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Judy M.

Several "newbie" questions

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Hope you don't mind my grouping these questions together.

 

1. Is there a way to add "County of . . ." (or add "County" after the county name) in reports that now read "Gloversville, Fulton, New York, United States (where "Fulton" is the county)?

 

2. Apparently the "mar." for "married" appears in just one spouse's box in, for example, a descendent chart. What controls in which person's box it appears? I would like to be consistent.

 

3. What controls the order of marriages if a person has more than one marriage and I don't have the actual marriage dates? IOW, can I do something so that in reports the correct marriage appears first?

 

Thanks!

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Hope you don't mind my grouping these questions together.

 

1. Is there a way to add "County of . . ." (or add "County" after the county name) in reports that now read "Gloversville, Fulton, New York, United States (where "Fulton" is the county)?

 

2. Apparently the "mar." for "married" appears in just one spouse's box in, for example, a descendent chart. What controls in which person's box it appears? I would like to be consistent.

 

3. What controls the order of marriages if a person has more than one marriage and I don't have the actual marriage dates? IOW, can I do something so that in reports the correct marriage appears first?

 

Thanks!

 

You only need to separate questions if the question description is very, very complex or totally unrelated. All of your questions involve data entry.

 

1. I would enter Fulton Co. or if I were a better typist, Fulton County, in the county field.

 

2, In a Descendant Chart, the marriage date is always in the spouse's box (reason, a descendant can have multiple spouses). Ancestor Chart, the marriage date is in the father box (coin flip, mom lost).

 

3. There is a sort date for every date field. It is invisible on reports but controls the order in which events are displayed. Since it does not appear on reports, you can make up any number for sort order. Don't use the beginner's edit option. It is no simpler, anyway.

 

Best wishes,

Mike Talbot

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1. I would enter Fulton Co. or if I were a better typist, Fulton County, in the county field.

 

2, In a Descendant Chart, the marriage date is always in the spouse's box (reason, a descendant can have multiple spouses). Ancestor Chart, the marriage date is in the father box (coin flip, mom lost).

 

3. There is a sort date for every date field. It is invisible on reports but controls the order in which events are displayed. Since it does not appear on reports, you can make up any number for sort order. Don't use the beginner's edit option. It is no simpler, anyway.

 

Best wishes,

Mike Talbot

1. That was easy using "Replace." Why didn't I think of that? :huh:

 

2. Am I understanding correctly, then, that this will depend upon which spouse I enter first? Should I be consistent -- or am I going to run into inconsistencies no matter what? Perhaps part of the problem is that I chose to begin with our granddaughter and work my way back. Should I have gone in the other direction? :(

 

3. Would I use the sort date on an as-needed basis? More important, if I don't have a marriage date for either of the two marriages, do I just make one up to keep the order accurate?

 

Thanks!

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2. Am I understanding correctly, then, that this will depend upon which spouse I enter first?

No, it has nothing to do with how you enter the data. It depends on who is the descendant in the chart you create.

 

You start the chart with Person A. A's grandson is then a dependent. He may have married four times. All four wives will appear, and the marriage info appears with them, because there are four seperate marriages. If it appeared with him you couldn't tell which marriage into went with each wife.

3. Would I use the sort date on an as-needed basis? More important, if I don't have a marriage date for either of the two marriages, do I just make one up to keep the order accurate?

Actually, you are always using a sort date if you enter a date. By default, when you enter a date the same date is entered as a sort date. That's how dated tags get sorted (if you remove the sort date they will be treated as un-dated tags).

 

For undated tags, enter a sort date if you want to control where they appear. So for the marriages with no dates, enter any reasonable approximation of the date that puts them in desired sequence.

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No, it has nothing to do with how you enter the data. It depends on who is the descendant in the chart you create.

 

You start the chart with Person A. A's grandson is then a dependent. He may have married four times. All four wives will appear, and the marriage info appears with them, because there are four seperate marriages. If it appeared with him you couldn't tell which marriage into went with each wife.

 

If I've gone from the present to the past, though, everyone is an ancestor, are they not? And if there aren't multiple marriages, it will depend upon whom I enter first??

 

Did I make a big boo-boo starting with the present and working back? My database is still small and I could begin again if it will clean things up.

 

The other problem as I see it is if I have one big project incorporating both sides of every family -- or shouldn't I do that? IOW, I have my parents and my husband's parents and then all of their siblings and their "kids" with the same scenario when I reach our grandparents.

 

For undated tags, enter a sort date if you want to control where they appear. So for the marriages with no dates, enter any reasonable approximation of the date that puts them in desired sequence.

 

I have no clue as to dates for some, so I'll have to do as you suggested -- even though it makes me uncomfortable. :(

 

Thanks!

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If I've gone from the present to the past, though, everyone is an ancestor, are they not? And if there aren't multiple marriages, it will depend upon whom I enter first??

No. This has nothing to do with how you enter the data. Your question is about what shows up in a chart. When you create a descendants chart, everyone in it is a descendant of the starting person. When you create an ancestors report everyone in it is an ancestor of the starting person. Neither has anything to do with the order in which you entered your data. :)

Did I make a big boo-boo starting with the present and working back?

No. See above.

The other problem as I see it is if I have one big project incorporating both sides of every family -- or shouldn't I do that?

That's exactly what you should do. When you do reports only the people specified in report definition will appear in them.

I have no clue as to dates for some, so I'll have to do as you suggested -- even though it makes me uncomfortable. :(

You should be uncomfortable only if you really don't know the order of the events. If you know the order the sort dates serve only as a tool to properly sequence the events. The sort dates never appear in any output.

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Terry:

 

Thanks for your quick reply. I haven't done a lot of investigating into public records, for example, so perhaps at some point I will be able to find more dates.

 

Is there a way to limit what I import from a gedcom? Do you have any recommendations regarding importing into an existing project? (I'll be offline for a while, so . . . no rush!)

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Is there a way to limit what I import from a gedcom?

Not directly - you can only import the whole GEDCOM. But once it is imported you can copy just a part of it to another data set, effectively using just part of the GEDCOM.

Do you have any recommendations regarding importing into an existing project?

Yes. Don't do it. See this article for why.

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Not directly - you can only import the whole GEDCOM. But once it is imported you can copy just a part of it to another data set, effectively using just part of the GEDCOM.

 

Yes. Don't do it. See this article for why.

I guess I wasn't so far off when I began re-entering all my data. I like the idea of the side-by-side screens and entering the data according to TMG "rules."

 

Thanks for the link!

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Judy, in both descendant chart and ancestor charts you can determine what information appears in each box. In the descendant chart, by default the marriage tags are in the spouses box, but you can put the marriage tag in the focus person's box as well. In the ancestors chart the marriage tag is in the male ancestors box, but you could put it into the female ancestor's as well.

Go to the report you want to create, then go to options, then to data types. Click on focus person, and you will see what tags and in which format they are defined. There you can add the marriage tag. However, with multiple marriages, the focus person will only have one marriage date, in the one I tested it was the first marriage.

Hope this helps.

Marianne

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Marianne,

 

My main concern is consistency, and I haven't checked thoroughly to determine a pattern. I'm learning so much too fast!

 

I appreciate your input and will keep your info handy once I do some checking.

 

Thanks!

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Hi, I also questioned how to be able to print multiple marriages in order, ie. he married 1st jane brown, he married 2nd susan black etc. Some one answered with a website and I am able to say it works perfectly. The person that answered said to look at his article on Multiple marraiges and the web site is tmg.reigelridge.com. The answer is to change the sentence structure under in the marriage record and it is all explained in his website. Good luck.

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Hi, I also questioned how to be able to print multiple marriages in order, ie. he married 1st jane brown, he married 2nd susan black etc. Some one answered with a website and I am able to say it works perfectly. The person that answered said to look at his article on Multiple marraiges and the web site is tmg.reigelridge.com. The answer is to change the sentence structure under in the marriage record and it is all explained in his website. Good luck.

Great solution! I was "putting up with" the duplicate sentences. Thanks for the tip (and I should have known that Terry had an answer somewhere :) ).

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Since you guys are new to TMG, I might also point out that Lee Hoffman has a great site at www.TMGTIPS.com.

I'm going to need a filing cabinet for all these great tips! :D

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I'm going to need a filing cabinet for all these great tips! :D

Judy,

 

1. I think the various sites with TMG tips will be available for a long time, so you just need to know where to find them. Try your browser's Favorites/Bookmarks list.

 

2. If you want your own copy, put them on your computer, not in paper files, so you can search for them by key words that are in the tips themselves. Then you don't have to think up suitable terms for your filing cabinet. But don't forget to back up the tips folder along with other valuable computer data.

 

Have a happy holiday playing with your genealogy.

 

Pierce

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Actually, you are always using a sort date if you enter a date. By default, when you enter a date the same date is entered as a sort date. That's how dated tags get sorted (if you remove the sort date they will be treated as un-dated tags).

 

One caveat on dates.

 

If you enter a date that is not in one of TMG's pre-defined date formats, TMG will not be able to calculate a sort date. The date will be treated as an "irregular date" and will only be used in text type reports, such as Journal reports. It will not be used to sort tags or printed in reports that have limited space for dates, such as box charts.

 

For irregular dates, you can manually enter appropriate sort dates for sequencing the tags, but they still will not produce a printed date in some reports.

 

This is a minor complaint I have with TMG's date structure. They could, for example, have a more intelligent algorithm for recognizing a wider range of dates. However, the format for printed reports will then translate what you input into your choice of one standard format that is used throughout the report.

 

A better solution would be to have a third type of date field, corresponding to TMG's standard date format, which you could set to what you want for reports with limited space for dates, such as those box charts. But that would require a fair bit of new programming by the developers, and there does not seem to be much demand for this feature, besides me.

 

Pierce

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Favorites/Bookmarks list.

 

If you want your own copy, put them on your computer, not in paper files, so you can search for them by key words that are in the tips themselves. Then you don't have to think up suitable terms for your filing cabinet. But don't forget to back up the tips folder along with other valuable computer data.

 

Good idea -- and don't worry about backups. I'm paranoid about backing up data!

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