TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2003-01 > 1041453098


From: Lee Hoffman <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] General tags or VERY specific tags?
Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2003 15:31:38 -0500
References: <148.672ca58.2b437d4f@cs.com>
In-Reply-To: <001301c2b1bd$522cfad0$6eb52244@khnlic0umhcfd>


Linda Gaylord-Kuhn wrote:
>What I do now, when contemplating creation of a new tag, is try to
>evaluate it based on (a) how often will I use it, (b) how often might I
>want to come back to the info it will hold/will I need to readily "see"
>that it's there, (c) will I ever want to run a search for all
>individuals with that tag and (d) how likely is it to cause a mess or
>misunderstanding in a GEDCOM file. Regarding point (d), if the
>importing program is going to throw out anything it doesn't understand
>or have a place for, will the loss be critical? If the answer to that
>is yes, then I'm better off putting it in a generic Anecdote tag ... I
>use that tag extensively, BTW.

Good points. One point should be made, that it is strongly recommended
that data not be entered directly in the Tag Sentence regardless of how
often the tag is used. The reason is that no other program uses the
Sentence feature (at least not exactly like TMG) and more importantly, the
Sentences are not exportable to other programs. Now, have I followed this
rule in all cases? No, I do have a couple of tags that include data. I
just was in a hurry or wanted it there for some reason. I will probably go
back someday and correct the situation, but I am not concerned in that it
is redundant in that the information is in the Tag somewhere. In other
words, only use the Sentence Variables and certain other codes in the
Sentences. You can (and should) use some regular text in the Sentences,
but these should be limited to the Tag purpose (i.e., was born, married,
resided, etc.) and other words necessary to may be sentence grammatically
correct. For example, you may want the narrative to read "By 1880, he
resided ..." and the word "By" could be prepended to the Sentence without
any loss of data should transfer of data be required.

As for point (d), I do not know of any of my custom tags that do not
transfer via GEDCOM. When I create a custom Tag, I include in that
definition (on the Other tab) whether TMG should use the GEDCOM Label (that
I enter) or if the that should be exported using the GEDCOM EVEN tag
structure. In most cases, I use the latter. Still there is no problem
with using the Anecdote tag to enter data that you are not sure will export
via GEDCOM.


Lee Hoffman/KY
TMG Tips: <http://www.tmgtips.com>;
My website: <http://www.tmgtips.com/lhoffman>;
A user of the best genealogy program, The Master Genealogist (TMG)

This thread: