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Archiver > TMG > 2004-10 > 1096828225


From: Darrell Martin <>
Subject: "Systems" in general (was: Betty's census ...)
Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 13:30:25 -0500
References: <100320040154.5236.415F5BF2000411050000147421603759649B9D0A9F9F9A9DD209@att.net><000201c4a952$3f817e40$6802a8c0@Cheasa>
In-Reply-To: <000201c4a952$3f817e40$6802a8c0@Cheasa>


At 09:06 AM 10/3/04, Teresa Ghee Elliott wrote:
>Gary,
> I agree with you totally. I used a very simple method for years when I
>used UFT. I only decided to get more complicated when I finally moved to
>TMG since I was almost done with census work and was ready for it to finally
>be output in a way that I didn't have to tweak it each time I wanted to do a
>report (which is very time consuming as well) The beauty is that it was
>fairly easy to implement once I was ready.
> Betty's system, or mine, or anyone elses is a little time consuming to set
>up, but once set up, takes no more time to use than any other system. The
>best part about having the information online, is now the next person
>doesn't have to think out the processes. They can merely pick and choose
>which parts work for them. And that is another beauty of TMG. I don't use
>just the census roll for my source, but rather the head of household. Yet I
>do use most everything else in Betty's system. You can tweak each system to
>fit your needs when the time is right.
>
>Teresa Ghee Elliott

Hi, Teresa:

I am quite comfortable with *most* of what you said. However, it is *not* true that, "Betty's system, or mine, or anyone else's ... once set up, takes no more time to use than any other system." Betty's system, for example, requires the creation of one additional census name Tag for each person in each census household. This is not an argument for not using the system, though. The question in that regard would be whether what Betty gets by using her system is important enough to compensate for the extra effort. Obviously, for her, the answer is, "Yes."

The central point of what Gary wrote, however, is important for *all* of us to recognize. That is, that NO "system" is really necessary to use TMG. The majority of the benefit to be had from using the program can be realized by:

1. Using the Tag Types supplied with the program.

2. Generating output using the default sentences for each Tag Type.

3. Putting appropriate values in each field of the specific Tags.

4. Adding commentary as desired in the sentence Memo fields.

5. Attaching involved persons to Tags, in either Principal Witness positions or Other Witness positions.

An additional benefit may be had by using Roles; but, as big an advocate of Roles as I am, I still recognize that their use is not at all necessary.

I think a disproportionate number of us on this list (compared to the TMG user community as a whole) have been through significant transitions involving our genealogical information. These may be moving large amounts of data to TMG from a different program, or processing major version upgrades of TMG itself, or deciding to make major changes in how we handle certain kinds of events or records. We may need to be reminded from time to time that it is possible to just buy the program and *use* it....

Darrell


Darrell A. Martin
a native Vermonter currently in exile in Illinois
http://www.darrell-martin.net/genealogy


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