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ladybonita

TMG 8 Search Problem - Not Returning Witnessees

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Since I manage the lineages for a Surname DNA study, this is significant. I need it to find ANY PERSON with ANY EVENT assiociated with them irregardless whether they are a PRIMARY, SECONDARY or WITNESS. I was trying to update Floyd County, Iowa cemetery records and needed to isolate the few individuals (from over 100,000) to that area .... so I did a search so I could review each individual and update ... the EXACT search was:

 

Any Event, State = "Iowa" AND

Any Event, County begins with "Floyd"

 

What I realized that it was not finding several individuals and subsequently found it was not returning any "witnesses" (CENSUS tag specifically) events, only Primary individuals. This was significant as there were several individuals with LOTS OF children and the only association with that county was the census records ... they were born in another state and/or death was unknown.

 

Since 8.07 was just released and the problem is still there. I had reported this (with screen prints) directly to TMG support but was too late for this release. Is this something that can be fixed easily and fast? I am desperate.

 

Lady Bonita

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Hi Lady Bonita,

 

I am just a user like yourself, but wondering how you are doing the search? A Project Explorer filter? A List of People report? A List of Events report? or???

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I do it from the Expanded Picklist but have also tried from Project Explorer so I can work on them.

 

I had also told them about a problem I was having with date conversion during input. I normally keep my date format as dd Mmm yyyy but when I keyed in mm/dd/yyyy I found that when it converted it and the dd was less than 13, then it would convert the dd to mm and mm to dd. Confusing but if I keyed in 9/1/1900 it would convert to 09 Jan 1900. I checked and 8.07 still does it ... I reported it back in Version 5

 

I love your 'sketch' icon

Bonita

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First the date issue.

 

You specify the date in Preferences // Program Options // General, and that is what TMG also will assume you are entering. The format you have chosen is "dd Mmm yyyy" which is "day first" then month. Thus entering 9/1/1900 will be interpreted as "day first", giving 09 Jan 1900.

 

As explained in TMG HELP, under the topic "Date Format", subtopic "Ambiguous Dates":

"If the date entered is ambiguous TMG must guess what is intended...

TMG will base some guesses of entered ambiguous dates on the date format selected for display in Program Options: General...

However if the complete date is all numbers and the day is not greater than 12, TMG must guess which is the day and which the month based on the Preference in "Program Options / General". For example, if "8/11/1864" is entered...

if the date display Preference is set to a "day first" format such as 'dd/mm/yyyy' 'dd.mm.yyyy' 'dd-mm-yyyy' or 'dd Mmm yyyy', then TMG will interpret this entered date to be November 8, 1864."

 

This is not an error. This is the best guess TMG can make given your ambiguous date entry and the "day first" format you specified.

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Now the other issue, Bonita,

 

As for the filters only giving Principals and not Witnesses, I believe that is part of the intentional design. In general event filters are intended to identify only the Principals, not the Witnesses. Again I do not believe this is an error. The reason for this is that to get to all these events you only need to go to these Principals. Also identifying the Witnesses would be lots of duplication, since you only need to go to the Principal to find the event, and changing the data in that one event will change it for all the people linked to that event at one time, Principals and Witnesses alike.

 

But you are correct, it cannot be used to get a list of all the people involved in such events.

 

However, you can get what you want (if you really think you need it). There is one (and only one as far as I know) place in TMG where you can specify that you want to identify both the Principals and the Witnesses.

 

Using your case as an example

First establish a temporary Flag, maybe called "County", with its default value 'N' and alternate value 'Y'.

 

Run a "List of Events" report with the filter of:

State // = Equals // Iowa // AND

County // Begins With // Floyd // END

 

Now the key part. On the Report Options, Secondary Output tab, select to "Change Flag".

And specify to change the flag you made above ("County") to the value 'Y'.

The important part is "For whom:" must be "All Witnesses". That will change the Flag for both the Principals and the Witnesses.

Run the report to change the Flag values.

 

Now simply filter your Picklist or the PE using the Flag "County" equals 'Y' and you will see all the people.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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P.S. My 'icon" is the "UNIX" guru character from Dilbert (June 24, 1995), since I used to be a UNIX guru before I retired, it sort of looks like me, and everybody at work was convinced that Scott Adams saw me at a UNIX conference once and used me for his model .

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You must have worked for AT&T ... I used to program in Shell ... I could not convince my boss to sent me to "C" training

 

 

P.S. My 'icon" is the "UNIX" guru character from Dilbert (June 24, 1995), since I used to be a UNIX guru before I retired, it sort of looks like me, and everybody at work was convinced that Scott Adams saw me at a UNIX conference once and used me for his model <grin>.

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I don't see the mm/dd/yyyy as an ambigous date format as it is the most common used. What I see as a flaw in the program is that it does not always treat the conversion of mm/dd/yyyy the same way ... 1/30/1900 would become 30 Jane 1900 whereas 1/12/1900 would become 01 Dec 1900. Since I do imports (I create gedcom from vital record dates for anyone named WELLS / WELLES / WELS) this has caused me many problems during the import. I imported over 4,000 old birth, baptism marriage and death records and did not know on a gedcom it would be a problem. It took me days to go back and verify each record. Seems that if they know this is a problem, they should ask in Preferences how to translate the mm/dd/yyyy.

 

Bonita

 

 

First the date issue.

 

You specify the date in Preferences // Program Options // General, and that is what TMG also will assume you are entering. The format you have chosen is "dd Mmm yyyy" which is "day first" then month. Thus entering 9/1/1900 will be interpreted as "day first", giving 09 Jan 1900.

 

As explained in TMG HELP, under the topic "Date Format", subtopic "Ambiguous Dates":

"If the date entered is ambiguous TMG must guess what is intended...

TMG will base some guesses of entered ambiguous dates on the date format selected for display in Program Options: General...

However if the complete date is all numbers and the day is not greater than 12, TMG must guess which is the day and which the month based on the Preference in "Program Options / General". For example, if "8/11/1864" is entered...

if the date display Preference is set to a "day first" format such as 'dd/mm/yyyy' 'dd.mm.yyyy' 'dd-mm-yyyy' or 'dd Mmm yyyy', then TMG will interpret this entered date to be November 8, 1864."

 

This is not an error. This is the best guess TMG can make given your ambiguous date entry and the "day first" format you specified.

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Sorry, Bonita, but there is no way for TMG to know you are entering "mm/dd/yyyy" other than the Preferences setting. In fact, in Europe the format "dd/mm/yyyy" is actually much more common. How is TMG to know which you are using other than with the Preferences setting when the dd number is less than 13?

 

This is not a problem, your setting in Preferences is TELLING TMG whether you are entering "day first" or "month first", and it is honoring your setting.

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Yes, I have used Flags extensively so am familiar with the process you described. I did not think that List of Events had ability to set flag ... but, I see it does.

 

In this case, I was trying to update anyone who died / buried in Floyd Co., Iowa. I found a list of cemetery records for Floyd Co. and wanted to make sure I had entered the data for each person. As I indicated, even though they were born in another location, I knew I had compelted all the census research so the "Any Event" search should give me all people associated with the event ... in this case, Census. If I had alreadying entered the death location, they would have appeared. I wanted it to look at ALL events for a specific person to find the location. In having to set a flag from a report under List of Events is kind of a hassle when I am just trying to see who comes from the area.

 

I guess my question then too is when I create a Location Index in Second Site .. is that for Witness too or just the Primary?

 

 

Now the other issue, Bonita,

 

As for the filters only giving Principals and not Witnesses, I believe that is part of the intentional design. In general event filters are intended to identify only the Principals, not the Witnesses. Again I do not believe this is an error. The reason for this is that to get to all these events you only need to go to these Principals. Also identifying the Witnesses would be lots of duplication, since you only need to go to the Principal to find the event, and changing the data in that one event will change it for all the people linked to that event at one time, Principals and Witnesses alike.

 

But you are correct, it cannot be used to get a list of all the people involved in such events.

 

However, you can get what you want (if you really think you need it). There is one (and only one as far as I know) place in TMG where you can specify that you want to identify both the Principals and the Witnesses.

 

Using your case as an example

First establish a temporary Flag, maybe called "County", with its default value 'N' and alternate value 'Y'.

 

Run a "List of Events" report with the filter of:

State // = Equals // Iowa // AND

County // Begins With // Floyd // END

 

Now the key part. On the Report Options, Secondary Output tab, select to "Change Flag".

And specify to change the flag you made above ("County") to the value 'Y'.

The important part is "For whom:" must be "All Witnesses". That will change the Flag for both the Principals and the Witnesses.

Run the report to change the Flag values.

 

Now simply filter your Picklist or the PE using the Flag "County" equals 'Y' and you will see all the people.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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TMG must go nuts when I change the format to yyyy-mm-dd when outputting to Excel ... :o)

 

 

Sorry, Bonita, but there is no way for TMG to know you are entering "mm/dd/yyyy" other than the Preferences setting. In fact, in Europe the format "dd/mm/yyyy" is actually much more common. How is TMG to know which you are using other than with the Preferences setting when the dd number is less than 13?

 

This is not a problem, your setting in Preferences is TELLING TMG whether you are entering "day first" or "month first", and it is honoring your setting.

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I guess my question then too is when I create a Location Index in Second Site .. is that for Witness too or just the Primary?

 

That is a different program. I don't remember off the top of my head what it's definition is for that index.

 

TMG must go nuts when I change the format to yyyy-mm-dd when outputting to Excel

 

Nothing to go nuts about. TMG has a single consistent format that it uses internally to store all regular dates. You tell TMG how to convert your input with the Preferences setting. It follows your specifications and converts the input to its own internal format. Also for any output, you specify how you want the date displayed. TMG happily converts from its internal format to the output format you specify, whether in a report or on the screen.

 

Because of its consistent internal storage format, TMG can allow you to specify multiple possible input formats, and also provide multiple output formats for you to specify. It simply converts either on input or on output based on what you tell it to do.

 

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