TMG-L Archives
Archiver > TMG > 2003-06 > 1054719459
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Subject: [TMG] Copying Master Lists and Export of Focus Group Data
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 05:37:39 EDT
I am extremely grateful Terry once again for your very clear answers to my
questions about TMG.
Since we seem to agree on so many points, I need to clarify that when I said
"we need to be warned" about the effects of merging, I did not mean on screen.
I meant that the handbook should include clear instructions for the procedure
of moving settings and should include this danger warning.
You are kind to offer help with any further problems. Most are not problems
with the programme. Most of the points we are discussing arise from the fact
that my genealogical practice does not comply with the usage intended by the
programme designer. I would like to write to you further about this.
But I do have one immediate problem with the export of a gedcom of a focus
group. And will no doubt stumble across others as I use the programme.
Is it a characteristic of TMG that the first time a procedure is carried out
it may not work? But thereafter it is initiated so it does work?
One of the blessings of TMG is that one can select a focus group, not limited
to ancestors or descendants of a particular person. I selected a focus group —
one family I am researching. I clicked the spouse button. I then exported a
gedcom of that focus group choosing to exclude details on living people. I
now discover after repeated experiments that data, particularly on the wives did
not come through.
One of the stumbling blocks for a newcomer is that one needs to be sure that
what one is sending out includes the data one thinks it does. With TMG I am
repeatedly uncertain about missing data, and the diagnosis is complex because
there could be many possible causes. In this case there are at least two
possibilities.
The data could be omitted because TMG regards people as still living. I have
reset the assume living button to 100 years. But have people born before 1900
still flagged as LIVING ?
Harris G. born 1871 or 1872 is still marked with a ? and his name is exported
but no data comes through and his wife does not show at all.
Many birth dates based on age given in UK censuses, marriage and birth
certificates must be entered as spanning two possible birth years. This is used for
people born prior to 1837 or born outside UK. Does TMG disregard these birth
years when calculating who is living?
My husband noted that the age at event column on the individual screen was
left blank so long as the birth year was shown in this style. I had to falsify a
definite birth year to get it to work, and this is exactly what TMG is
supposed to avoid.
But my GEDCOM data could be lacking because the wives are not properly
included in the focus list, even though their names show there. Does one need to
select them individually? I imagined that clicking the spouses button would add
all spouses to the people in the focus group.
I hope you can shed some light on this. But there is no hurry.
Evelyn Wilcock (London)
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