* Questions from TMG Refugee

Questions regarding use of any Version of Family Historian. Please ensure you have set your Version of Family Historian in your Profile. If your question fits in one of these subject-specific sub-forums, please ask it there.
User avatar
cjdenbow
Diamond
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Dec 2015 23:13
Family Historian: V7
Location: Athens, Ohio in the United States of America
Contact:

Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by cjdenbow »

A few months ago I made the move from TMG. This was difficult both because of missing features and because having been a TMG beta tester as far back as the DOS version I had a lot of emotional attachment to the program. After using FH for several months now, and converting from John Cardinal's Second Site to his GedSite program to maintain a website with my data, I have four major gripes with FH:

1. I really miss TMG's Person View, where all the "facts" about a person are displayed chronologically. FH's Facts list is similar, but one must scroll through the list, which I find cumbersome. I would prefer the facts list appear below the focus person in a nice tidy manner, as it does in TMG.

2. The descendant reports produced by FH are not as good, or readable, as those produced by TMG

3. I miss the list under "View" in TMG that shows you up to the last ten person's pages you've visited. You can then easily click on the desired page and go right back to it. This is user configurable in TMG. I think the default is three, but I set mine to 10, which I think is the max. I found this feature very useful.

4. I have a number of ancestors on my maternal side with accent marks on their names. In TMG I can search for the names without the accent marks and it matches those with accent marks. So, for instance, typing "Jon" will match "Jón." A plugin called "Search All Possible Names" while it adds some search functionality, won't actually do that. Adding accent marks as you type in Windows is not trivial as it is with a Mac, but that's another issue.

I'd be interested in other FH user's comments, especially if you are a fellow TMG refugee, on ways to get around these shortcomings. Perhaps there are plugins that I've missed that would help. Thanks for any suggestions. I will have to add that I'm seriously considering going back to TMG, even though it will never have another update. It does still work.
Last edited by cjdenbow on 19 May 2022 00:11, edited 1 time in total.
Carl Jón Denbow, Ph.D., Director of Communication Emeritus, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, Ohio https://www.denbowtree.org My avatar is the battle flag of the 78th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the U.S. Civil War.
User avatar
LornaCraig
Megastar
Posts: 3190
Joined: 11 Jan 2005 17:36
Family Historian: V7
Location: Oxfordshire, UK

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by LornaCraig »

I am a long-term user of FH but have never used TMG so I can’t comment on the differences between the two. However I appreciate that when you have become accustomed to particular features it can be difficult to adjust to a different way of working.

1. Whether you have to scroll through the list on the facts tab of the Property box depends on the height of your Property box and how many facts there are. Often there is no need to scroll, but I don’t find it cumbersome to have to do so. I wouldn't call it a 'shortcoming'. Presumably even in TMG if an individual has a great many facts they can’t all be seen at once?

2. Do you mean a descendants chart (in FH a chart is a saved diagram) or a descendants report? I believe there has been discussion in the past about how best to customise an FH descendants outline report to resemble one from TMG.

3. Are you aware of the left/right arrows in the toolbar at the top of the Property Box? These can be used to work back/forward through records which have been recently displayed in the Property box. Admittedly it’s not as quick as going straight to one of them.

Incidentally, have a completely different way of working which enables me to go straight to a recently visited person’s record. I always use diagram based editing in FH because I started using FH before the Focus window was introduced. I never use the Focus window, preferring to add individuals by creating them directly in a diagram (using the ‘drag and drop’ method). For me, the diagram window and the docked Property box are my principal view. When I am working on a family group I have a diagram of the group open, and simply click on a box in the diagram to switch straight to that individual. (I also use a diagram text scheme which displays key facts in the individual’s box). For me the dynamic and interactive nature of FH diagrams is vital and I don’t think I could ever feel comfortable using a program which did not have that feature.

4. I am not a plugin writer so I don’t know how difficult it would be to adjust a plugin to search for names without the accent marks and include those with accent marks in the results. If this is an important issue for you it is worth asking in the plugin forum, where someone may be willing and able to help.

By the way, you say “Adding accent marks as you type in Windows is not trivial…..” Are you aware that in FH you can enter accented characters by pressing and holding the letter key? This produces a short menu of accented versions of the letter to choose from.
Lorna
User avatar
cjdenbow
Diamond
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Dec 2015 23:13
Family Historian: V7
Location: Athens, Ohio in the United States of America
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by cjdenbow »

Lorna,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I did, indeed, mean report rather chart. I've made the correction in my original post.

Your suggestion about "diagram-based" editing sounds interesting. I'll give that a try.

No, I didn't know about holding the letter key down in FH. That's exactly what happens in the MACOS. I tried it just now, and while it works, it needs further refinement to be of optimum use to me. For instance my middle, which is Icelandic, is "Jón." Unfortunately, when I hold down the "o" key I get the choice of three types of accent marks over the "o" but not the acute accent my name requires. In the MACOS and on my iPhone I get a much broader range of choices, and it includes the "o" with the acute accent. Icelandic also has letters which are not in the English alphabet. Being able hold down the "d" key and having an option for either "ð" or "þ" would be helpful. Fortunately, these would be changes that would be easy for the FH programmers to implement, if they would so chose.

Again thanks for your help. I will be a on short trip starting tomorrow, and wouldn't have a chance to look at any further responses until Monday.

Carl
Carl Jón Denbow, Ph.D., Director of Communication Emeritus, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, Ohio https://www.denbowtree.org My avatar is the battle flag of the 78th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the U.S. Civil War.
User avatar
BillH
Megastar
Posts: 2245
Joined: 31 May 2010 03:40
Family Historian: V7
Location: Washington State, USA

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by BillH »

Carl,

When you hold down the key to allow selection of accented characters, there is a cog wheel on the right that allows you to add additional characters. You can add accent sets... including Icelandic. You can also use the character map to add other characters. I'm not sure what you need will be there, but you can give it a try.

Bill
User avatar
AdrianBruce
Megastar
Posts: 2090
Joined: 09 Aug 2003 21:02
Family Historian: V7
Location: South Cheshire
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by AdrianBruce »

Just to amplify what Bill wrote above...

There are actually two means of accessing the accented letters. The default is press and hold the letter key that is to be given the accent. An alternative is to press the insert key at the same time as pressing the letter key that is to be given the accent. You can swap between them by menu option Tools / Preferences / General and alter the item "To Enter Accents When Typing". I swapped to pressing the insert key and letter together because I often enter a line of hyphens by continually pressing the hyphen / minus key. When using the "press and hold" option that didn't give me a line of hyphens but access to the accent pop-up. Not what I wanted! Hence I swapped to the press insert and letter key together method.

This, by the way, shows the accent pop-up with the Icelandic o-acute (and other Icelandic accents) added via the cog wheel at the end:
Screenshot 2022-05-19 121418.jpg
Screenshot 2022-05-19 121418.jpg (32.36 KiB) Viewed 3328 times
The same addition also gave me access to "ð" (by pressing "d" and insert in my case) and "þ" (by pressing "t" and insert in my case). If you click the cog wheel in that scenario, you can see what's available. It's even possible to edit the pop-up accent lists by pasting in new options from the Character Map.
Adrian
avatar
Little.auk
Famous
Posts: 241
Joined: 23 Jul 2021 08:51
Family Historian: V7
Location: Tamworth, Staffordshire, UK

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by Little.auk »

Following on from Adrian's post, using the cog wheel gives the following screen -
.
Accents.jpg
Accents.jpg (43.22 KiB) Viewed 3318 times
.
If you click on Add Accent Set you will see that there is an Icelandic Set, which has all the characters you need. When you add an accent set you get the options of either merging it with the existing set or replacing it.

Using Open Character Map you can copy characters you want to add and using Edit can paste them in any position you want, or by using Ctrl X and Ctrl V you can change the order of characters, or delete them completely ----- So the accented character set is completely user customisable.

NOTE - The Cog Wheel is a standard feature in FH, it is a quick route to options for the feature you are currently using. Don't be afraid to experiment with these - if you don't like what you get, just press Restore Defaults.
Last edited by Little.auk on 20 May 2022 09:49, edited 4 times in total.
Peter Rollin
Running FH 7.0.22 and AS 7.8.6 64 bit in Windows 11
avatar
Little.auk
Famous
Posts: 241
Joined: 23 Jul 2021 08:51
Family Historian: V7
Location: Tamworth, Staffordshire, UK

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by Little.auk »

Regarding your Item 3 --- the View facility.

You could do this with a Named List but it would not be automatic, you would have to add items to the list manually, but it only takes a couple of clicks.

I have a Work in Progress List where I add records I am working on (or need to work on!)

The big advantage of Named Lists is that you can add almost anything to them ------- you can have Individuals, Families, Sources etc.... all in the same List! as per the attachment.
.
Named List.jpg
Named List.jpg (483.23 KiB) Viewed 3300 times
Peter Rollin
Running FH 7.0.22 and AS 7.8.6 64 bit in Windows 11
User avatar
LornaCraig
Megastar
Posts: 3190
Joined: 11 Jan 2005 17:36
Family Historian: V7
Location: Oxfordshire, UK

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by LornaCraig »

Unfortunately the pop-up list of accented characters is not available when entering text in the search field of a plugin. However it is still possible to enter such characters in a plugin search using the more laborious method with the keyboard.

Regarding your item 4, the “Search All Possible Names” plugin you mentioned has an option to Use Soundex for search. When this option is chosen a search for Jon also returns Jón, but of course you get all the Johns and Janes as well!
Lorna
avatar
Linda Reinfeld
Famous
Posts: 124
Joined: 04 Nov 2014 17:34
Family Historian: V7

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by Linda Reinfeld »

In reply to Carl's point nbr 1 - about the person view showing all facts -

The fact's tab shows most of the information - however one needs to click on the Notes tab to find notes about the fact - and that is where important information is displayed. It would be much easier to have all the info about the fact shown at the same time....I'm not sure why FH thinks the notes are not an integral part of a fact
User avatar
ColeValleyGirl
Megastar
Posts: 5465
Joined: 28 Dec 2005 22:02
Family Historian: V7
Location: Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

To be a little pedantic the Facts tab displays the note associated with each single fact (if there is one). The Notes tab displayed notes associated with one or more individuals but not specific to a fact.
User avatar
LornaCraig
Megastar
Posts: 3190
Joined: 11 Jan 2005 17:36
Family Historian: V7
Location: Oxfordshire, UK

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by LornaCraig »

Linda, I'm not sure why you think the fact note is not visible in the Facts tab. Perhaps you have the Property Box reduced to a small height? Here is an example from the FH Sample Project, clearly showing the note for the selected fact.

Property box Facts tab.JPG
Property box Facts tab.JPG (115.29 KiB) Viewed 3111 times

By the way you can choose not to include fact notes in the Notes tab. I find they make the Notes tab too cluttered, so I use it to display only whole record notes, family notes, shared note records and shared research notes.
Lorna
User avatar
cjdenbow
Diamond
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Dec 2015 23:13
Family Historian: V7
Location: Athens, Ohio in the United States of America
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by cjdenbow »

Thanks everyone for all of these suggestions. I'm just back from my short trip, and it'll take me a day or two to look at each suggestion and figure out how it fits into my genealogical workflow. I truly appreciate each and every response and the time it took to provide your feedback to my original query. -- Carl
Carl Jón Denbow, Ph.D., Director of Communication Emeritus, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, Ohio https://www.denbowtree.org My avatar is the battle flag of the 78th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the U.S. Civil War.
avatar
Linda Reinfeld
Famous
Posts: 124
Joined: 04 Nov 2014 17:34
Family Historian: V7

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by Linda Reinfeld »

Lorna - My facts tab looks quite different than yours:
Capture.JPG
Capture.JPG (67.69 KiB) Viewed 3087 times
As you can see the first occupationWork shows the note. However the Military, the next occupatioinWork and the CauseDeathMemo do not show. You can click on a fact to see the note, but I can't see them all. I must go to the notes tab
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28341
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by tatewise »

Linda, it only looks different because your columns/panes are customized to be much wider.
The Age & More columns are way off to the right.
Not sure why the Add Spouse/Partner link is bleeding through? That looks like a graphics display problem.

Although on the Notes tab any short Note text is visible for all Facts, if the text is of significant length you must still click on each Note to see it in full.

With some simple customization, the Note text can be included for every Fact on the Facts tab too.
Use the Tools > Facts Types... command, select each Fact in turn and click the Edit... button.
In the Fact Definition dialogue, click the Advanced... button at the bottom.
In the Advanced Features dialogue, tick Summary Template and enter a Template such as:
{label} {place} {note}

If the Fact {label} is unsuitable then substitute a specific word such as Born.

To include the Address as well then use the {address} code.

However, with long Place, Address, and Note text it may not all display on one line.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
avatar
Linda Reinfeld
Famous
Posts: 124
Joined: 04 Nov 2014 17:34
Family Historian: V7

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by Linda Reinfeld »

Mike -

I didn't know about customizing the facts tab. Thank you for the instructions. That is just what I needed.
The width of the columns didn't matter, it was the data in the columns.

I will start a new thread about the screen format - I do have problems.

Thanks - Linda
avatar
Jim Byram
Platinum
Posts: 30
Joined: 13 Jul 2015 18:09
Family Historian: V7

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by Jim Byram »

Property Box (individual) / Facts tab / facts list

Is there a way to make each fact in the Facts tab list display using two rows rather than one?

That's why showing the note for each tag worked in TMG. You could control how many rows each tag in the list used. I had it set to two rows so more of a note would show.

I don't see any value in adding the note to the FH fact display with the space available in a single row.

(Of course, I could modify the layout to make the Property Box wider but my program window is already 1440x840 with the Property Box docked and that's enough. Two rows for each fact would be a better solution.)
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28341
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by tatewise »

No Jim, it is not currently possible to specify two rows per fact on the Facts tab.
If that was possible then only half the number of facts could be seen at the same time.

I suspect Linda usually only has short Note text and perhaps omits the Place name.

We all have different screen sizes and different preferences. FH tries to cater for most of them.

You can add your suggestion to the New Wish List Requests forum and see if it attracts interest.
If so, then it can get added to the Wish List for potential future implementation.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
avatar
elevator
Platinum
Posts: 31
Joined: 07 Dec 2020 20:24
Family Historian: V7
Location: USA

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by elevator »

Carl,
I am a TMG refugee as well, and I have been using FH for well over a year now. Before that I used TMG for over a decade, and I have to say that of the countless programs I've tried FH has by far been the best, at least for me. Data integrity was perhaps the most important to me and the import of the TMG data into FH was almost flawless which was a big selling point for me.

Regarding your points:
1. Totally agree, the "facts" list in the person view in TMG was definitely superior. Some of the other features I miss from this list is being able to cite certain parts of a fact independently (like date, place, notes) and see this and the corresponding surety value in the list of facts, and also the ability to display in the list of fact whether or not a fact had a source citation attached to it. It made it so much easier to at a glance see if you had any data missing citations. One part of the fact list where FH is far superior though is the ability to directly click to access images linked to cited sources. This was impossible in TMG requiring the user to open the citation, open the source, and then access the image.

3. Agree on this point also. The ability to quickly switch between a number of recently worked on individuals would be very useful.

4. This is one area where I feel FH is far superior. I have some Polish ancestors and TMG not supporting unicode character sets made these names impossible to input in TMG, but trivial in FH.

Anyway, based on my own (limited) experience, I can only offer a heartfelt recommendation of FH.

Good luck!

Ken.
User avatar
cjdenbow
Diamond
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Dec 2015 23:13
Family Historian: V7
Location: Athens, Ohio in the United States of America
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by cjdenbow »

Ken:

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Interesting that your Polish names were not supported in TMG and my Icelandic names were. Polish being a more common language I'd think it would been fully supported. I remember early in the TMG setup process there was an option to select various character sets. That was so long ago that I don't remember the details, but perhaps I selected some extended character set or language specific character set and you did not. At least that's one possible explanation.

Right now I'm struggling with an import issue The only real big one that I've encountered. Somehow my place names have gotten all "screwed up" to use a technical term. Specifically, this has mainly to do with leading commas, and the number of them. I need to rearrange them, but I think I'm confused about the way FH wants places organized compared to TMG. I've attached a portion of my Place list. I guess what I need to know is what goes in each column. In TMG, the first column was for detail like "St. Johns Hospital," or "Church of the Good Shepherd," etc. The next column was City, followed by County, followed by State, and then Country. The FH place columns do no seem to correspond to this syntax. Can someone explain to me what FH expects in each column?

I'm not sure why the import messed some of these up. I originally started with TMG back in the DOS days so perhaps I had some old remnants that were in a different format that TMG Windows could deal with but where never properly converted. Whatever, I clearly have some cleaning up to do, and need some guidance about what goes in what column.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks.

Carl
Screen Shot 2022-06-04 at 3.15.54 PM.png
Screen Shot 2022-06-04 at 3.15.54 PM.png (105.11 KiB) Viewed 2712 times
Carl Jón Denbow, Ph.D., Director of Communication Emeritus, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, Ohio https://www.denbowtree.org My avatar is the battle flag of the 78th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the U.S. Civil War.
User avatar
AdrianBruce
Megastar
Posts: 2090
Joined: 09 Aug 2003 21:02
Family Historian: V7
Location: South Cheshire
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by AdrianBruce »

cjdenbow wrote: 04 Jun 2022 19:37... I think I'm confused about the way FH wants places organized compared to TMG. I've attached a portion of my Place list. I guess what I need to know is what goes in each column. ...
It's actually very much up to you - FH doesn't want any particular arrangement. This may be an unhelpful statement if you're looking for precise instructions, of course. But for places in the British Isles, I tend to have
  • Settlement (col. 1);
  • County (col. 2);
  • Country (col. 3)
Whereas places in the USA I encode as
  • Settlement (col. 1);
  • County (col. 2);
  • State (col. 3);
  • Country (col. 4)
You will notice that the value of "Country" varies between columns 3 and 4. There are plenty of people who dislike that and insert blank "comma space" elements to pad out the British places to
  • Settlement (col. 1);
  • County (col. 2);
  • (blank) (col. 3);
  • Country (col. 4)
FH really doesn't care - it's up to you to decide if that consistency is useful.

The one bit that it makes sense to follow is that detail like "St. Johns Hospital" or "Church of the Good Shepherd" should go into the Address, not the Place, unless you intend to geocode "St. Johns Hospital" or "Church of the Good Shepherd".

I presume that the screenshot is from the Place List and that it's currently set to show 3 columns. You can alter the number of visible columns via the "Columns..." button. If you alter it to 5 columns, the entry for "Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada" will put the 3 elements into their own columns.

There are ways and means of manipulating what bits go where but you may guess correctly that I don't use them, so I'll let others comment.
Adrian
User avatar
cjdenbow
Diamond
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Dec 2015 23:13
Family Historian: V7
Location: Athens, Ohio in the United States of America
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by cjdenbow »

Adrian,

This is very helpful. Thanks for your reply. I did not realize that you could add additional columns. That'll make this whole arrangement process much easier. And, thanks for mentioning Address. In TMG that was part of the Place list. I hadn't fully comprehended that in FH it's a separate entity.

Let me get to work and see what I can do with the new knowledge that you've given me.

Really appreciate your help!

Carl
Carl Jón Denbow, Ph.D., Director of Communication Emeritus, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, Ohio https://www.denbowtree.org My avatar is the battle flag of the 78th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the U.S. Civil War.
User avatar
ColeValleyGirl
Megastar
Posts: 5465
Joined: 28 Dec 2005 22:02
Family Historian: V7
Location: Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

You may find Working with Places and Addresses helpful.
User avatar
cjdenbow
Diamond
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Dec 2015 23:13
Family Historian: V7
Location: Athens, Ohio in the United States of America
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by cjdenbow »

Thanks, Helen, that was useful. I appreciate you posting the link. -- Carl
Carl Jón Denbow, Ph.D., Director of Communication Emeritus, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, Ohio https://www.denbowtree.org My avatar is the battle flag of the 78th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the U.S. Civil War.
User avatar
cjdenbow
Diamond
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Dec 2015 23:13
Family Historian: V7
Location: Athens, Ohio in the United States of America
Contact:

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by cjdenbow »

I just spent several hours rearranging my columns in my Places list. I've now got almost everything in order, except that I have some stuff that I think should be in Addresses rather than Places. I know how to do this manually, but it'll take a lot more time. I'm wondering if there might be a way to do this in some sort of batch operation. I've looked at a few plugins, but I don't see one that would help here. I will add below the two parts of the Places list in question.

For the record, I ordered my columns like this:
Settlement
Township (particularly important in the State of Ohio, where my paternal line is centered)
County
State
Country

For the UK, I use the State column for the country (England, Scotland, Wales, etc.) and the Country column for "UK." For other European countries, the State column is used for whatever larger geographic divisions they use. It seems to work!

OK, here are my problematic Places that need, I think, to be converted to Addresses, in FH (They worked as Places in TMG):
0002.jpg
0002.jpg (98.41 KiB) Viewed 2531 times
0001.jpg
0001.jpg (89 KiB) Viewed 2531 times
Carl Jón Denbow, Ph.D., Director of Communication Emeritus, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, Ohio https://www.denbowtree.org My avatar is the battle flag of the 78th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the U.S. Civil War.
avatar
Linda Reinfeld
Famous
Posts: 124
Joined: 04 Nov 2014 17:34
Family Historian: V7

Re: Questions from TMG Refugee

Post by Linda Reinfeld »

Carl -

I think the problematic places came from the import of TMG. I have the same problem.

FH regards locations in source documents as locations, i.e. if a source element comes from the location group FH treats it just like a place in a tag. It's rather annoying - I have decided just to ignore these. That is where I have a lot of urls.

Another problem is in the source location fields - when I convert I use commas to identify missing places (like county) so as to keep the place locations in their proper location. When FH converts place data from sources or repositories it does not observe the comma rule. So my place locations from those problems are not correct in FH.

Also, I am keeping what FH thinks is addresses in the place data. I don't see any advantage in having places and addresses as two seperate identies. And FH will allow you to do that.

Some of your place data does need cleaning - you have 'deceased' and 'coal miner'.

Linda
Post Reply