Terry's TMG Tips

Data Entry - a Tutorial

This page updated 12 Dec 2011

Version note: Applies to TMG 8 & 9

TMG is highly flexible, offering the user extensive control over almost every aspect of data recording, display, and output in reports, charts, and websites. But with that flexibility comes a variety of screens and data fields that sometimes leaves new users a bit bewildered. This tutorial is designed to help new users feel more comfortable with the basic tasks of entering and editing data.

For purposes of this tutorial, I assume that the reader has either imported data from another genealogy program, or has used the new project wizard to enter basic data about a few people, and is now ready to edit that data or add new information.

This article has three main parts, with several topics in each:

Along the way I'll offer a number of suggestions and tips that may be useful in entering data into TMG. But before we start, we need to understand the basic data block in TMG - a "Tag."

All Data is Entered in Tags

A very basic concept used in TMG is that virtually all information about each person is entered in "Tags." Tags define the person's name(s), relationships (parents and children), as well as all events, including birth, marriage, death, and any other events or facts we choose to record. For a further discussion of this concept, see my article on TMG Basics.

The Tags for a person are listed in the Person View of the Details screen:

Three special Tags appear in the upper section:

• Primary Name Tag – the primary Name Tag for the person. This tag records the primary, or main, name of this person.
• Parents – the person's mother and father. These Parent/Child Relationship Tags create the links between this person and his or her parents. (Actually, we should note that these are the Primary Parents – a child can actually have non-primary parents as well, which would appear in the main area below.)

In the "tag box," or main area, of the Details screen we see all the other Tags recorded for this person, including:

• Alternate Names – Any other names by which the person was known. In this case, it is a married name, but could also be a nickname or an alternate spelling.
• Events – all manner of events can be recorded by Event Tags. Here we have the person's birth, marriage, and death entered. We might also have tag for occupations, anecdotes, military service, or any other event, fact, or note about the person we might care to enter.
• Children – all children of this person are linked with Parent/Child Relationship Tags, just like those used to link the person with his or her parents. The tags for the person's children appear in the "tag box" area with event tags, displaying the primary birth date of the child.

Now we will look at the three main types of Tags, and see how data is entered in each type.

Name Tags

The Tag Entry screen for Name Tags contains six areas for user input:

• Name Part fields – is where the actual name is entered. Only four of these fields are of concern to the beginning user:
  • Title – used for titles, such as Dr. or Capt. (you can abbreviate them or not as you prefer).
  • GivenName – used for given names, such as John Robert or Sue Ann.
  • Surname – used for the person's surname
  • Suffix – used for suffixes such as Jr., Sr., or I

All the other fields are for advanced features, such as Name Styles, or custom sorting of the name in the Picklist and Project Explorer. Consult Help for details on them.

• Name Part labels – note that they are dimmed, indicating they cannot be changed (Actually, they can be changed, by use of the Name Style, but that's an advanced feature we will not cover here).
• Citation features – creation and citing of sources is covered in my Source Tutorial.
• Date field – the date field has no meaning for primary names, and is generally not used for any names. But it may be used when a name was adopted at a specific date, for example with a legal change of name.
• Memo field – is generally not used in primary Name Tags, but may be used for name changes, nicknames, etc. to record details about that name.
• Tag Type button – allows you to change to another tag type in the Name Tag Group; for example, a nick name or married name tag.

Parent/Child Relationship Tags

The Tag Entry screen for Parent/Child Relationship Tags contains five primary areas for user input:

• Parent ID# field – the ID number of the parent in this relationship. To link this child to a different parent, enter the new parent's ID#, or click the button to search for the parent.
• Child ID# Field – the ID number of the child in this relationship. To link this parent to a different child, enter the new child's ID#, or click the button to search for the child.
• Citation features – creation and citing of sources is covered in my Source Tutorial.
• Memo field – is generally not used in Relationship Tags.
• Tag Type button – allows you to change to another tag type in the Relationship Tag Group; for example an adopted Relationship tag.

Event Tags

Event Tags include many different types of tags, including Birth, Marriage, Death, and "Other Events" which include types like Occupation, Census, Note, Will and many more. This example is a Marriage Tag. The Tag Entry screen for Event Tags contains seven primary areas for user input:

• Principal ID# fields – most event tags allow for two Principals, that is people who participated in the event. Birth and Death Tags allow only one. (Additional participants can be added as "Witnesses" but only in Advanced Data Entry mode, see "Tip" below.)
• Date field – the date of the event.
• Place Part fields – the place where the event occurred. Only five of these fields are of concern to the beginning user:
  • Detail – used for street address, name of church or cemetery, or similar details.
  • City – used for the town or city.
  • County – used for name of the county.
  • State – used for the name of the state.
  • Country – used for the name of the country.
  Any of these fields can be omitted if not known, or if the user prefers they not be used. The other fields are for advanced features, such as Place Styles, or for special applications such as Address Tags and Repository place entries. Consult Help for details.
• Place Part labels – note that they are dimmed, indicating they cannot be changed (Actually, they can be changed, by use of the Place Style, but that's an advanced feature we will not cover here).
• Memo field – is used differently for various event tags. In some cases, such as Birth or Marriage tags, it may be used to record additional details about the event. In other cases it is used for essential information. For example, in a Note tag it contains the text of the note, and in an Occupation Tag it would contain the occupation, such as "a bricklayer."
• Citation features – creation and citing of sources is covered in my Source Tutorial.
• Tag Type button – allows you to change to another tag type in the same Tag Group. The event groups are Birth, Marriage, Divorce, Death, Burial, and Other Events.

A Reminder screen opens for Tags using commonly used Tag Types to help us enter the appropriate data in each field. For example, here is the one for the Occupation Tag Type:

For more on Reminders, see my article on Using Reminders.

This concludes the review of the three main types of tags. We've left out some more obscure types, such as History tags, which are not generally used by beginners.

Entering Repeated Place or Other Data

We often find that we need to enter the same information that we have previously entered elsewhere, most obviously for place and citation information. TMG offers two tools to make this easier, and help avoid spelling errors and inconsistencies. The functions work in almost every data entry field in TMG - try them and I think you will find them most helpful. To use them, place the cursor in the desired field and press the indicated key:

F3 – Repeat Function – recalls the most recently used value in that field. Press again for the next prior value, up to 15 prior values. Or, press Ctrl-F3, and a list of up to 15 prior values will appear and you can select the desired value.

Special rule for citations: The Source # and Citation Detail fields are recalled together. Using F3 in either recalls the values for both.

F2 – Search Function – searches for all values previously used in that field. Once the list appears, type a few letters of the desired value, and the list will scroll; select the desired value when it come into view.

Special rule for places: Place the cursor in the lowest level you want to recall before you press F2. Then, when you select your desired value, all higher ranking places with be filled in as well.

Consider Switching to Advanced Data Entry Mode

Several time above I referred to the Advanced Data Entry Mode. The default Beginner mode simplifies the data screens by hiding some fields that would appear on them in Advanced Mode. Here is a Tag Entry screen for Event Tag in Advanced mode:

Perhaps the most useful features available only in Advanced mode are:

• Sort Dates – control the sorting of tags in the Details screen and in reports. TMG automatically sorts dated tags in chronological order, but undated tags are sorted to the top or bottom of list. Sort Dates, which never appear in any output, allow you to place undated tags in their approximate chronological order, or to place tags in any desired order regardless of the actual date entered.
• Witnesses – allow you to enter participants in events beyond the two Principals. Witnesses are useful when you want to record in a single tag members of a family moving together, members of a household enumerated in a census, various participants in a wedding, and many other examples. Use of Witnesses can quickly get quite complex, so a beginner might want to get comfortable with TMG before using this technique.
• Name Variations – when you have entered married names, nicknames, etc., you can choose which name will be used in reports for this event. See my article on Name Variations for details.

For a complete list of features enabled in Advanced mode search Help for "Advanced." To switch between Beginner and Advanced modes, go to Preferences > Program Options > Data Entry.

Now that we have explored the various types of Tags, we will look at how to edit or add new Tags, then how to add new people to your Project.

Editing Existing Tags

To edit any existing tag, we open it's "Tag Entry Screen." We do that by...

• Double-clicking on the Tag Label - the word "Name" in this example, or
• Select the Tag by clicking on it, or by using the up or down arrow keys, then either:
• Press the Enter key or the F5 (Edit) key on the keyboard, or
• Click the Edit button in the Details window (the Add, Edit, Delete, and Primary buttons visible by default, but may be turned off in Preferences > Program Options > Data Entry).

Once the Tag Entry screen is open, you can edit any of the fields, as depicted above for each of the three major types of Tags.

Adding New Tags to an Existing Person

Now let's look at how to add a new Tag for a person. First, navigate to the desired person. Then either...

• Press the F4 (Add) key, or
• Choose Add > Add Tag from the menu, or
• Click the Add button on the Details screen as shown at the right (these buttons are visible by default, but can be turned off in Preferences > Program Options > Data Entry), or.
• Click the "Add Tag" button on the Tag Box toolbar, as shown below (this toolbar not displayed by default, but be turned on with the View > Toolbars menu).

Any of these actions will bring up the Tag Type List:

Chose a Tag Type that is appropriate for the data to be entered and click the Select button, or just double-click the desired Tag Type. This will bring up a Tag Entry screen, as shown in the preceding sections, where you can enter the desired data.

Adding New People

So far we have discussed editing existing Tags, and adding new Tags to people already entered in your Data Set. Now we will cover adding new people to the Data Set.

If the new person is related to someone already in our Data Set, we navigate to that person first. Then click the Add Person button:

This brings up the Add Person Type screen, in which we specify how the new person is related to the person currently in view on our screen:

In this case we are going to add a daughter of Martha Jones, so we click the Daughter button.

If the new person is a child of an existing person, as in this case, we are asked to specify who the other parent is on the Select Second Parent screen:

This screen lists the spouse(s) of the current person, and generally we just select the correct spouse. We might also select "None" if we don't know who the parent is or we don't have that parent entered in our Data Set. Or, if the other parent is entered but not shown as married to the current person, we can select them by entering their ID# in the field below "Identify another person," or select them with the button.

We now see the Add Person screen. The Add Person screen is a sort of short-cut screen that allows us to do a number of things from a single screen, including:

• Have the program assign an ID# to the new person.
• Create a primary Name Tag for the new person
• If the new person was identified as a parent or child of the current person, create Parent/Child Relationship Tag(s) to link the new person to the parent or child.
• If the new person was identified as a spouse of the current person, create a Marriage Tag for them.
• Optionally, create Birth and Death Tags for the new person.

We can look at the screenshot below to see how this works:

When we click the OK button we will enter the following data into our Data Set:

• ID# – TMG automatically assigns an ID number for the new person.
• Name Tag – a Name Tag will be created for the new person.
• Birth Tag – because we entered a birth date and place, a Birth Tag will be created. Had we not entered anything on these lines no Birth Tag would be created.
• Death Tag – because we entered a death date and place, a Death Tag will be created. Had we not entered anything on these lines no Death Tag would be created.
• Marriage Tag – had we said the new person was a spouse of the current person, a Marriage Tag would have been created, regardless of whether or not we entered any date or place information. Because in this example we said the new person was a daughter, the Marriage Tag lines do not appear. Caution: depending on the size of your Add Person screen, you may have to scroll down to see the Marriage Tag lines.
• Source Citation – will be added to each tag created. Only a single source may be cited in the Add Person screen, and that source will be cited in every tag created.

The new person will become the focus person when the Add Person screen is closed. You can then add other tags if you like, or edit any that were added by the Add Person screen.

Related Articles

This concludes the tutorial on basic data entry. Other articles on related topics that may be of interest:

TMG Basic Concepts – creating a "mental model" of how TMG records your data.

Tutorial on Sources – how to create and cite sources.

Projects and Data Sets – important to understand if you import data from more than one file.

Working with Layouts – setting up your workspace to suit your needs.

Susan Johnston's article The Bubba Browne Data Set is a well-done outline of basic data entry tasks, with a humorous twist. It was originally written for an earlier version of TMG, and she has updated it, leaving the changes apparent so newer features are noted.

Copyright 2000- by Terry Reigel