Family Historian User Group

I wonder whether it would be possible for Mike or a former TMG user to create a simple checklist of actions to be taken after a direct import to fh from TMG?
I am in my late 70s. And have never had a wonderful memory.
Two days ago I needed to consult one of my most important projects, still in TMG and one which has always had behaviour problems that TMG tech were unable to resolve. When it began to play up, I decided to bring it into FH before it failed entirely.
I did so even tho I had resolved not to bring in any more projects until Calico Pie import sort dates and even tho this project includes many undated Events.
The problem is that there is a vast amount of info and knowledge base and posts on importing from TMG. I have a concise word document with instructions before and after import but that has now been superseded by better advice from Mike.

I need to rewrite and update it.

1. Mike's advice was to do everything after import. So for the first time I did not use TMG Utilities to change Events before import. UK dated census events were left as they were. I brought in the TMG project pristine.
2. Now I know to use the fh plug in to change the even types.
3. But I cant remember what to do about the undated Events? The reason I have so many for my direct ancestors is that a newspaper article (dated) might describe all the things my ancestor did while holding a particular job - e.g. medical officer of health or Master of a College, but not give individual dates.
4. After opening the project in fh, I did use ancestral sources to enter a couple of censuses for a new family. But I can no longer remember what it is that using AS does to event order.
5 Yes, I am gong to want to export the project to Gedsite eventually as my genealogy website needs this tree.

My only additions made to this Project in fh were to one particular family - friends of my relatives and god parents -so it would be no problem to export that group from fh and do a new clean import from TMG starting from scratch.

Unfortunately, there is no simple checklist that fits all scenarios.
It depends on which TMG features were used, and which FH features are desired.
The general checklist is in how_to:import_from_tmg|> Import from The Master Genealogist (TMG) under Correcting Problems and Quick Fix Plugins.

For example, not every TMG user will be concerned about Sort Dates and their impact for GedSite.
However, the rule is that you must ensure the facts as shown on the All tab are in the desired order.
That will involve a combination of the automatic sorting commands and manual use of up/down arrows on the All tab.
See how_to:sorting_children#methods_for_reordering|> Methods for Reordering that describes the automatic commands.

Your points 1. & 2. suggest you know how to use Change Any Fact Tag to convert custom event tags.

I cannot remember whether you prefer to retain Census (family) Events and Census Fact Witnesses or convert them using Give Witnesses Their Own Facts but that is covered in Quick Fix Plugins mentioned above.

if the conclusion is that one must hand edit all the undated events - then that really is the end of the road for me with fh.
Calico Pie have given no indication of providing for this. Nor brought out a new version this Christmas.

I think that giving witnesses their own events lost me their roles? Whereas fh does preserve household roles for the census but it is things like this that I cant remember.

Did we ever discover if TMG includes its Sort Dates in an exported GEDCOM file?
If it does, then a Plugin could probably migrate them into the FH Project &/or use them to auto-sort Facts.

These days I do not rely on memory for technical details, but write copious checklists on the PC so they can be easily corrected as I discover more.

The Give Witnesses Their Own Facts Plugin does not differentiate between Census Events & Witnesses and any other Facts & Witnesses. So if it retains Roles for Census then it retains them for everything. It retains the Role in the local Note for each Fact.

We know TMG sort dates go into Roots Magic. I will export a Gedcom and have a look.

But I am not even sure that there are sort dates. It could well be that much of the info on this particular tree (and all my main ancestral trees) originated in early Dos software - Pedigree - I think it was or my next software, Generations.

I have just opened and read my Word document import guide which is full of good advice from you Mike. Plus notes on the plug ins you have already written.
I have other things on my mind just now and hoped there might be an easy way through.

Sadly the answer seems to be that TMG does not export sort dates in its Gedcom.
The example I used had a definite date for when the man was at the University of Edinburgh followed by another Educ event at London University with only a sort date.
I noticed to my surprise that in TMG there are sort dates there for all the events I assumed were undated.
So this looks like a TMG problem.

Maybe I need to ask about this on the TMG Forums? Like where have those sort dates gone?

I own RM so will import from TMG using a gedcom. The answer is that there is no sort date. I am no expert on this but I assume RM must import TMP sort dates only on a direct import. Which is what one is advised to do.

Anyway it seems that this is not a fh problem - and for this particular "faulty" Project of mine it may be compounded because, if I try a direct import to RM, I have an error message of Access violation and I dont know what that means.
This particular project database has never been right - it floundered if one added too many new records - and I should count myself lucky to have the Project in fh.

I would concur with Mike's original comment that there is no single checklist.

One point I would (respectfully) disagree on though is #1 in your first post - that all changes should be made after the import to FH. I spent over three months importing / changing data in TMG / re-importing, etc., until I got my TMG data to a point that it would mostly give me the data that I wanted in FH - in particular, the output for (Narrative style) reports and my website. During this time I built up a series of pre and post import changes that I needed to make and wrote copious notes - this included a few changes done on the Gedcom file itself after direct import to FH from TMG (I used the direct import rather than a TMG export to Gedcom / FH import from Gedcom approach). So even after the import to FH, I still had a series of logged changes that I needed to make (either via plugins or keyboard).

It was a long / slow process and I did at one time wonder if it was all worth it, but with Mike's answers to my (sometimes stupid!) questions, I did get to a stage where I now feel the only TMG feature that I really miss is, like you, the Sort Date feature. I have made a lot of use of "circa" and "between" dates to overcome this, but accept this is not ideal.

I too agree with Brent "do as much tidying up in TMG as possible beforehand", TMGutility is very good for this.

see also
Migrating from TMG - taking the plunge (13109)
Tmg to FH missing sources (11433)

I think it is important to be specific - to say exactly what we are altering and to examine the results of doing it before and after.
Each of us will have used TMG in a different way. So our tidying up may involve different things.

I can only say what I have done and also regretted doing. I have carried out Project maintenance in TMG before opening any Project in fh.

My first tidying involved changing Custom Tags - as a UK researcher with the UK edition of TMG my UK censuses were in dated UK Census tags.
My notes show that moving these Tags to the standard undated Census Tag using the TMG utility loses witnesses. (Probably because UK customers are unlikely to have set up their witness roles in the standard census Tag). Whereas waiting till after import and using Mike's Utility does not.

Once one had a project in fh one has a wider choice of what to do with witnesses and with witness roles. Mike's utilities facilitate these choice. But it isnt compulsory to make changes. After fragmenting my TMG census entries and giving everyone their own entry on the first Projects I imported, laziness got the better of me. fh provides for witnesses to weddings and baptisms and as I entered more of these, I realised that fh could conserve most of my census witness system from TMG.

Leaving alterations till after import gives one the option of making very few changes at all.

And where careless data entry in TMG or my previous programs had unwanted results, Mike has written a corrective plug in - for instance to move the Where in source data to the correct fh field.

The before or after problem is a chicken and egg situation. It was easier for me as a TMG Second Site user to make changes using John Cardinal's Uitlity because I know that software, It is harder for a new user of fh to understand plug ins and how to make the choices they offer - but the Plug Ins are specific to fh and the technical support is right here.

E - yes agreed, and it concurs with Brent. I think the point is by 'tidying' before move it can reduce unnecessary problems later, but as you imply (and it's the same with any new software), a lot of experimentation up front can save a lot of work later.