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Alan Mead

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I'm getting to grips with TMG and am really happy with the reports being generated - individual narrative, end notes, bibliography are all great. So I've got used to sentence construction and entering everything in the right place.

However, having used other family history programs in the past, I just feel a little uncomfortable that I'm not entering actual text from the source anywhere.

If the text forms part of the story - like an extract from an apprenticeship indenture that I want to show up in the individual narrative - then I include it in the memo. But what about data that I want to record but don't want to show in the narrative. For example on a birth certificate - registration district, occupation of father, informant, when registered. Or on a census return - details of others in the same household.

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I'm getting to grips with TMG and am really happy with the reports being generated - individual narrative, end notes, bibliography are all great. So I've got used to sentence construction and entering everything in the right place.

However, having used other family history programs in the past, I just feel a little uncomfortable that I'm not entering actual text from the source anywhere.

If the text forms part of the story - like an extract from an apprenticeship indenture that I want to show up in the individual narrative - then I include it in the memo. But what about data that I want to record but don't want to show in the narrative. For example on a birth certificate - registration district, occupation of father, informant, when registered. Or on a census return - details of others in the same household.

 

You could use memo 1, memo 2, etc. M1, M2. Then pick which part of the memo to use in the sentance. ie M1 is text that you will use in a sentence, and M2 is other info that you want to record but not print. Of course you will need to adjust the sentence structure to accomodate.

Edited by Shaundm

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For some general ideas on TMG suggest you visit Terry Reigel's TMG Tips at:

 

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

 

Three pages are on census entry:

 

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

 

http://tmg.reigelridge.com/Census-Tag-Expanded.htm

 

http://tmg.reigelridge.com/Census-Tag-Basic.htm

 

Most of the census schemes use roles for other people in the household and work very well.

 

On my birth certificate tag I have a role for "informant" and enter the person IF he is currently in my database, same for death certificates. In most cases but not all the informant will be a relative but sometimes it is a neighbor or doctor. Then you have to decide if you want the person in your db. You can use a conditional sentance llike <[M1]><[R:informant]> then the info will print if either info is in M1 or R:informant. I like the role best as the role sentance would read something like: John was the informant listed on May's death certificate issued on July 11, 1949. (This would show up on the informant's narrative)

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I'm getting to grips with TMG and am really happy with the reports being generated - individual narrative, end notes, bibliography are all great. So I've got used to sentence construction and entering everything in the right place.

Welcome to TMG. Sounds like it's a great fit for your needs. :)

However, having used other family history programs in the past, I just feel a little uncomfortable that I'm not entering actual text from the source anywhere.

If the text forms part of the story - like an extract from an apprenticeship indenture that I want to show up in the individual narrative - then I include it in the memo. But what about data that I want to record but don't want to show in the narrative. For example on a birth certificate - registration district, occupation of father, informant, when registered. Or on a census return - details of others in the same household.

Other than interesting extracts that you want to quote as you describe in Memos, whether to enter the text of the source is a matter of personal style. I prefer to simply cite the source in the various tags it supports, recording the conclusions in the tag but not transcribing the text of the source itself. But when the source does not directly support the information entered, I make a note in the CD of the citation explaining the difference. For example, if a record shows an age, and I enter a year, I put in the CD "shows age 12" or whatever. Likewise, if one source shows a partial date or place, or a name variation, I enter in the CDs of all of them what each said. For example, "shows town," "shows county and state," "shows name as Harry" or whatever. Rarely I record brief segments of the source text when it's particularly interesting.

 

Others perfer to copy the source text, or summarize the whole contents, for example of a Census. The difficulty for me is where to put that when a source is cited for several tags, and the content applies to several of them.

 

You could enter it in an unused Memo segment for one of the tags, as suggested. You could also enter it in the Citation Memo field of the Citation screen of one or more tags - in fact, that's what it was designed for. By default, that field does not print in the source notes, but it will if you add the [CM] source element to the output templates.

 

You could enter it in the Comments field of the Source Definition, but that only works if your sources are defined very specifically - for example, one census source per household. That field may print in notes or not, depending on your output templates.

 

Others use exhibits, either text transcriptions or images, which have particular appeal if you intend to output the data to a website via Second Site.

 

Hope this gives you some ideas to consider.

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....Others use exhibits, either text transcriptions or images, which have particular appeal if you intend to output the data to a website via Second Site.

 

This is what I do, not having a strong interest in publishing the source detail on paper. For my examples see http://www.rgcle.com/SS/s1.htm and scan down to look at the various text-exhibit icons.

 

Dick

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Alan,

 

Welcome to TMG. In my experience one of the greatest aspects TMG is its great flexibilty and multiple ways to customize it to do similar things. You don't have to get "clever" and use its many advanced features, but they might come in handy sometimes. As you are just beginning, much of the following may be more than you want to tackle right now, but you may be interested in having an idea of how TMG can be used in more unusual ways.

 

My preference is to include transcriptions of portions of the source directly within TMG as exhibits. There is currently no way in TMG to print internal (or external) text exhibits attached to sources, but exhibits attached to tags can print. Alternatives to link a transcription to a source that is entered as an exhibit (especially as an external exhibit) are a) as an embedded citation to that source in the caption field, B) as a custom tag (e.g. “Exhibit”) with a citation to the source, or c) as a exhibit on a tag linked to a pseudo Source person. To print exhibits, the report output must be to a file or printer, and must specify under the Exhibits Tab to print “images”. My sentences for tags that expect attached exhibits assume that the printing options for narratives that want to print these exhibits will be set to Embedded, and will Include internal and Include events.

 

I choose to create Source pseudo “people” as I use them for tracking, transcriptions, and recording other information about the source. Not all sources in my Master Source List will also have a corresponding Source pseudo "person". I use my Source abbreviation as the Given name, and the Repository abbreviation as the Surname. I use a custom Created tag I defined in the “Birth” group with Role “Source” to record the publication date and location, and cite the source to this one tag with CD “source pseudo person (ID#) created” for clear linkage on any List of Citations. Then one or more custom Transcript tags I defined in the "Other" group are linked to this Source Person with the Role “Extract” to attach transcriptions as an exhibit. The advantage of a separate custom tag is that I can choose whether it is included in various reports.

 

Normally P1 is my source pseudo person for the custom Transcript tag and is assigned the role “Extract”, and all other people associated with this portion of the source are linked as witnesses using the role “mentioned”. I extensively use split memos in my sentences. M1 duplicates the CD from the source citation, M2 is the topic covered by the extract or the nature of the transcription (e.g. details of the wedding ceremony), and M3 is the transcriber. WM1 is how this one person is mentioned, WM2 is the quote or a paraphrase about this person in the extract, and WM3 is a comment unique to this witness. This method allows multiple Transcript tags linked to a single source person, each focusing on a particular topic or portion of the source with its set of people as witnesses, and the citation detail of each tag referencing the specific location of this portion of the source for this transcription. My sentences for this custom tag are:

 

For a Principal assigned the role Extract:

[:CR:][:CR:][bOLD:]Extract[:BOLD] transcribed

 

For a Witness assigned the role mentioned:

[W] is mentioned in an extract of ([P1G]).

 

Thanks to the flexibility of roles, I also use this custom tag without the Source pseudo person if the transcription only referred to one Principal, and the data that would have been put in the Witness memo is put in the main memo with the sentence:

[P] is mentioned in an extract of M1.

 

Hope this give you ideas,

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Another newbie here and trying to figure out where things go. I am watching the DVDs which are a super help. I am ready to watch Advanced.

 

My problem is in using Generations I tened to make my notes a narrative, thus the Individual Notes are in some cases quite long. Where does one normally put all these narrative style notes?

 

Really happy with the program so far!!!

Sherry :)

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Sherry, in my view, the answer depends on several factors, including what's in the notes, what kind of output you favor, and how you want the information to appear, if at all, in output.

 

For example, I strongly favor narrative style reports and web output. So in my data entry, I think about how I want particular information to appear in narratives. If it's information about the person's life, I want it in tags. Generally, I break it into individual tags so only one subject at most is covered in a tag. I look for standard tag types if available for the type of information, like occupation, for example. Otherwise I use something general like Note. I move any source information to proper citations.

 

If the information is pure source information, I move it to citations for the appropriate tags. If it's more like research notes, like theories on conflicting or unconfirmed informaton, I use my ResearchNote tag to record it. That way I can have it print, or not, in any given report.

 

For more details, see my articles on Importing, Custom Tags, and Flowing Narratives, among others, on my website (link below).

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