> > > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > > > Any comments on your experiences would be appreciated. > > > > > > Peter J Seymour > > > > This very very general question is rather irrelevant unless we know > > what program you are using, what you expect to do or what problems > > you are encountering. > .... > > bob gillis > > In clarification, I engage in family history research in a small way > (ie for my extended family) and I engage in software development > again I suppose in a small way where I have my own genealogical > program. I invited the discussion because I am trying to get a > better grip on the output requirements for such a program. > > Suitable output requirements depend first of all on who the user is > - amateur, professional, beginner, experienced and so on. Beyond > that there seem to be some definite modes of output for reports: > -- screen > -- printer > -- plain text file for subsequent ad-hoc data processing > -- pdf file for subsequent viewing/printing > -- rtf (etc) file for word processing > -- csv file (where the data is appropriate) > -- image (jpg etc) > -- webpage (I'm not keen on this one, it is too easy to do > inappropriate publishing) > > I have been trying to get a better grip on some of the more detail > points among all this. The comments made by various posters have > been quite helpful. > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> www.gendatam.com Peter, Opinions, it's said, are like portions of the anatomy: everybody has one. _MY_ opinion, for what little it's worth, is that you should concentrate on the genealogical aspects of your program and, only after you have a satisfactory "product, branch into other things, such as adding word processing bells and whistles. Matter of fact, I'd suggest that, even then, you run, not walk, to the nearest exit and avoid those wp functions like the very plague .. unless this whole project is strictly for your own pleasure, you'll never satisfy every potential user with such add-ons. In lieu of wp functionality, may I suggest you look at gdbi and how it makes use of the lifelines reports/report language? If you decide to adopt/adapt those/that, you have "instant" wp-like functionality and allow your users the ability to create customi{s,z}ed outputs. Just my US $0.02, Sun-tanned Ol' Bob (100+ days without rain here in the Desert Southwest!) -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. Thomas Jefferson Bob Melson <amia9018@mypacks.net>

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> First in your example is it not a mother living with her son-in-law, and shouldn't her surname be different than Jim's? If the surnames are the same then more likely she's Jim's step-mother, rather than mother-in-law, unless at that time the two terms were interchangeable. When I have this situation where the first name of an individual is unknown I enter Unk. (Mr.) Jones, and when a woman's first name is also unknown I enter Unk. (Miss), I have used [Unknown] (unknown with left and right brackets) when the surname is unknown. My genealogy program has a feature where it remembers surnames so whenever I have an unknown surname I only have to enter a left bracket and it fills is the rest. Gerry <MeetMe@Three.com>

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> Don't you need to know if she was married first? Base born children usually were given the mother's maiden name. That sometimes changed when and if the mother married. Hugh

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> Keith- I wouldn't assume she is NOT a JONES either. I once did research for a person trying to learn the maiden name of her ancestor and the mother-in-law was in the household on a census listing and her name was listed as WATSON--same of the woman's married name. A bit more research proved there had been a cousin marriage and, indeed, her name was WATSON also. Joan JYoung6180@aol.com

> You've all been such a tremendous help to me that I thought I would > impose on your knowledge one more time. > > GGF/GGM came from Bialystock Russia around 1890. > Does anyone know of any sites that might have databases with birth/ > death/marriage records. > > emmydbd Visit http://jewishgen.org/ However Bialystock was originally in Poland. bob gillis bob gillis <robertgillis@verizon.net>

I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law is living with her son. i.e. Jim Jones B 1803; Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you enter as the name of her husband? Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net>

> > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > Any comments on your experiences would be appreciated. > > > > Peter J Seymour > > This very very general question is rather irrelevant unless we know > what program you are using, what you expect to do or what problems > you are encountering. .... > bob gillis In clarification, I engage in family history research in a small way (ie for my extended family) and I engage in software development again I suppose in a small way where I have my own genealogical program. I invited the discussion because I am trying to get a better grip on the output requirements for such a program. Suitable output requirements depend first of all on who the user is - amateur, professional, beginner, experienced and so on. Beyond that there seem to be some definite modes of output for reports: -- screen -- printer -- plain text file for subsequent ad-hoc data processing -- pdf file for subsequent viewing/printing -- rtf (etc) file for word processing -- csv file (where the data is appropriate) -- image (jpg etc) -- webpage (I'm not keen on this one, it is too easy to do inappropriate publishing) I have been trying to get a better grip on some of the more detail points among all this. The comments made by various posters have been quite helpful. Peter www.gendatam.com Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk>

> > I also found a free on-line site:=20 > > http://www.criminal-info.com/prisonrecords/ > > Check that out. > > > > bob gillis > > Well, that website appears to be another "pay to see the results" > site. I didn't see anything free. It appears to be a Canadian > commercial venture, not a government site. No way to know if it > actually provides useful information until you pay and register. > ? Michael Reich <mareich49@yahoo.com> I wouldn't even mind paying if there was a link to tell you the years available. 250 million records doesn't tell me much of anything. Are we missing the link to the freeby things? Shirley Grand Bay, AL 36541 Shirley <squirrelena@yahoo.com>

You've all been such a tremendous help to me that I thought I would impose on your knowledge one more time. GGF/GGM came from Bialystock Russia around 1890. Does anyone know of any sites that might have databases with birth/ death/marriage records. TIA, Emmy emmydbd <emmydbd@yahoo.com>

Keith Nuttle wrote: > > > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > > > Any comments on your experiences would be appreciated. > > > > > > Peter J Seymour > > > > Many of us don't write full sentences in our NOTES files -- mostly > > that's those of us old enough to have started this before > > 5-and-a-quarter-inch floppies when space *mattered* who haven't > > cared to spend valuable research time tidying up the file. But, > > there do seem to be a lot of us. (g) > > > > So, however good the "make me a book" report IS, it can't fix > > sentence fragments so the grammar-hammer finds those and complains. > > "Was an insurance underwriter." has to turn into "He was an > > insurance underwriter." > > > > Additionally, the occasional typo creeps into NOTES and isn't > > spotted until it's in a book. > > > > Sometimes, a remark that makes PERFECT sense when it's in the NOTES > > becomes ambiguous in a book setting...either the antecedent of "he" > > becomes muddy or the thing just reads wrong or tacky ... "He was a > > traveller" for instance has various interpretations, only one of > > which applies to this individual, and might be nice if that were > > clear? Or "was dumb." When one knows the lady, one knows she was > > unable to speak, not unintelligent, but again, future generations > > won't know her, so let's make that clear. > > > > Then, there are the potentially embarrassing comments -- perfectly > > TRUE, but nonetheless rude and needlessly hurtful to persons more > > closely connected. Still, I can't be certain I've found all those > > until I look at the output. > > > > SOME people "tag" certain facts (OCCUP: farmer or MIL: Vietnam) > > using truncated words which need expanding, because OCCUP: farmer > > isn't a real sentence, even if you know what OCCUP means -- and MIL: > > Vietnam is either Military service in Vietnam /or/ Mother-in-law in > > Vietnam and clarity on that would be a good thing. ;) > > > > And of course -- the book generator in PAF and in Legacy throws in > > an enormous amount of white-space. Looks pretty, is useful for > > adding comments or new info, but uses more paper than it needs to. > > So I remove a lot of blank lines. I can sometimes reduce by half the > > number of pages to be printed. > > > > Now, whether tweaking the output each time I do output takes less > > time than fixing the input could be debatable. IMO, it is at least > > more fun to do the tweaks on output. > > > > Cheryl Singhals <singhals@erols.com> > > I understand where you are coming from, but I always work on the > assumption that I am doing none of this for me, but for my children > and grandchildren. If my notes are not clear, then my data will not > be adequate for the purpose for which it is intended. When I began this, I wasn't even pregnant, I was just bored. So, everything was for my own private and personal benefit. By the time I had a child, my process was set and I had far too many entries to go back and start "fixing" things to the then-current standard; since that time, there have been at least 4 changes in what constitutes "best practice" for documentation, for citation, etc etc. > Many times when there is to much white space in a report, it means > that I did not do a good job of entering the data. I then go to the > offending part and re edit the data to remove the the extra white > space. I guess I wasn't clear. The white-space to which I object is the extra blank line after each child in a list, after each paragraph, and so on. As in: Jeremiah Christian Jingleheimer was baptised on 18 Oct 1756 in the parish of St. John, Arrenkamp, Westfalia (Germany). Registration was made at 10:30 am. German law at the time required the baptism and registration to be within 5 days of the birth, so he was born between 13 and 17 Oct. Jeremiah was a tailor who worked in Dielingen and Bremen. On 26 August 1778, Jeremiah married Ilsabe Dorothea Schneider. Ilsabe was born 27 December 1758, according to the civil registers for Dielingen, but no baptismal record has been found. She was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Schneider and Maria Elisabeth Butcher. Ilsabe apparently died in New York City in March of 1846. 5. M i John Jacob Jingleheimer born 1781. 6. F ii Jemima Jingleheimer born 1784. 7. U iii Infant child Jingleheimer born and died 1786 When I've got 15 generations, it saves a lot of trees and ink to omit those blank lines and use paragraph indents instead on the narrative. > This brings up a point that I have been considering what are you > doing for estate planning as far as your genealogical records and > databases? My Will gives the children dibs, followed by my sibs or their children; if none of them are interested, it (and a suitable lump sum) go to my home-county library. In all events, LDS is to be asked to microfilm it first. Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>

> > Good morning from Brooklyn New York, > > > Family lore has it that prior to WWI my grandfather did a short > > stint in prison. > > > He was working for the Post Office and got caught stealing stamps. > > > Would anyoine have any idea where I might be able to locate these > > records? > > > emmydbd > > Assuming that your grandfather also lived in Brooklyn,and since this > was a crime against the federal government, his records should be > in NARA at the Northeast Region, New York City office at Varick > Street; email newyork.archi...@nara.gov, 1-866-840-1752 or > 212-401-1620. Brooklyn is in the Eastern District of New York > > I also found a free on-line site: > http://www.criminal-info.com/prisonrecords/ > Check that out. > > bob gillis Thanks for all the replies. They were a big help. No it wasn't James Sheridan and of course I had the time period wrong. But thanks to the help of this group I was able to find what I was looking for. emmydbd <emmydbd@yahoo.com>

> > Good morning from Brooklyn New York, > > > > Family lore has it that prior to WWI my grandfather did a short > > stint in prison. > > > > He was working for the Post Office and got caught stealing stamps. > > > > Would anyoine have any idea where I might be able to locate these > > records? > > > > emmydbd > > Assuming that your grandfather also lived in Brooklyn,and since this > was a crime against the federal government, his records should be > in NARA at the Northeast Region, New York City office at Varick > Street; email newyork.archives@nara.gov, 1-866-840-1752 or > 212-401-1620. Brooklyn is in the Eastern District of New York > > I also found a free on-line site: > http://www.criminal-info.com/prisonrecords/ > Check that out. > > bob gillis Well, that website appears to be another "pay to see the results" site. I didn't see anything free. It appears to be a Canadian commercial venture, not a government site. No way to know if it actually provides useful information until you pay and register. Michael Reich <mareich49@yahoo.com>

> Good morning from Brooklyn New York, > > Family lore has it that prior to WWI my grandfather did a short > stint in prison. > > He was working for the Post Office and got caught stealing stamps. > > Would anyoine have any idea where I might be able to locate these > records? > > Emmy emmydbd <emmydbd@yahoo.com> By any chance, was his name James J. Sheridan? I looked around at the NY Times historical newspaper database by proquest, and found a small article about this Sheridan man on September 3 1915 I was thinking if you could find an article in a newspaper, you could find the name of the prison he was sent to, or at least narrow down the time frame. I'll send that article to you just in case... Check with your local library to see if they have access to these historical newspapers. Also, if he was from Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Library is digitizing the Brooklyn Eagle, but it is only on line up to 1902. If you visit the library, you can probably look at later papers on microfilm Lisa llepore@comcast.net

> I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > manual editing in a word processing program. > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > Any comments on your experiences would be appreciated. > > Peter J Seymour This very very general question is rather irrelevant unless we know what program you are using, what you expect to do or what problems you are encountering. I send most of my reports to my wp so I can add index, bibliography and ToC if I want and adjust the fonts. I print out an editing copy of the report, say a Journal Descendant Report and then change my Tag sentences and/or data entry to make the final output read the way I want it. Sending tabular reports to my wp allows me to change the fonts and the formatting easily Sending the report to my wp allows me to send the report as an email attachment either in my wp file format or a text file. My program can output the report as a pdf file directly. bob gillis bob gillis <robertgillis@verizon.net>

> Good morning from Brooklyn New York, > > Family lore has it that prior to WWI my grandfather did a short > stint in prison. > > He was working for the Post Office and got caught stealing stamps. > > Would anyoine have any idea where I might be able to locate these > records? > > emmydbd Assuming that your grandfather also lived in Brooklyn,and since this was a crime against the federal government, his records should be in NARA at the Northeast Region, New York City office at Varick Street; email newyork.archives@nara.gov, 1-866-840-1752 or 212-401-1620. Brooklyn is in the Eastern District of New York I also found a free on-line site: http://www.criminal-info.com/prisonrecords/ Check that out. bob gillis

singhals wrote: > Nope. Died. One word fits all situations. My great-grandfather "went to the great beyond." That seems pretty non-sectarian to me. :) Kathy Kathy <lenerz@worldnet.att.net>

On Saturday 13 June 2009 09:38, singhals (singhals@erols.com) opined: <snip> >> I suspect that adding a bunch of formatting options to the report >> generator wouldn't be justifiable - I don't _know_ that, but think >> it likely. >> >> Bob Melson > > A year or so back, someone (here?) posted an objection to the way > her software phrased "died 14 Oct 1998" -- she felt "died" was too > bald. > > So I frittered away some of my "copious spare time" ;) reading the > death notices and obits in my local newspaper. It quickly became > obvious why the genie programs all use "died" -- it's the least > objectional alternative. Well, yeah, the range of inoffensive options is kinda limited - the only other one I can think of just off the top is "passed" or "passed away" and even that may have cultural connotations I'm unaware of. > If you're Hindu or Jewish, do you want your report to say that your > father was Called Home To Jesus on 14 Oct 1998? If your mother was a > Ph.D. in Biochemistry, do you want the report to claim she Graduated > on 14 Oct 1998? If your uncle was agnostic or atheist, you won't > want to say he Entered Eternal Glory on 14 Oct 1998. And if your > other uncle was executed by the State for mass murder ... ? > > Nope. Died. One word fits all situations. > > Then, the issue of fonts, faces, sizes, graphics and cutlines. In a > wordprocessor (whether it's PCWrite or WordPerfect of OO or > whatever) you can go through and flag the DSP entries, or who died > of Cancer or who was in Korea. Putting that level of options into > the text-producing software built-into the genie program would > inflate the genie program to swallow Jupiter (c Paramount Pictures) > and slow it down like nobody's business. Gramps does a pretty good job when it comes to basic output options - font, size, justification - and output type - pdf, postscript, doc/rtf, etc. - and whether to view or just write to file. Note, I'm not speaking of what's included in the report, just how it's formatted. I think it's made the right choice in NOT including complex word processing functionality, leaving that to an external application, instead. It's the right decision, IMNSHO, because the choice is/was to have a reasonably competent genealogical program OR a wordprocessor with genealogical capabilities. It's not so much that "never the twain shall meet" as it is a matter of deciding where the program's emphasis should be. Why add something to the program that's handled well/better by another application? > Then again, maybe it's the latent Wm Shakespeare in all of us that > simply wants some level of creative input. (g) But all this is a bit far afield from the original question, which I understood to be something like "if you edit your report generator's output, why, and, further, why not make the generator's edit functions more powerful so you don't have to pass it through an external word processor?" Why do I edit my generator's output? Pretty much for all the reasons I've already stated: better font control, pagination, justification, widow/orphan control, order of presentation, rewording of potentially offensive phraseology, cleaning up notes, better source citations, inclusion of graphics, a whole raft of things the report generator doesn't do as well as a word processor can. As for including those word processor functions in the genealogy program, I think, as I indicated above, that it comes down to a trade-off: do you want a genealogy program with a lot of unrelated infrequently used bells'n'whistles or do you want some basic functionality that can be passed to a more competent external word processing application? I suspect the designers/programmers of most genealogy programs have chosen the latter option because it makes more sense to concentrate of the genealogy side rather than get wrapped around the axle re-inventing the wheel. Semi-dehydrated Ol' Bob (we're in the midst of a drought, y'know) -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. Thomas Jefferson Bob Melson <amia9018@mypacks.net>

> Family lore has it that prior to WWI my grandfather did a short > stint in prison. > > He was working for the Post Office and got caught stealing stamps. > > Would anyoine have any idea where I might be able to locate these > records? > > emmydbd First, WHERE was the PO he worked for? NYC, Sheboygan, or Lower Podunck? Find the Federal Court nearest that PO, and check their dockets for the surname (The US vs HISNAMEHERE). Now, check the local, hometown newspaper beginning with the date on the docket and going back until you find a mention. Now, work forward from the docket date in the same newspaper to find out more about the trial and which prison he drew. Some of this will be on LDS Microfilm, some won't. Once you have a location, www.familysearch.org and select LIBRARY and then LIBRARY CATALOG and search for the locality. Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>

> > > > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > > > > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> > > > > > > If I understand your question correctly, I'd think much would depend > > > on the output of your report generator. I have one, for example, > > > which will output date and place of death, even for living persons, > > > when the "show all events" option is selected. Now, even though the > > > output for living persons is something like "He died on _____ at > > > ____", the fact it appears at all is annoying and more than a bit > > > off-putting (took me a while to connect the output with selecting > > > that particular option, BTW). That's point one. 'Nother thought is > > > that you might want to rearrange the way the facts are presented, or > > > combine notes or modify any of a number of cosmetic things that your > > > report generator does well (good enough for government work) but not > > > as you might wish. Font, layout, pagination, indexing, title page, > > > table of contents, addition of graphics - there's a whole slew of > > > things you might want to "play" with to get the report to look the > > > way you want it. > > > > > > But the primary reason you might want to run the report through your > > > wordprocessor might be to convert it from, say, .doc or .rtf to, > > > say, .pdf or .ps. To my mind, anything that's MicroSoft or Apple > > > specific is immediately suspect and automatically goes to the bottom > > > of the pile for later conversion. (Notwithstanding that some 95% or > > > more of personal computers run some version of Windows or MacOS, > > > there are some who choose to run neither and may not be able to do > > > anything with those proprietary formats. As a result, you've wasted > > > your time and machine cycles preparing a report they'll likely never > > > read and have probably annoyed them more than just a little bit.) > > > > > > Swell Ol' Bob Melson > > > > So I guess that if the program will output in PDF format that will > > deal with your primary reason. It doesn't help with your minor > > adjustments though. It looks like the program ought to allow editing > > of the report before writing it to the file, but full-blown word > > processing within the program would be getting a bit tricky. I think > > I would be in favour of pushing back whatever those adjustments are > > to being report generation options so that the generated report is > > already as you want it (or pretty close). This would require a whole > > raft of detail options but that is probably manageable. > > > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> > > I suspect that adding a bunch of formatting options to the report > generator wouldn't be justifiable - I don't _know_ that, but think > it likely. > > Bob Melson A year or so back, someone (here?) posted an objection to the way her software phrased "died 14 Oct 1998" -- she felt "died" was too bald. So I frittered away some of my "copious spare time" ;) reading the death notices and obits in my local newspaper. It quickly became obvious why the genie programs all use "died" -- it's the least objectional alternative. If you're Hindu or Jewish, do you want your report to say that your father was Called Home To Jesus on 14 Oct 1998? If your mother was a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, do you want the report to claim she Graduated on 14 Oct 1998? If your uncle was agnostic or atheist, you won't want to say he Entered Eternal Glory on 14 Oct 1998. And if your other uncle was executed by the State for mass murder ... ? Nope. Died. One word fits all situations. Then, the issue of fonts, faces, sizes, graphics and cutlines. In a wordprocessor (whether it's PCWrite or WordPerfect of OO or whatever) you can go through and flag the DSP entries, or who died of Cancer or who was in Korea. Putting that level of options into the text-producing software built-into the genie program would inflate the genie program to swallow Jupiter (c Paramount Pictures) and slow it down like nobody's business. Then again, maybe it's the latent Wm Shakespeare in all of us that simply wants some level of creative input. (g) Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>

> Family lore has it that prior to WWI my grandfather did a short > stint in=A0 prison. > > He was working for the Post Office and got caught stealing stamps. > > Would anyoine have any idea where I might be able to locate these > records? > > Emmy <emmydbd=40yahoo.com> It would depend upon where he committed the theft and if it was prosecuted in a federal or other court.=A0 I'm no expert in this but did attempt to find some records in Oklahoma.=A0 They had a fire and could not locate my records, but that search taught me a couple of things.=A0 One was that I got help from an email=A0group that focused on prisons in Oklahoma.=A0 Perhaps you can search in the relevant state for such a group who already know the resources for that state.=A0 Another was that the place of imprisonment did not always make sense based on the crime.=A0 It looks like my ancestor may have committed a local crime but served in the state facility for some reason.=A0 Also, I found my guy was in prison because he was listed there in a 1910 Census.=A0 No one in the family knew he'd been in jail=21=21=A0 They did = not know he was ever in Oklahoma either. =A0=A0=A0 Hope this helps=21=21=A0 Sharon SHARON Zingery <szingery=40sbcglobal.net>