad you found the ideas useful.

 

Once I am able to add a census to everyone without a census tag, they should appear on the report suggested, but I will lose that birth and death date. I think running both the reports will be the solution...
But, Angela, you can do both reports as a single report. Try this expanded filter for your List of Witnesses report:

 

( Tag Type... // Label  // Begins with // CENSUS  //   OR  Tag Type Group is		   // Birth //			  OR  Tag Type Group is		   // Death //			) AND  Date - Year		  // is greater than // 1799 //   AND  Date - Year		  // is less than //	1971 //   END

Notice the parentheses around the first three conditions.

 

Experiment with the start and end years to get what you want. Be sure to include at least the "Date" as one of your output columns. Then I would sort first on the Witness (either their name or ID) and second probably on Date. That will output all Birth, Death, or Census tags between those dates in that one report, and let you see who has no census records between their Birth and Death tags.

 

I limited to a date range to avoid getting absolutely everyone in the project, all of whom probably have at least a Birth or Death group tag. As an alternative, you could first run a List of Events report to set a Flag in Secondary Output for all people with "any event" between dates of interest. Then just use a filter condition based on that Flag of "Witness... // FLAGNAME // Equals // Y" instead of the Date conditions to limit your output.

 

Hope this gives you (further) ideas,

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I limited to a date range to avoid getting absolutely everyone in the project, all of whom probably have at least a Birth or Death group tag. As an alternative, you could first run a List of Events report to set a Flag in Secondary Output for all people with "any event" between dates of interest. Then just use a filter condition based on that Flag of "Witness... // FLAGNAME // Equals // Y" instead of the Date conditions to limit your output.

 

Angela -

 

If you are not familiar with setting Flags with a report's Secondary Output option, there is an example here using a List of People report. The procedure using a List of Events Secondary Output option would be similar.

 

Virginia

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Sorry I haven't replied before but I've been away for a few days. Thank you everyone for your replies - some (to me ) very clever stuff. I have built on various bits and managed to produce a report that was exactly what I had in mind - but I'm sure there is a more efficient way to do it. For each person I set the census flags (for cen1841,cen1851 etc) to its appropriate value Y,N or X for not alive. I then ran the list of events report outputting Prin1 ID,Prin1 Given Last, Prin1 Cen1841#1flag,Prin1 Cen1851#1flag etc for each census, this output the columns that I wanted but repeated it for each event assigned to a person! My brain being weary I couldn't work out how to restrict it to just one event that everyone would have (I tried birth but still got multiple lines for some people) so I created a tag type called centag and assigned it to everyone. I then filtered by

tag type / label / equals / centag which produced exactly what I wanted as below

 

ID---- Name-------------------------- 1841------ 1851------ 1861------ 1871------ 1881------ 1891------

 

28 Eliza Cordell -------------------------Y ----------Y ----------Y --------N ----------Y ---------N

27 Francis Billam Hammersley ------------N ----------Y ----------Y --------Y ----------Y ---------X

29 Francis Joseph Hammersley -----------N ----------Y ----------Y --------N ----------N--------- N

37 Henri Billham Hammersley -------------X ----------X ----------X --------N ----------N ---------Y

 

As I say, I'm sure you will be able to do this much more efficiently but once again thanks for all your help I wouldn't have had a clue without all your great ideas. Sorry if the report gets out of line during posting but it does work in tmg - honest!

Edited by Bob Hammersley

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Hi All and especially Bob who started this Topic that has really opened my eyes.

 

First of all on Michael's report

 

CODE

( Tag Type... // Label // Begins with // CENSUS // OR

Tag Type Group is // Birth // OR

Tag Type Group is // Death // ) AND

Date - Year // is greater than // 1799 // AND

Date - Year // is less than // 1971 // ENDNotice the parentheses around the first three conditions.

 

I ran this one exactly but I found it was better for me to run without stating a greater than and less than date as some people, not on the Census and not having a Birth Date, but having a recent Death Date would not appear on my list. The one I ran without dates was fine and I just needed to manually delete everyone born after 1911 or who had died before 1841. That would be a great option to put in the code but that option isn't there. But as it only took a couple of minutes, I now have all people listed and I can see at a glance who needs a census look up.

 

On Bob's report.

 

I think that is exactly what I want as it only gives 1 entry per person and with the "x" stating that the person is not alive for that particular census, it really does make it easy. I presume that is the Excel layout, because if so, one would be able to edit the excel report as new census entries are added with a simple changing of "x" to "y" instead of having to run the report over again.

However, please excuse my ignorance but how do I set the Census flays as "x" "y" "n". I looked at Virginia's Secondary output example but didn't really understand it. If it's not too much trouble I would appreciate an idiots guide to that report as I also use the UK Gold version and want to do that exact same thing.

 

Many thanks to all who have contributed to this topic. I've learn't more about TMG in the last week or so than I have in the last 10 years.

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Hi Angela - yes you can output the report as a print out or to excel - The way I set the census flag is : go to the person you want, then click on the flags button on the tool bar - this brings up another window with all the flags showing, then double click on the flag you want to change and it opens the edit flag window - just click on the value you want. If you need any help with the report I created please email me bob.hammersley@hammersley.co.uk and I'll try to help.

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Hi Angela,

 

Bob indicated how you manually set a flag for a specific person. However, I generally choose to run the report again, as I find that quicker and easier.

 

You stated "I just needed to manually delete everyone born after 1911 or who had died before 1841" since some of your people may not have a birth date or death date. You can have the report do that for you, so that it may be quicker to run the report. I find that more reliable than trying to remember to manually set the flag. Try this filter on the List of Witnesses report:

 

( Tag Type... // Label  // Begins with // CENSUS  //   OR  Tag Type Group is		   // Birth //			  OR  Tag Type Group is		   // Death //			) AND( Tag Type Group is		   // Birth //			  AND  Date - Year		  // is less than //	1912 // ) OR( Tag Type Group is		   // Death //			  AND  Date - Year		  // is greater than // 1840 // ) END

In this case note carefully the three sets of parentheses. I think this will give what you want, but you may need to experiment with the dates.

 

Hope this helps,

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Hi All and especially Bob who started this Topic that has really opened my eyes.

However, please excuse my ignorance but how do I set the Census flays as "x" "y" "n". I looked at Virginia's Secondary output example but didn't really understand it. If it's not too much trouble I would appreciate an idiots guide to that report as I also use the UK Gold version and want to do that exact same thing.

Angela -

 

I'll run through the entire sequence in case someone else has a question:

 

1 - Include the Flags window in your layout.

--- From the Window menu, select Flags. Save the changed layout.

 

2 - Create your census flags.

--- Rightclick in the Flag window in your layout and select Customize Flags, and then Add.

--- You need to have a Flag for each census year - 1851, 1861, etc.

--- Give each flag the values of ?, Y, X (or N for no instead of X if you prefer). The ? is always the first (and default) value for a flag and will appear in the Flag window until you add a census and change it - either with secondary output or manually as you add a census tag. Each census flag will look like this example from the sample project:

AddFlag.jpg

 

3 - Secondary output.

--- The options tab for Secondary Output in the List of People and List of Events reports allows you to make changes in the project (with or without creating an actual report) based on the filter you have set up for the report. With Secondary Output you can change flags, create a new project or a new Date Set, and lock/unlock timelines.

--- When you click Change Flag in the Secondary Output option, all your flags will be listed and you can select the flag (say Census1851) and set the value (say Y) you wish to assign to the people in that fltered group. You have to run the filtered report with secondary output separately for each census year in order to set the flag value for just that group of people. So you would run the report for Census1851, again for Census1861, etc. This gives you the current census value for each person

 

4 - Changing/updating the flag value:

--- Once you have all your flags set up, whenever you add a census tag to a person, you have to manually change that flag value from ? or X to Y. In your layout Flag Window in the detail view of the person for whom you are changing the value, doubleclick on the census year flag whose value you wish to change (that opens the Edit Flag window) and then doubleclick on the new value in the Edit Flag window to make the change.

--- To speed up future changing of flag values, rightclick in your layout Flag Window and select Edit Flag. Now move that Edit Flag window so it sits right next to your layout Flag Window. It will reopen in that position from now on - making it an easy reach to change flags. There is an example in the video here.

 

Ask if you still have questions -

 

Virginia

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Hi Virginia

 

Sorry I've only just got around to trying this out, I've also been away for a week.

 

Ok, I'm trying to change all the Census flags on my project now. I've set up a flag for each Census (Census 1841 - Census 1911).

 

I'm assuming I now click reports, List of events and set a filter to Tag type, equals, Census 1841.

Then go to options, secondary output and click change flag, all witnesses, Flag Census 1841#1 and Y

Supress output

Then ok

Then create report and all persons that have a tag for census 1841 will have their flag changed to Y.

 

That seemed to work.

 

But then I thought I would run a filter, Tag type, Label, Does not contain Census 1841

Secondary output, all witnesses, Flag Census 1841#1 and N

 

but that seemed to change the flag back to N even though the Census 1841 was present.

 

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong but would appreciate your help as I may have got the wrong end of the stick altogether.

 

many thanks for your help

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Hi Angela,

 

Your first report to set the flag was correct. But your second is a negative test, which is a little bit more tricky to understand.

 

You said to find ANY event that is NOT Census 1841. Now for all witnesses to that event, set their flag back to N. Of course most people will have some other event, e.g. a Birth tag, which will qualify as NOT Census 1841. Thus you will set that person's flag to N. This will probably set everyone to 'N'. Not what you intended, I am sure.

 

If I am going to run a report to initialize a flag, I usually first run a List of Person's report filtered for all people where that Flag is NOT 'N' and have Secondary Output set the flag to 'N'. That is a reliable way to initialize a flag to a particular value for all people.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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Hi Micheal

 

I ran the Witness report using your code but found that even if people were born after 1912 they still appeared on the report because the death year was after 1840.

I tried to take the death line off altogether but then I I had no census tags, only birth and christening.

 

My head hurts!

 

Many thanks

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I ran the Witness report using your code but found that even if people were born after 1912 they still appeared on the report because the death year was after 1840.

Hello again Angela,

 

Yep, you are right, that is what you will get with the filter I suggested. :sad: My head hurts, too! :wallbash:

 

It becomes complicated to do all of your conditions in one report with one set of filter conditions, especially if a person might have a Birth tag, but not have a Death tag, etc. etc.

 

It might be a little more work, but you could use a Flag for this type of situation and run a series of separate reports, one condition at a time setting/changing that Flag with the Secondary Output to narrow down the people of interest. That also might be easier to understand. For example, this sequence might work:

  • Create a temporary Flag whose default value is 'Y' (or run a report to reset an existing Flag to 'Y' for all people)
  • Run a List of People report to change that Flag to 'N' for all people whose Primary Birth Group tag year is after 1911
  • Run a second List of People report to change that Flag to 'N' for all people whose Primary Death Group tag year is before 1841

Run these reports separately, and don't combine these conditions into a single report since you can get into the issues you observed above. You can keep narrowing who is "left" with their Flag as 'Y' with conditions on any further separate reports you want. Now, at last you can run your List of Witness report filtering for (Census OR Birth OR Death) AND "Witness... Flag Equals Y". The added advantage of the Flag is that you can now filter your Project Explorer by this Flag to work through these people.

 

If you were going to do this a lot and saved these separate report configurations, you might even be able to run all these reports at once as a Book. (But that is a separate head-throbbing topic. ;) )

 

Hope these additional ideas don't hurt your head too much :rolleyes: and if you still have questions, ask.

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At Last!!

 

I have just successfully produced a list of people with an indicator of ?, Y, N, or X on each census, 1 line per person. I'm using "?" as no census entry for a particular year, "X" for not living in that year, "Y" for Census entry in that year and "N" for "Looked but couldn't find and got fed up with looking and may look later when I have time", which is exactly what I wanted. I can Manually delete all the xxxxx very easily by sort within Excel so all is good. It took about 10 minutes to change the flags using Secondary Output and I will probably just manually change my excel report rather than change flag as I go along as it is quite easy to reset flags with Secondary.

Just one small problem, (Isn't there always 1) The Output Columns only allow 9 columns so with ID and Name, I can then only do 1841 to 1901, therefore missing out 1911, what a shame.

 

Anyways, many thanks for all help. Not only did I get the report I wanted but I have learned an awful lot about reports in general and flags.

Again Many thanks to all.

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As Michael suggested, if you use the Witness feature for Census tags - as most folks do, you will want to include those people in your report. I use Copy Tag - which gives each person their own census tag and is suitable for the tabular reports I prefer, for example, this List of Events Census report using split Memo entries and sent to Excel:

post-23-1320184602_thumb.png.

 

Virginia

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As Michael suggested, if you use the Witness feature for Census tags - as most folks do, you will want to include those people in your report. I use Copy Tag - which gives each person their own census tag and is suitable for the tabular reports I prefer, for example, this List of Events Census report using split Memo entries and sent to Excel:

post-23-1320184602_thumb.png.

 

Virginia

Virginia.

 

Having solved the layout problem I am now having no success in producing the table which you send to Excel. Could you please briefly expand the process steps involved.

Regards

Vernon

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Vernon -

 

That census table format is a non-standard use of TMG and I don't necessarily recommend it. I use TMG primarily for research - with tabular output only (Family Group Sheets, Individual Detail reports, one-page charts) rather than narrative output like Journal reports which I expect 99% of TMG users prefer. My tabular format uses Copy Tag and split memos for a census - where each person in the census has their own census tag - instead of the Witness feature which is the more conventional way to enter census data.

 

I suggest going to TMG expert (and author of 'A Primer for The Master Genealogist') Terry Reigel's web site Table of Contents

 

http://tmg.reigelridge.com/TOC.htm

 

and - in the orange section - look for Managing Census Information. He discusses the different methods that people use, including his own preference. In any case you can't go wrong with Terry's advice.

 

For a very advanced tabular method for entering census data, see Teresa's method in the Sentence Structures forum here:

 

http://www.whollygenes.com/forums201/index...showtopic=14019

 

Virginia

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Vernon -

 

That census table format is a non-standard use of TMG and I don't necessarily recommend it. I use TMG primarily for research - with tabular output only (Family Group Sheets, Individual Detail reports, one-page charts) rather than narrative output like Journal reports which I expect 99% of TMG users prefer. My tabular format uses Copy Tag and split memos for a census - where each person in the census has their own census tag - instead of the Witness feature which is the more conventional way to enter census data.

 

I suggest going to TMG expert (and author of 'A Primer for The Master Genealogist') Terry Reigel's web site Table of Contents

 

http://tmg.reigelridge.com/TOC.htm

 

and - in the orange section - look for Managing Census Information. He discusses the different methods that people use, including his own preference. In any case you can't go wrong with Terry's advice.

 

For a very advanced tabular method for entering census data, see Teresa's method in the Sentence Structures forum here:

 

http://www.whollygenes.com/forums201/index...showtopic=14019

 

Virginia

 

Virginia

Thank you for your reply which explains how you use TMG. I use the witness feature for recording people shown on census data. I understand now how such a report can be produced when each person has their own census tag. I subscribe to the TMG Digest so I am aware of Terry and Teresa . They are very important contributors to that group. Will also investigate the URL sites you have provided.

Thank you again for you prompt assistance.

Vernon

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