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billdebwhitt

Include [WM] in the Principle Memo sentence

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Hello - I'm attempting to document details about settlement of a probate with 'one time' data entry and have those details show both in the deceased's probate tag and on the corresponding Witness details in this probate. For example: TAG: Probate ROLE: deceased [e.g. John Hough (Haag)] Witness Role: asset purchaser [e.g. John Hough with WM '1 windmill $1.62' and Samuel Hough with [WM] '5 acres of wheat ($4.25 per acre) for $34.00'.]

 

I've added a unisex role 'Asset Purchaser' to my Probate tag with the following sentence structure:

[W] purchased personal property during the settlement of the estate of [P1] <and [P2]> <[D]> <[L]>: <[WM]>

 

For eash 'asset purchaser' I've included the description of the asset purchased in the Witness Memo [WM] field.

 

In the Principle's sentence structure, I've modified it to read:

The probate of [RF:deceased]'s estate had activity documented on [D] <[L]>. <[M3].> [R:asset purchaser]: [WM]

 

In the report output for 'Individual Narrative' for the deceased results in (an unknown value) appearing where the contents of [WM] should appear:

The probate of John's estate had activity documented on 27 Mar 1862 at Montgomery Twp, ASHLAND, OH. Many of the purchasers were family members and other known individuals appearing in this genealogy. John Hough and Samuel Hough: (an unknown value).

 

In the report output for 'Individual Narrative' for the 'asset purchaser' results with the correct value of [WM]:

He purchased personal property during the settlement of the estate of John Hough (Haag) on 27 Mar 1862 at Montgomery Twp, ASHLAND, OH: 1 windmill $1.62.

and

He purchased personal property during the settlement of the estate of John Hough (Haag) on 27 Mar 1862 at Montgomery Twp, ASHLAND, OH: 5 acres of wheat ($4.25 per acre) for $34.00.

 

I've tried almost every variation I can think of in the sentence structure for the 'deceased' but can only get the names of the 'asset purchaser(s)' in the report for the deceased. I have not been able to get the contents of the details in the witness memo [WM] to come acrossed into the report for the deceased.

 

I've also tried many variations from the 'memo' tab in the Individual Narrative report options.

 

Hope this makes sense and really hope that another set of eyes can help.

 

Thank you so much!!

Debbie

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[WM] only works in the witness's sentence.

 

If you had multiple witnesses, which witness memo would the [WM] in a principal's sentence refer to? It wouldn't work.

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Thanks for your reply, Jim -

and... I DO have multiple witnesses (more than 20 who purchased property before the cash assets were divided). However, even with just one person in this new role 'asset purchaser', the [WM] for that purchaser doesn't show on the deceased's narrative.

 

I guess I'm really looking for a way to word the coding on the principal's sentence to make it work. Is there some special punctuation I could use to 'link' the [WM] and bring it over?

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Debbie,

 

As Jim says, there is no way to include any of the Witness Memos in the output of the Principal, or of the output for any Witness other than the one associated with the WM. If you want the contents of the WM for just one Witness, put that information in the main tag Memo, and reference it there for that Witness.

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Hi Debbie,

 

Your sentence shows you already split the main memo. Only the main memo parts ([M1], [M2], ...) can appear in both the Principal sentences and the Witness sentences. Unfortunately there are only nine memo parts, so you could not use that for twenty different witnesses. However, perhaps you only have a few "types" of witnesses, and could reserve one main memo part for everything about each "type".

 

For example, you could have one main memo part (e.g. [M4]) for all the assets purchased. A part of the Principal sentence might be

... [R:asset purchaser] purchased [M4]...

"[R:asset purchaser]" would list all the purchasers, and "[M4]" would contain the entire list of items purchased by them. I would move the witnesses up and down in the witness list so their order would match the list of items, and have the items that one person purchased separated by commas, but each group of items separated by a semicolon.

 

Then the Witness sentence could remain as you have it, mentioning only what that one witness purchased in its [WM].

 

I know that means entering the assets twice, once as a full list in [M4] and once separately in [WM] for that witness, but I think that may be necessary in this case. The data entry wouldn't be too bad if you made the [M4] list first, then copy/paste into each WM and just deleted what was not theirs.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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Thanks to you all! Guess it was wishful thinking and I do understand the necessary limitations.

I've now resigned to do the double data entry with a hand typed listing on the principal's memo but saving some typing by copying the appropriate 'items purchased' into the appropriate [WM] memo field.

 

On to the data entry!!

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Debbie,

 

I've more often found this sort of thing in Will tags. I don't even try to use the same text for the Principal and Witnesses, in part because I generally find that my write-up for the two is much different. For example, for the Principal I often combine several heirs into a single general statement, while detailing specifics for each heir, which I put in their WM. When heirs receive the same bequest I use the F3 (Repeat) function to add the same text in their respective WMs.

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