And what baffles me is the amount of time spent explaining to people how to fix something using Sort Dates that the program could do itself, without taking away anything from the power you have to change things to suit your own special cases. The "problem" is exported to reports: I failed to explain clearly that the 'natural' order for the 3rd and 4th events entered (being a Death and Birth respectively) was 43, not 34 as they came out in the reports. Of the 22 persons who have participated in this discussion, 7 have clearly expressed the need for an improvement, 9 (now 10 if I count you, Alfred) have clearly expressed their resistance to change and are happy with it the way it is, and 5 are neutral or ambiguous or ambivalent (including the RootsMagician). Of course, that is no indication of the larger picture and I won't speculate on it. But, this is a discussion, not an election, in which we should all strive to be polite and respectful and be willing to listen, not shut down, the views of others. I understand that some of you are impatient that it should end because you are not bothered by the issue that a significant number of others have raised or you do not yet understand the issue and are fearful of some adverse consequence from a change in the software. Bruce clearly has to tread carefully with each change but that has not held him back on many other fronts. Be assured that the issue will inevitably rise again if nothing is done to address it - new customers, same experience, same complaint. Regards to all, Tom -----Original Message----- From: Alfred Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 1:40 PM To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth, death and burial events when all occur in the same year What baffles me is the amount of time some people will spend complaining about something they could handle in an instant. And, I don't see where the "problem" is exported to reports, it is only on the edit person window where it can be handled in that instant anyway. For goodness sakes people, if it is bugging that badly, hire someone to write a personalized program the way you want it. You all seem to think it would be so easy, maybe you could write it yourself. I am no longer the list administrator, But please, give it a rest! Alfred =================================== RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

The SQLite Error 26 definition is "File opened that is not a database file". I would have thought that would be fatal and am surprised that you are able to keep on working on the database. Is it possible that you had two databases open the last time you closed RM and that you have been changing the names of databases, possibly naming a file the same as one of the ones open in the last session and that it is not a RootsMagic database but something else, e.g., if you changed the extension to .rmgc, RM thinks it is a RM database file until it opens it and its database engine (SQLite3) determines that it is not a SQLite3 database. Is this a recurring problem with the same database file but not others? If so, then it sounds like your database file has suffered some corruption which you might be able to recover from by using RM's File > Database Tools, especially Compact which should rewrite the database file in its entirety. If there was corruption, it might be caused by one of two things: a power glitch during a write operation or some degradation of your hard disc drive. In the case of the latter, that may give you grief again, not necessarily with RootsMagic. You would be wise to run the Windows Error-checking tool CHKDSK. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Suzanne Brayer Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 12:21 PM To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com ; sybrayer@gmail.com Subject: [RMagic] Error 26 message When I open RM ver 6 I am getting a SQLite error 26 message. What is the trouble? Once I close the error message window, I am able to work in the system. =================================== RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

What baffles me is the amount of time some people will spend complaining about something they could handle in an instant. And, I don't see where the "problem" is exported to reports, it is only on the edit person window where it can be handled in that instant anyway. For goodness sakes people, if it is bugging that badly, hire someone to write a personalized program the way you want it. You all seem to think it would be so easy, maybe you could write it yourself. I am no longer the list administrator, But please, give it a rest! Alfred

I agree. I would also like to see marriage added into the mix. I know there can be divorces and additional marriages (where date may not be known) but they can still be fixed by the current method Minifroggy -----Original Message----- From: Tom Holden <ve3meo@gmail.com> To: rootsmagic-users <rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thu, Dec 27, 2012 11:21 am Subject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth, death and burial events when all occur in the same year Of course you don't see it as a big issue because your data has a small roportion of same-dated 'natural' events, you have a tool that nobody else as to easily find these problems, and you understand how to manipulate Sort ates to put them into the 'natural' order. Now click this: ttps://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Aforums.rootsmagic.com+birth+death+order nd see that it is a recurring complaint among users to discover that RM oes not know better and puts some of them in the wrong order. And that sers migrating from other software that does handle them reasonably are tunned that RM does not. And moreover, there are users (not only new ones) ho are virtually unaware of the role of the Sort Date and how to manipulate t to advantage independently of the Event Date, let alone the flexibility nherent in the -n suffix. While it's a non-issue for you and for many thers, the evidence is clear that it is a real irritant and frustration for thers, adds noise to the forums and detracts from the reputation of the oftware. I'm quite certain that RM support, along with the willing helpers n the forums would welcome the removal of this sore point. Here's an example of the arbitrariness with which RM presents events on the ame date; four events, the first entered with Place=1, second with Place=2, tc. Here's the order that RM presents them: dit Person before closing: 2431 dit Person after save and reopen: 3412 imeLine View: 4321 M Explorer: 3412 arrative report: 1234 ndiv summary: 1234 I used Birth and Death events in this test entered in the order BDDB. There s no tool in RM to report any problem with the order of these events. Users ther than Red cannot readily find there is a problem; they may not discover t until they are well through proof reading a RM Book! By adding a suffix to the Sort Date (NOT the event date), these same date vents can be resolved so that they are consistent among all the above creens, with the exception of "Edit Person before closing" which may not if ny of the Sort Dates are still identical. So, for example, I append -10 for irth and -70 for Death (it could be -1 and -2, respectively but using arger numbers and steps leaves room for the insertion of other same date vents. Now that is pretty easy, for one person at a time. And the script I rote for SQLite 3 will apply those offsets to every Birth, Death and other otential same date events in seconds, thus resolving most every same date isordering of these events that have a 'natural' order, but it, too, is not accessible' to everyone. What I have proposed is that Bruce makes a teensy little tweak to the oftware that should probably take him just a few minutes to write that ould apply the suffix offset to selected Fact Types when it generates the ort Date. I believe it can be done with a single additional CASE or quivalent clause of the sort: ASE HEN FactType is Birth THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-10' HEN FactType is Christen THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-20' .. HEN FactType is Death THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-70' HEN FactType is Cremation THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-80' HEN FactType is Burial THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-90' .. LSE SortDateString = EventDateString NDCASE The offsets I have chosen here are for illustration. As the max offset is 999, there are lots to choose from. Easy enhancement - happier customers - demonstration that RM is listening nd responsive - what's more to ask for? Tom -----Original Message----- rom: Red Fenton ent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 10:06 AM o: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com ubject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth,death and burial vents when all occur in the same year I just don't see this being the big issue that people are making it. I just ave never found it to be a problem so I wrote a small program to find where ad the same date for birth and baptism, birth and death, or death and urial; t turns out to be in less than one half of one percent of the total number f act entries in my database. On those rare occasions when they might be the ame I use the sort date or the more common case for me is where I pick up he eath Date from a tombstone I enter the death date as that on the tombstone nd he burial date as being AFT the death date. Doing it at the time of data ntry takes no time at all. I would rather see Bruce continue to use his ime o provide us with new capabilities like he has been doing than "fix" a roblem hat is easily handled by the program as it now stands. ----- Original Message ---- rom: George W. Durman <GermannaResearch@comcast.net> o: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com ent: Thu, December 27, 2012 12:00:57 AM ubject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth, death and burial vents hen all occur in the same year I'm almost ignorant on this subject, but how difficult would it be for those ho write the code for RootsMagic to make the program sort by EVENT, .e., Birth, Christening, Marriage, Death, Burial, etc., regardless of the ate? FTM does that automatically, Birth comes before Marriage, Marriage comes efore Death, Death comes before Burial, etc. Is it so difficult to sort by logical Events? Doesn't seem to be an insurmountable problem, just takes common sense. f Birth, Death, and Burial all happen in the same year, why can't RM utomatically align the events to show a logical progression? Sarge ermanna Database at Ancestry: ttp://trees.ancestry.com/tree/28427876/family My Germanna Database at Rootsweb: ttp://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=germanna My Germanna Website at Rootsweb: ttp://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/index.html =================================== M list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ ttp://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS ISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: ttp://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------ o unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to OOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without he uotes in the subject and the body of the message ================================== M list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ ttp://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS ISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: ttp://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------ o unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to OOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without he quotes in the subject and the body of the message =================================== M list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ ttp://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS ISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------ o unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com ith the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of he message

For my part I've never had a problem with setting the sort date for those cases where the certain events actual or assumed dates didn't line up chronologically automatically. The sort date works easily for me with very little effort. I would prefer that the software not be altered with a switch to make birth, marriage, death, and funeral and other events line up in some popular or assume common sense sequence. My observation has been that life events don't actually follow some popularly assumed order or sequence in real lives. I vote for leaving this thing as is. For years I've referred to this list almost daily and more often than not learn something, even if it isn't something that is on my personal importance list at the time. Sometimes a thread goes on a little long but eventually goes away, but this thread has gone on ad nauseam and am eager to have it end. I don't care who thinks they are right and has a hold on common sense, but I do know that Bruce has the best genealogy program out there for many years for us to use. I still trust that he makes the best choices for that program that will meet the needs of genealogists and their professional criteria as well as some of us family history hobbyists. We can't all have the lily gilded to our personal preferences. Thanks for a great program, Bruce. John Robbins

I am usually quiet - but always here and have part of this group for a very long time. I have learned a lot on this list and continue to do so. I thought it was decided we had heard enough of this. It's still the holiday season - Lets take a more positive outlook for awhile. Deborah LaFine-Rhoads What a Great program that continues to grow and improve.

Of course you don't see it as a big issue because your data has a small proportion of same-dated 'natural' events, you have a tool that nobody else has to easily find these problems, and you understand how to manipulate Sort Dates to put them into the 'natural' order. Now click this: https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Aforums.rootsmagic.com+birth+death+order and see that it is a recurring complaint among users to discover that RM does not know better and puts some of them in the wrong order. And that users migrating from other software that does handle them reasonably are stunned that RM does not. And moreover, there are users (not only new ones) who are virtually unaware of the role of the Sort Date and how to manipulate it to advantage independently of the Event Date, let alone the flexibility inherent in the -n suffix. While it's a non-issue for you and for many others, the evidence is clear that it is a real irritant and frustration for others, adds noise to the forums and detracts from the reputation of the software. I'm quite certain that RM support, along with the willing helpers in the forums would welcome the removal of this sore point. Here's an example of the arbitrariness with which RM presents events on the same date; four events, the first entered with Place=1, second with Place=2, etc. Here's the order that RM presents them: Edit Person before closing: 2431 Edit Person after save and reopen: 3412 TimeLine View: 4321 RM Explorer: 3412 Narrative report: 1234 Indiv summary: 1234 I used Birth and Death events in this test entered in the order BDDB. There is no tool in RM to report any problem with the order of these events. Users other than Red cannot readily find there is a problem; they may not discover it until they are well through proof reading a RM Book! By adding a suffix to the Sort Date (NOT the event date), these same date events can be resolved so that they are consistent among all the above screens, with the exception of "Edit Person before closing" which may not if any of the Sort Dates are still identical. So, for example, I append -10 for Birth and -70 for Death (it could be -1 and -2, respectively but using larger numbers and steps leaves room for the insertion of other same date events. Now that is pretty easy, for one person at a time. And the script I wrote for SQLite 3 will apply those offsets to every Birth, Death and other potential same date events in seconds, thus resolving most every same date disordering of these events that have a 'natural' order, but it, too, is not 'accessible' to everyone. What I have proposed is that Bruce makes a teensy little tweak to the software that should probably take him just a few minutes to write that would apply the suffix offset to selected Fact Types when it generates the Sort Date. I believe it can be done with a single additional CASE or equivalent clause of the sort: CASE WHEN FactType is Birth THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-10' WHEN FactType is Christen THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-20' ... WHEN FactType is Death THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-70' WHEN FactType is Cremation THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-80' WHEN FactType is Burial THEN SortDateString = EventDateString || '-90' ... ELSE SortDateString = EventDateString ENDCASE The offsets I have chosen here are for illustration. As the max offset is 4999, there are lots to choose from. Easy enhancement - happier customers - demonstration that RM is listening and responsive - what's more to ask for? Tom -----Original Message----- From: Red Fenton Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 10:06 AM To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth,death and burial events when all occur in the same year I just don't see this being the big issue that people are making it. I just have never found it to be a problem so I wrote a small program to find where I had the same date for birth and baptism, birth and death, or death and burial; It turns out to be in less than one half of one percent of the total number of fact entries in my database. On those rare occasions when they might be the same I use the sort date or the more common case for me is where I pick up the Death Date from a tombstone I enter the death date as that on the tombstone and the burial date as being AFT the death date. Doing it at the time of data entry takes no time at all. I would rather see Bruce continue to use his time to provide us with new capabilities like he has been doing than "fix" a problem that is easily handled by the program as it now stands. ----- Original Message ---- From: George W. Durman <GermannaResearch@comcast.net> To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com Sent: Thu, December 27, 2012 12:00:57 AM Subject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth, death and burial events when all occur in the same year I'm almost ignorant on this subject, but how difficult would it be for those who write the code for RootsMagic to make the program sort by EVENT, i.e., Birth, Christening, Marriage, Death, Burial, etc., regardless of the date? FTM does that automatically, Birth comes before Marriage, Marriage comes before Death, Death comes before Burial, etc. Is it so difficult to sort by logical Events? Doesn't seem to be an insurmountable problem, just takes common sense. If Birth, Death, and Burial all happen in the same year, why can't RM automatically align the events to show a logical progression? Sarge Germanna Database at Ancestry: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/28427876/family My Germanna Database at Rootsweb: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=germanna My Germanna Website at Rootsweb: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/index.html =================================== RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message =================================== RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Well said!! On 12/27/2012 10:06 AM, Red Fenton wrote: > I just don't see this being the big issue that people are making it. I just > have never found it to be a problem so I wrote a small program to find where I > had the same date for birth and baptism, birth and death, or death and burial; > It turns out to be in less than one half of one percent of the total number of > fact entries in my database. On those rare occasions when they might be the > same I use the sort date or the more common case for me is where I pick up the > Death Date from a tombstone I enter the death date as that on the tombstone and > the burial date as being AFT the death date. Doing it at the time of data > entry takes no time at all. I would rather see Bruce continue to use his time > to provide us with new capabilities like he has been doing than "fix" a problem > that is easily handled by the program as it now stands. > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: George W. Durman <GermannaResearch@comcast.net> > To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com > Sent: Thu, December 27, 2012 12:00:57 AM > Subject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth, death and burial events > when all occur in the same year > > I'm almost ignorant on this subject, but how difficult would it be for those > who write the code for RootsMagic to make the program sort by EVENT, > i.e., Birth, Christening, Marriage, Death, Burial, etc., regardless of the date? > > FTM does that automatically, Birth comes before Marriage, Marriage comes > before Death, Death comes before Burial, etc. > > Is it so difficult to sort by logical Events? > > Doesn't seem to be an insurmountable problem, just takes common sense. > If Birth, Death, and Burial all happen in the same year, why can't RM > automatically align the events to show a logical progression? > > Sarge > > > Germanna Database at Ancestry: > http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/28427876/family > > My Germanna Database at Rootsweb: > http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=germanna > > My Germanna Website at Rootsweb: > http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/index.html > > > > =================================== > RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS > WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > =================================== > RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS > WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

When I open RM ver 6 I am getting a SQLite error 26 message. What is the trouble? Once I close the error message window, I am able to work in the system.

Thank you, Red! This horse died sometime ago and was buried, all in chronological order. Norman ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2012 07:06:21 -0800 (PST) From: Red Fenton <redfenton@sbcglobal.net> Subject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth, death and burial events when all occur in the same year To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <1356620781.54650.YahooMailRC@web184303.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 I just don't see this being the big issue that people are making it.? I just have never found it to be a problem so I wrote a small program to find where I had the same date for birth and baptism, birth and death, or death and burial;? It turns out to be in less than one half of one percent of the total number of fact entries in my database.? On those rare occasions when they might be the same I use the sort date or the more common case for me is where I pick up the Death Date from a tombstone I enter the death date as that on the tombstone and the?burial date as being AFT the death date.?? Doing it at the time of data entry takes no time at all.? I would rather see Bruce continue to use his time to provide us with new capabilities like he has been doing than "fix" a problem that is easily handled by the program as it now stands.? I invite you to visit the Brown/Wheeler Family Genealogy Blog at: http://brownwheelerfamilyhistory4.wordpress.com/ And our Brown / Wheeler Virtual Memorial Cemetery at: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=vcsr&GSvcid=122584

I notice that in Pedigree view, if I single-click on a person, the LDS ordinance icon and the Family Search icon disappear. I have never noticed this behavior before upgrading to RM6. Is this unique to me? Does it also do this is RM5? Ted Meikle

I just don't see this being the big issue that people are making it.  I just have never found it to be a problem so I wrote a small program to find where I had the same date for birth and baptism, birth and death, or death and burial;  It turns out to be in less than one half of one percent of the total number of fact entries in my database.  On those rare occasions when they might be the same I use the sort date or the more common case for me is where I pick up the Death Date from a tombstone I enter the death date as that on the tombstone and the burial date as being AFT the death date.   Doing it at the time of data entry takes no time at all.  I would rather see Bruce continue to use his time to provide us with new capabilities like he has been doing than "fix" a problem that is easily handled by the program as it now stands.  ----- Original Message ---- From: George W. Durman <GermannaResearch@comcast.net> To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com Sent: Thu, December 27, 2012 12:00:57 AM Subject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth, death and burial events when all occur in the same year I'm almost ignorant on this subject, but how difficult would it be for those who write the code for RootsMagic to make the program sort by EVENT, i.e., Birth, Christening, Marriage, Death, Burial, etc., regardless of the date? FTM does that automatically, Birth comes before Marriage, Marriage comes before Death, Death comes before Burial, etc. Is it so difficult to sort by logical Events?  Doesn't seem to be an insurmountable problem, just takes common sense. If Birth, Death, and Burial all happen in the same year, why can't RM automatically align the events to show a logical progression? Sarge Germanna Database at Ancestry: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/28427876/family My Germanna Database at Rootsweb: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=germanna My Germanna Website at Rootsweb: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/index.html =================================== RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/  BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Greetings and a peaceful new year I like having to put a sort date myself because it means I have to read other fact data and enter a suitable date. I can immediately see any anomalies and flag for future research. I do voluntary help for new comers to this wonderful passtime. I have noted that many people copy data from other sources without checking if correct or indeed their family. (Entering data and ) checking dates would have shown them the possible error of their ways. Only if they check with original data / documents will I help them. I have recently found that one of my own conflicts is not so because there were two people with same name in same place and the one I had some data for is not mine after all. I have deleted that data and put a note of what i had found etc. so that i do not repeat it. If auto sort on or available I may not have spotted it. regards Richard in UK (FO 4 on ) Great software which I recommend to all I have used many others and RM on the whole is more user friendly.

I'm almost ignorant on this subject, but how difficult would it be for those who write the code for RootsMagic to make the program sort by EVENT, i.e., Birth, Christening, Marriage, Death, Burial, etc., regardless of the date? FTM does that automatically, Birth comes before Marriage, Marriage comes before Death, Death comes before Burial, etc. Is it so difficult to sort by logical Events? Doesn't seem to be an insurmountable problem, just takes common sense. If Birth, Death, and Burial all happen in the same year, why can't RM automatically align the events to show a logical progression? Sarge Germanna Database at Ancestry: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/28427876/family My Germanna Database at Rootsweb: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=germanna My Germanna Website at Rootsweb: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/index.html

And it may flip order between the Event Save and the next time the Edit Person screen is opened, IIRC. So that, too, should be resolved with unique SortDates for 'natural' events on the same date. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Alfred Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2012 10:22 PM To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [RMagic] RootsMagic 6 - sorting of birth, death and burial events when all occur in the same year DARN! I am mistaken AGAIN! You were right, only I was reading it backwards. The lase entered item is on TOP, not in the order it should be

There would be no degradation in the detectability of typo errors with the enhancement I propose to the auto-generation of the SortDate on Date entry, Date edit, and GEDCOM import that would resolve the current disordering of same-date events such as Birth and Death. Currently, the two events dated 12 Jan 1912 both receive auto-generated SortDates of 12 Jan 1912. Because the SortDates are identical, RM will output them in an order that relates to the order of record creation, which, as often as not, is the wrong way round. The enhancement would auto-generate the Birth SortDate as 12 Jan 1912-10 and the Death SortDate as 12 Jan 1912-70. RM sees these as different dates and will sort them chronologically, regardless of the order in which their records were created. The offsets of -10 and -70 (or whatever Bruce deems to be appropriate) leave plenty of room for other possible same date events to be interposed in the right order, using a different offset (up to 4999, I believe). The user is free to override these SortDates with different values, just as he/she can currently. All Birth dates would automatically be treated with the same offset, regardless; likewise Death dates, whether or not any other event occurred on the same date. If unique on that date, the offset has no effect on the event order. This enhancement does not dictate or change anything that the user currently has under his control. Rather, it relieves the user from having to find instances of same date events for which he/she must fiddle the SortDates to get the order to be natural and logical. I cannot see anything about it that could be counterproductive or counterintuitive. I do see positive benefits and a potential educational value in introducing the use of the SortDate offsets of which many users are completely unaware. Tom On 2012-12-25, at 7:20 AM, "Jesse Davis" <jespat@verizon.net> wrote: > The way it is done now helps catch typo errors quickly. Otherwise, they might stay until someone else catches them. > Merry Christmas. > J. Davis > >

DARN! I am mistaken AGAIN! You were right, only I was reading it backwards. The lase entered item is on TOP, not in the order it should be Sorry about that Tom Alfred =================== Alfred wrote: > Tom, > You have been saying this for a long time. > I see no relationship between the order in which the birth and death > items are entered and which event is displayed first in the edit person > window. > No matter which I enter first, Death seems to float to the top every > time as long as they have the same dates. > > I know, I can enter the sort date and it is no problem for me, but I > think you are mistaken about the first entered being listed first. > > Alfred > ========= > > > Tom Holden wrote: > >> cutCurrently, the two events dated 12 Jan 1912 both receive auto-generated SortDates of 12 Jan 1912. Because the SortDates are identical, RM will output them in an order that relates to the order of record creation, which, as often as not, is the wrong way round. >> >> cut >> >> Tom >> >> >

Tom, You have been saying this for a long time. I see no relationship between the order in which the birth and death items are entered and which event is displayed first in the edit person window. No matter which I enter first, Death seems to float to the top every time as long as they have the same dates. I know, I can enter the sort date and it is no problem for me, but I think you are mistaken about the first entered being listed first. Alfred ========= Tom Holden wrote: > cutCurrently, the two events dated 12 Jan 1912 both receive auto-generated SortDates of 12 Jan 1912. Because the SortDates are identical, RM will output them in an order that relates to the order of record creation, which, as often as not, is the wrong way round. > > cut > > Tom > > >

Tom already answered, but I thought I would add some comments of my own in response to Bruce's questions about Tom's script. > I haven't tried Tom's script, but I see that it puts a -# on the end of > the > sort date. I'm asking the following questions just to get an idea of how > it handles situations which aren't simply two events with the same date. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > How does it handle a birth and death where neither has a date (and > therefore no sort dates). It doesn't touch facts with no sort dates. Therefore, a birth and death where neither has a date (and therefore no sort dates) is not affected. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > How does it handle a situation like this? > Married 1800 > Born (no date) > Died (no date) It doesn't touch marriage facts. It doesn't touch facts with no sort dates. Therefore, these facts are not affected. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not asked, but how does it handle a situation like this? Born 1900 Died 1900 Because the sort dates are equal, it changes the sort date for the birth fact to 1900-1 and the sort date for the death fact to 1900-5. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not asked, but how does it handle a situation like this? Born 1900 Died 1910 Because there are no sort dates that are equal, it does not change the sort dates. Jerry

Nothing that I have proposed removes any freedom for you to customize your event order by customizing your sort dates. All it does is to exploit the capabilities of sort dates at the time of date entry so that, by default, the natural or logical order of events that occurred on the same date is respected, thus saving you the nuisance of having to customize your sort dates. By the same token, the process would be applied on import. Tom On 2012-12-25, at 6:44 PM, m absalom <mjabsalom@yahoo.com> wrote: > To all, > > I left a genealogy program that controlled most every thing for RM because I was impressed with the option to customize many more items. Yes it is annoying to find that an infant died before birth but I know to set the sort date. Here is one for those of you who would prefer automated structure. My husband's ancestors were involved in pirating and privateering. One had several aka's, died and was buried in more than one place and at several different points in time, under different names. His events continued after he died multiple times. I prefer my freedom to choose. The only way to compromise would be to have a database preference box to tick and it should be auto sort or manual sort. Anything more or in between would complicate what does not need to be complicated. In my opinion, the sort date process is not complicated. > Jane > > > =================================== > RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS > WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message