Exporting Data to Excel

[Morbius 0]

Does anyone understand the file structure that results when a TMG database is exported to Microsoft Excel? 

I have five or six old (1994-2008) databases that I had imported (from a GEDCOM file) into a program previous to TMG (Brothers Keeper 5.0), which was the data originally converted into my TMG database.  Unfortunately, Brother's Keeper would keep a list of sources (like a bibliography) associated with each person, but did not associate those sources with specific events, as TMG does.  Over the last couple of decades I have been slowly updating my TMG database to include those event-specific citations for those sources (e.g., sourcing a birth date), so that each of those original people have all events sourced.  This is fine for sources that are books, etc, but in order to link a specific database source to a specific event I have to be able to look at the original database to identify just which events were included. 

I can do that do some extent, as I still have those files in a TMG database (I first imported the original GEMCOM into a separate TMG project, which included a list of sources per individual, and then imported that TMG project into my current TMG database; there was some duplication, but not bad), on an old laptop.  But, it is a rather rare event when I have both laptops at the time I want to work on the data.

I have gotten some of that data, a bit at a time, by generating Family Group Sheets and saving those in MS Word files.  But that is pretty tedious.  It occurred to me to export the entire database, which worked.  But, instead of a single Excel file, I got several, and I don't really understand how they would be useful.  There is data, but I can't connect it to any individual person, or even make sense of it.

So maybe there is another way.  I see that I can also export to Lotus, which - if I remember right - is an old database program.  I am wondering if I could then export to Lotus, and then import that file in to MS Access, which I have.  I did generate the Lotus files, but had the same result of multiple files.  Also, I couldn't get MS Access to open any of the files.

I need to be able, in some way, to compare the data in the original database, to the data in my current TMG database, in order to source individual events; and do that in a way that requires the use of only one computer.  I have those old databases in their original GEDCOM files, and a separate TMG project.  All I have to be able to do is to identify what events were sourced by that original database.  I would appreciate all ideas and suggestions; it wouldn't surprise me to learn I am going about this the hardest way possible.  That's a tradition in my famly.

[Jim Byram 0]

If I recall, TMG exports one Excel file for each TMG data table; however, I hit an Open dialog error when I try it. Is doing that useful? Not that I can see.

[Morbius 0]

That seems to be what is happening, one Excel file per TMG data table, I have found no way to link the data for an individual person from one table to another.  So, I think exporting to MS Excel isn't the solution.  I spent a little time yesterday importing the separate GEDCOM files (there are seven) into seven separate TMG projects on an old laptap.  So, with the two laptops, I can now compare the data in the seven old databases to my existing TMG project, in order to identify which tags were imported into TMG from each of these old databases.  I guess that will have to do, for the moment.  Thanks for the help.