Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Morbius

History Tags

Recommended Posts

As I start to use TMG to generate reports for research papers, I find I am using history tags much more often.  This, in order to maintain an historical perspective to those reports.  For example, a History Tag noting the creation of West Virginia during the civil war, in order to sort out people actually born in West Virginia from those born in a part of Virginia that is now (post civil war) part of West Virginia (usually such people born before June 1853 are reported as having been born in West Virginia, even though it didn't yet exist).  I haven't been using Timelines, but I have found History Tags noting such things as when a state became a state, changes to county boundaries, and other historic events useful.

I am wondering how others are using History Tags, and was hoping for some additional ideas.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Morbius,

History event tags and Timeline files were designed for two very different purposes.  Based on your example uses I believe you probably want to use Timelines instead of History tags.

History tags were intended to be used to document events which directly involved some number of people, with no one person Principal to the event.  These tags are designed to have sentences to output in narratives, Dates, Locations, and source citations like any other event involving a person.  These events will display in the Details of every person who is linked as a Witness to the event, regardless of whether the date of the event is within the lifespan of that person.

Timelines were intended to simply insert the names of a group of related events into a person's Details according to the dates of those events.  These events do not have Locations or Citations, only a descriptive name and date.  Their extremely useful special feature is that TMG will automatically only show a timeline event in the Details of a person if its date is within that person's lifespan.

You can collect a group of event names and dates into a file, such as a timeline file for West Virginia, which identify creation of the state and formations of all the counties.  You could then either globally turn on/off the display of that set of timeline events, or link that set of timeline events to only display for selected people.  Even then timeline events will not display unless you check the option to show timelines in Preferences // Program Options // Tag Box.

The TMG Timeline Manager (under Tools) is a bit awkward to use to create a set of events for a timeline file.  But if the number of events is small it is quite adequate since you only enter a date and event name.  As an aid there are several timeline files which users have created for various topics that can be downloaded into the project's Timelines folder.  See the list of timeline files collected by Lee Hoffman on his TMG Tips site:

http://www.tmgtips.com/timelines.htm

There also is a FREE utility built specially to make it easier to make and use timelines for your project. It is by BeeSoft who make PathWiz!  Last I looked at this utility was at Version 3, which offered a number of features to help you create and manage your TMG timeline files by enabling timelines restricted to particular TMG person numbers in 3 ways:
. individually
. via an entered list
. using the persons in a Focus Group

The program also offers a 'check' box to allow a view of the filter parameters from the ini file before proceeding with a run. Default setting is 'off''.

http://beesoft.soho.on.net/BeeSoft/Timeliner/index.html

Hope this gives you ideas,

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you, Michael, for that valuable info about beesoft. I had no idea. Also am I correct in stating that the History tag does not transfer via Gedcom or direct software to other companies (in case you ever need to leave TMG)?

Doris

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Two items I failed to note above.

In Lee's list of Timeline files I mention, there are several files whose row is marked with a green dot.  These files came with your TMG installation and were installed in a "timeline" folder where the program itself was installed.  Each timeline consists of two database files: *.DBF and *.DBT, and a Word file *.DOC which describes the timeline events in the file.

If you want to use one of these timelines, copy all three files from this program folder to your project's timeline folder.  That way you can edit the timeline events without altering the original timeline database.

Based on the comments by Morbius the timeline files already on the computer with their names beginning with VAWVCO.* will probably be of interest.  As that timeline's .DOC file says, it includes the events of the formation of Virginia and West Virginia counties and Virginia independent cities.

I said above about timeline events:
"Their extremely useful special feature is that TMG will automatically only show a timeline event in the Details of a person if its date is within that person's lifespan."

That is not completely accurate.  Some timeline events may be entered leaving the month and/or day zero.  This implies a "circa" date for the year which will mean the event will display in the person's Details plus or minus the number of years from the person's birth or death as set for the meaning of circa in Preferences // Current Project Options // Advanced

Hope this gives you further ideas,

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
36 minutes ago, dorisw said:

Thank you, Michael, for that valuable info about beesoft. I had no idea. Also am I correct in stating that the History tag does not transfer via Gedcom or direct software to other companies (in case you ever need to leave TMG)?

Doris

Glad you found the information about Timelines valuable, Doris.

Yes, you are correct about History tags and GEDCOM.  GEDCOM requires that any tag be assigned to at least one Principal, and does not understand Witnesses who are the only links to History tags.  While the TMG Enhanced GEDCOM Export option can include non-standard entries to identify Witnesses, those custom entries must be part of a tag which has at least one Principal.   Since History tags have no Principals there is no GEDCOM construct to output such tags.  They are only one of several types of TMG data which have no way of being output to GEDCOM.

Other software that uses direct import of TMG databases "could" choose to import History tags and convert them to "something" in their program.  But that is up to each such software and not guaranteed.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Your question about timelines made me look closer at them as I had not done so for several years.  I also had failed to include their description in my on-line book.  A more careful and complete description of Timelines has now been included there.  See:

https://www.mjh-nm.net/STYLE.HTML#DisplayTimelines

Hope this gives you better ideas on using Timelines.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There is always more to learn; thanks for all the comments.  I will have to go back and look at the timelines feature again.  I am not so much worried over GEDCOM files, at this point, rather in generating reports which I can use for family research papers my daughter and I have been writing.  These papers focus on family stories (e.g. the uncle who drove the casket of his deceased son from California to Missouri), and I am always looking for ways to generate reports in a way to speed that process up.  Thanks for the ideas.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You raise a good point.  If one only wants to see these special historical events on screen, then timelines will do that.  But if one wants the event to output in a report then true event tags are required, and History tags can serve that purpose.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Correct, having the information show up in a report is what I am interested in.  So far, the history tags seem to be working, but it occurred to me there might be a better way of causing that to happen.  Thanks.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×