3 replies to this topic

[genealogy]

why does it say she was (an unknown value)at registered nurse
in the Journal report. how can i prevent that UNKNOWN VALUE from printing

[Terry Reigel]

Because the words "registered nurse" are entered in a place field. It should be entered in the Memo field. This may be the result of an import from another genealogy program. Moving it will fix the problem.

[Michael Hannah]

I feel sure Terry is right but for future reference, the text "unknown" almost always comes from a tag sentence with an unconditional variable where that variable has no value. In your case, you are probably using a default Occupation tag with a sentence something like:

[P] <was|and [PO] were> [M] <[D]> <[L]>

Notice that there are no '<' '>' marks around the [M] memo variable. That makes that variable unconditional, where the date and location variables are conditional. But you probably have no text in the tag memo, so TMG will output the phrase "an unknown value" at that spot in the sentence. Terry's guess about it being entered in the Place field comes from experience of imports and the presence of the word "at" in front. That word is usually added by TMG by default at the beginning of locations.

Hope this helps to further understand what is going on,

[Terry Reigel]

To amplify, there are two issues that cause the undesired sentence. As Michael says, the fact that the [M] variable, together with an empty Memo field, produces the "unknown" part of the output. The "at" in the "at registered nurse" phrase suggests that the term "registered nurse" is entered in a place field, because the pronoun "at" is generally created by a value in a place field.