Spouses Parents Multiple Marriages

[sis1of4ch 0]

I imported my data base from a very old program (RootsIII & RootsV). I am trying to accomplish 2 things in my TMG Custom report that I used to be able to do in Roots. One is to display the parents of a non-primary spouse, for example Jane White the d/o Jim and Nancy Green White. Roots did this automatically and it appears that TMG does not, am I doing something wrong? My other problem that Roots did automatically is I would like to see multiple marriages say for example married 1st Jane White, married 2nd June Black, married 3rd Joan Gray. Again does TMG do this automatically like Roots? If TMG does not do this automatically, it would be a wonderful feature to add, in the meantime if not automatic is there a way to accomplish these 2 tasks manually?

[Terry Reigel 0]

One is to display the parents of a non-primary spouse, for example Jane White the d/o Jim and Nancy Green White. Roots did this automatically and it appears that TMG does not, am I doing something wrong?

Actually, TMG does do this automatically with it's default settings. But, I believe your import included the Sentences from your previous program, which does not include the term to mention the parents (because your previous program used a different method to memtion the parents).

 

The fix is to repair the Sentences in the Marriage tag. Open the Master Tag Type list, find the Marriage tag, and click Edit. On the Roles and Sentences tab, change the sentence to something like the default sentence:

 

[P] married [PO]

 

The key thing here is the addition of the term.

 

If you are using roles, you need to do that for the two roles.

 

My other problem that Roots did automatically is I would like to see multiple marriages say for example married 1st Jane White, married 2nd June Black, married 3rd Joan Gray. Again does TMG do this automatically like Roots? If TMG does not do this automatically, it would be a wonderful feature to add, in the meantime if not automatic is there a way to accomplish these 2 tasks manually?

TMG doesn't do it automatically, and I doubt such a feature will be added. The basic issue is that it requires an assumption that when you have, say two marriages, that they are indeed the first and second, and not the first and third, second and third, third and fifth, etc. You, as the user, of course are free to declare they are first and second, or whatever, persumably based on some evidence you have found.

 

One method of doing so is described in my article on Multiple marriages.

[sis1of4ch 0]

Thank you Terry for your quick reply. I printed off the information and will fix my database and try my Journal report again.

[Pierce.Reid 0]

A Roots user asked:

<<My other problem that Roots did automatically is I would like to see multiple marriages say for example married 1st Jane White, married 2nd June Black, married 3rd Joan Gray. Again does TMG do this automatically like Roots? If TMG does not do this automatically, it would be a wonderful feature to add, in the meantime if not automatic is there a way to accomplish these 2 tasks manually?>>

 

Terry replied:

<<TMG doesn't do it automatically, and I doubt such a feature will be added. The basic issue is that it requires an assumption that when you have, say two marriages, that they are indeed the first and second, and not the first and third, second and third, third and fifth, etc. You, as the user, of course are free to declare they are first and second, or whatever, persumably based on some evidence you have found.

 

One method of doing so is described in my article on Multiple marriages.>>

 

Terry's method will work, but does require special coding for each case of multiple marriages.

 

If TMG indicated the marriage number automatically, we could guess at an order, using the sort dates, if we did not have a specific marriage date. For individuals where we have actual marriage dates (even if just a year), we would not have to do anything to get the marriage number. And if the user has not put in even a sort date for a marriage, suppress the marriage number, as TMG does now. (I know Bob does not like TMG guessing at missing information.)

 

Pierce

[Terry Reigel 0]

If TMG indicated the marriage number automatically, we could guess at an order, using the sort dates, if we did not have a specific marriage date. For individuals where we have actual marriage dates (even if just a year), we would not have to do anything to get the marriage number.

Pierce, how would TMG know about missing marriages, and if there was one, which one it is? That is the whole point of my comment above.

 

I'd not want TMG asserting that a marriage was the first, second, or third, unless I'd actually told it that was the case.

 

Thank you Terry for your quick reply.

You're welcome, Sis1.

[Pierce.Reid 0]

Pierce, how would TMG know about missing marriages, and if there was one, which one it is? That is the whole point of my comment above.

 

I'd not want TMG asserting that a marriage was the first, second, or third, unless I'd actually told it that was the case.

 

Terry,

If TMG finds more than one marriage, and every marriage has a sort date, then TMG knows the order and can identify the sequence in a Journal report. If one marriage is missing a sort date, then TMG obviously can not be sure the order of that marriage, and should not make assumptions. The purpose of sort dates is to tell TMG the order that information is to be reported.

Of course, even the human entering the data cannot be sure that there is a marriage for which no evidence has been found, and if the user wants TMG to be really cautious, a report option should allow marriage sequence numbers to be omitted, as it does now.

(But then, most of the information in our data bases is not absolutely 100% certain - did the mother lie when registering a birth? could there be two people with about the same age with the same unusual name? etc. I think many of us have found primary official records that had some significant error. But we still want TMG to report what we have found.)

 

Pierce

[Terry Reigel 0]

If TMG finds more than one marriage, and every marriage has a sort date, then TMG knows the order and can identify the sequence in a Journal report. If one marriage is missing a sort date, then TMG obviously can not be sure the order of that marriage, and should not make assumptions.

Yes, my point exactly, Pierce. Just because two marriages are entered, and have dates, doesn't mean TMG should assume they are in fact the first and second marriages.

Of course, even the human entering the data cannot be sure that there is a marriage for which no evidence has been found...

Which is why the human should decide whether or not to label the marriages as first, second, etc., based on the evidence available. Having a report option that applies to all multiple marriages is not a substitute for applying judgement to each person, in my view.

But we still want TMG to report what we have found.)

Yes, but not more than we have found - that's my point.