Overview
The Tags section is used to designate how TMG name and event tags are written to the GEDCOM output file. The section includes a set of options for each TMG Tag Type. The TMG Tag Type appears in the left-most column. For each TMG Tag Type, you choose an option for each of the subsequent columns:
- Export – The Export column determines whether instances of the Tag Type are included in the GEDCOM output file.
- Primary Only – The Primary Only column determines whether all tags are written to the GEDCOM output file, or primary tags only.
- Witnesses – The Witnesses column determines whether witnesses to a Tag Type are written to the GEDCOM output file.
- Note Value – The Note Value column determines how TMG to GEDCOM creates the GEDCOM "NOTE" value.
- Text Value – The Text Value column determines how TMG to GEDCOM creates the GEDCOM text value. The text value is called the "description" value by some programs.
- Note Options – The Note Option column controls special Memo text processing for special circumstances.
- Truncate Text At – The Truncate Text At value is used with some choices in the Note Option property.
Some options are not editable for some TMG Tag Types. For example, TMG name tags do not support witnesses, so the Witnesses option is set to "No" and cannot be changed for any TMG Name Tag Type.
Some options vary according to the GEDCOM record type used to export the TMG Tag Type. The variations are as follows.
- Individual attributes (OCCU for occupation, EDUC for education, etc.)
- Individual events (BIRT for birth, DEAT for death, etc.)
- Family events (MARR for marriage, DIV for divorce, etc.)
- Names
See the GEDCOM Tags help page for more information about attributes and events.
Export Property
The Export property determines if TMG tags with the given Tag Type are written to the GEDCOM output file, and if so, the basic method used to write the GEDCOM records.
If Export is set to "No", tags with the given TMG Tag Type are not written to the GEDCOM output file. The other choices for the Export value vary based on the GEDCOM record used to export the TMG Tag Type.
For individual events like birth and death, the Export options are as follows:
- Cloned event – If Export is set to "Cloned event", events with the given TMG Tag Type are written to the GEDCOM output file multiple times, once for each person (principal or witness) linked to the event. See the Cloned Records section below for more details.
For individual attributes like occupation and education, the Export options are as follows:
- Cloned attribute – If Export is set to "Cloned attribute", events with the given TMG Tag Type are written to the GEDCOM output file multiple times, once for each person (principal or witness) linked to the event. See the Cloned Records section below for more details.
For family events like marriage and divorce, the Export options are as follows:
- Shared event – If Export is set to "Shared event", events with the given TMG Tag Type are written to the GEDCOM output file as a family event. If the TMG tag has one or more witnesses, the GEDCOM event is shared with those witnesses by linking the other people to the GEDCOM event. See the Shared Records section below for more details.
TMG to GEDCOM will not clone family events.
For names, the Export property choices are "Name" and "No". In most cases, you should leave the Export property set to "Name". If you change the Export property to "No" for one or more Tag Types, and the primary name for a person uses that Tag Type, then the primary name will not be written to the GEDCOM file. That will result in either (A) no GEDCOM NAME rcord for the person or (B) a non-primary TMG name record treated as the primary name by the program that reads the GEDCOM export file.
If you want to suppress a TMG Name Tag Type, I recommend that you leave its Export property set to "Name" and change its Primary Only property to "Yes". That will supress all non-primary uses of the Tag Type.
Shared Records
Most full-featured genealogy programs support sharing events one way or another. Many programs do not. In some cases, a program that supports shared records will not import shared records because doing so requires supporting non-standard GEDCOM records.
Cloned Records
When creating a GEDCOM file for a genealogy program that does not support shared records, it may be desirable to write a copy of a TMG event to the GEDCOM output file for each person (principal and witness) linked to an event.
See the Cloned Event Type section below for important information about Tag Types for cloned tags.
Primary Only Property
If Primary Only is set to "Yes", the tag will not be written to the GEDCOM output file unless it is primary for the principal, or primary for both principals in a two-principal tag.
If Primary Only is set to "No", the tag will be written to the GEDCOM output file whether it is primary or not.
Witnesses Property
If Witnesses is set to "Yes", the GEDCOM output records for a witness to a TMG tag will have either a link to the tag record (when a tag is shared) or a clone of the tag record (when a tag is cloned).
If Witnesses is set to "No", no records will be written to the GEDCOM output file for any witnesses to the tag.
Note Value Property
Any GEDCOM name, individual event, individual attribute, or family event may have a NOTE record. The typical value for a NOTE record corresponds to the Memo value for a TMG tag.
If Note Value is set to "Omit", the Memo of the TMG tag will not be written to the GEDCOM output file using a NOTE record.
If Note Value is set to "Raw text", the Memo of the TMG tag will be written to the GEDCOM output file as a NOTE record. The text will appear just as it does in TMG.
If Note Value is set to "Format memo", the Memo of the TMG tag will be written to the GEDCOM output file as a NOTE record. TMG to GEDCOM will format the tag's Memo as if the Memo text was being inserted into narrative output. So, for example, references to TMG variables will be resolved to their values. In particular, references to witnesses will be converted to the name of the witness.
If Note Value is set to "Format sentence", the GEDCOM NOTE record will be created by formatting the TMG sentence structure for the tag. For cloned events, TMG to GEDCOM uses the sentence for the subject person, so witnesses get the witness sentence output, etc.
See Note Value Examples below.
Text Value Property
The Text Value property provides several options for constructing the text value for GEDCOM Attribute Tags. The column is read-only and set to "Omit" for GEDCOM names and events.
A GEDCOM individual attribute may have a text value. The content of the text value varies according to the attribute type. For an occupation attribute, the text value is the name or short description of the occupation.
TMG does not differentiate between events and attributes, and TMG does not provide a dedicated field to store the attribute text required in GEDCOM attribute records. A TMG Tag Type is treated as an attribute if the "GEDCOM export as" value for the Tag Type is set to a GEDCOM Attribute tag.
TMG to GEDCOM creates the attribute text by extracting the first (or only) part of the tag's Memo text. The text value is extracted from the Memo text after the Memo text is processed according to the Text Value options.
If Text Value is set to "Omit", the GEDCOM text value will be left empty. That is not valid GEDCOM for individual attributes and may lead to error messages when importing into compliant GEDCOM readers.
If Text Value is set to "Raw text", the first part of the Memo of the TMG tag will be written to the GEDCOM output file as the text value. The text will appear just as it does in TMG.
If Text Value is set to "Format memo", the first part of the Memo of the TMG tag will be written to the GEDCOM output file as the text value. TMG to GEDCOM will format the tag's Memo as if the Memo text was being inserted into narrative output. So, for example, references to TMG variables will be resolved to their values. In particular, references to witnesses will be converted to the name of the witness.
If Text Value is set to "Format sentence", the text value of the GEDCOM attribute record for the tag will be created by formatting the TMG sentence structure for the tag. This is usually not a good choice for the text value.
For a list of GEDCOM individual attribute records, see the GEDCOM 5.5.2 specification: INDIVIDUAL_ATTRIBUTE_STRUCTURE.
Note Option Property
The Note Option property should be set to "None" in all but rare circumstances. Using these options will create invalid GEDCOM files or export data in non-standard locations. These options are only appropriate with non-compliant GEDCOM programs.
The Note Option property is provided to compensate for non-compliant GEDCOM readers that require the NOTE value to be moved or copied to the TEXT value. All the choices overwrite the usual text value. The differences are whether the text is copied or moved, and the maximum length of the value.
The choices are:
For the choices where the value is truncated, the text is truncated after the number of characters specified in the Truncate Text At column.
If you use a choice other than "None", but the Note Value property is set to Omit, no text will be copied or moved and the text value of the event will be empty.
The Note Options property is useful when exporting a GEDCOM for Ancestry.com or Family Tree Maker. See those help pages for details.
Truncate Text At Property
The Truncate Text At property determines the maximum number of characters in the text field value when using the Note Option choices that vary based on the number of characters in the Note value. See the Note Option Property description above.
Copying Property Values
The options in the Tags section provide a lot of flexibility and allow options to be configured for each TMG Tag Type. Unfortunately, that means there are a lot of options. To reduce the manual effort of changing values in multiple rows, you may right-click on a value to copy the value to other rows.
One or more of the following commands may be available in the right-click menu:
- Copy Cell to All Attributes – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type that is exported as a GEDCOM attribute, you may choose to copy the cell value to all the rows for TMG Tag Types that are also exported as GEDCOM attributes.
- Copy Cell to All Attributes and Events – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type that is exported as a GEDCOM attribute or as a GEDCOM event, and that cell contains choices that are valid for all attributes and events, you may choose to copy the cell value to all the rows for TMG Tag Types that are also exported as GEDCOM attributes or events.
- Copy Cell to All Family Events – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type that is exported as a GEDCOM family event, you may choose to copy the cell value to all the rows for TMG Tag Types that are also exported as GEDCOM family events.
- Copy Cell to All Individual Events – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type that is exported as a GEDCOM individual event, you may choose to copy the cell value to all the rows for TMG Tag Types that are also exported as GEDCOM individual events.
- Copy Cell to All Names – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type that is exported as a GEDCOM name record, you may choose to copy the cell value to all the rows for TMG Tag Types that are also exported as GEDCOM name records.
- Copy Cell to All Rows – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type where the cell options are the same for all TMG Tag Types, you may choose to copy the cell value to all the other rows.
- Copy Row to All Attributes – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type that is exported as a GEDCOM attribute, you may choose to copy all the cell values for the current row to all the rows for TMG Tag Types that are also exported as GEDCOM attributes.
- Copy Row to All Family Events – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type that is exported as a GEDCOM family event, you may choose to copy all the cell values for the current row to all the rows for TMG Tag Types that are also exported as GEDCOM family events.
- Copy Row to All Individual Events – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type that is exported as a GEDCOM individual event, you may choose to copy all the cell values for the current row to all the rows for TMG Tag Types that are also exported as GEDCOM individual events.
- Copy Row to All Names – If you right-click on a cell in the row of a TMG Tag Type that is exported as a GEDCOM name record, you may choose to copy all the cell values for the current row to all the rows for TMG Tag Types that are also exported as GEDCOM name records.
Note Value Examples
Assume you have an event with these attributes in TMG:
- Subject: John Doe (TMG ID#1)
- Witness: Jane Smith (TMG ID #2)
- Date: 1 Jun 1900
- Memo: with [R:Witness]
- Sentence: [P1] was enumerated <[D> <[M]>
That's not a realistic sentence, but it's good enough for this example.
Here are example results that vary according to the Note Value property.
- Raw text
The raw text in the memo for a reference to a witness is left in the NOTE value.
1 CENS 2 DATE 1 JUN 1900 2 NOTE with [R:00002] 2 _SHAR @I2@ 3 _ROLE Witness
If you do not use variables or printer codes in memos, "Raw text" is a good choice. Also, if your target GEDCOM reader supports variable references in note/memo values, then "Raw text" is a good choice. I am not aware of any genealogy applications besides TMG that allow variable references in note/memo values, but they may exist, or may exist in the future. It's unlikely they will know what to do with "
[R:00002]", but you could use a find/replace feature to change the TMG code to the code supported by the GEDCOM reader after you import to the target application.When you enter "
[R:Witness]" in a memo in TMG, TMG converts that to "[R:00002]", where "00002" is the unique ID for the "Witness" role. That is why "Raw text" shows "[R:00002]". TMG hides the unique code from you when you edit a tag. - Format memo
The witness reference is converted to the name of the witness.
1 CENS 2 DATE 1 JUN 1900 2 NOTE with Jane Smith 2 _SHAR @I2@ 3 _ROLE Witness
As far as I know, only TMG supports variable references in note/memo text so "Format memo" is usually the best choice.
- Format sentence
TMG to GEDCOM formats the sentence and uses the result as the GEDCOM NOTE value.
1 CENS 2 DATE 1 JUN 1900 2 NOTE John Doe was enumerated on 1 June 1900 with Jane Smith. 2 _SHAR @I2@ 3 _ROLE Witness
Most genealogy applications do not support sentence templates. The "Format sentence" choice might be useful for those applications but it may lead to duplicated text in some output.
- Omit
The NOTE value is left empty, and the NOTE record is not written to the GEDCOM file.
1 CENS 2 DATE 1 JUN 1900 2 _SHAR @I2@ 3 _ROLE Witness
Cloned Event Type
When cloning an event for a witness, if the TMG Tag Type has genealogical significance such as Birth or Death, the GEDCOM event type will be changed to include the role name. This prevents the event from being interpreted by the GEDCOM reader as applying to the witness.
For example, for a GodParent to a Birth event, the cloned event for the GodParent will have the event type "GodParent-Birth" rather than "Birth".
| Tag Group | Event Type |
|---|---|
| Baptism
Birth Burial Death Divorce Marriage |
The event type is set to the combination of the subject's role and the event's Tag Type. |
| Other | The event type is set to the event's Tag Type. |