Wish List: Index reference by individual number

[Pierce.Reid 0]

TMG creates index entries for individuals referenced in Tag sentences. There are a variety of formats for these index entries as they are passed to a word processor for building an index for your report. If you wish, you can combine several TMG reports into a single word processor file, and produced a single index for all of those reports.

 

TMG allows you to create your own index entry within a memo. However, you must hard code the entry in the format that you want it to go to the word processor. To create an index entry, you type in something of the format: "[iNDEX:]name-of-index:level1:level2[:INDEX]". For a person, this could be: [iNDEX:]NAME:last-name:first-name[:INDEX]. This would result in an index would group all the entries with the same "last-name", sorting them by "first-name". You could also add a life-span after the name to help distinguish between individuals with the same names.

 

When entering index entries in memos, you must use a format that exactly matches the format you will request TMG to produce for individuals referenced in the sentence template. Otherwise you will end up with two entries in the index for one person: one in the format produced by TMG and the other in the format you hard code. This difference could easily occur if you change the index format you ask TMG to produce, or if some information about the individual changes between when you hard code your index entry into a memo and when you produce the report. For example, you may have updated the person's name, or if you include a lifespan, you may now have a more accurate birth or death date. To correct this would require you to find every occurrence of the person in an index entry in any memo field.

 

I propose a variation on the index entry syntax which would use the individual's number rather than hard coding the name and optional life span. The syntax could be something like "[iNDEX:]Name,#1234[:INDEX]", where "1234" is the individual number of the person being referenced. TMG would then create an index entry for your word processor in the same format it uses for individuals referenced in a tag sentence template. You would therefore always get the latest version of a person's name and life span and the format would be consistent.

 

Note that this technique would probably fail if you used it in a dataset that you later merged with another dataset, since individual numbers would probably be changed for one of the datasets. However, I generally believe you should not someone elses data unless you are creating a temporary data base just to see how that data matches yours. I always use manual data entry for adding data from someone else to my database. (An exception to that rule might be a one-name or one-place study project where you are bringing in large amount of data.)

 

Indexes are a valuable enhancement to any large hard-copy report. They can be a great aid to someone wanting to do further research on one of your families. I don't think this suggestion should be too hard to implement and it would help ensure the our indexes are as accurate and as useful as possible.

 

Reference: http://www.whollygenes.com/forums201/index.php?showtopic=363