I have been experimenting with RootsMagic for a while. Please understand that this is only a partially informed opinion. I'm certainly no RM expert. Also, my results are based on TMG 9.03 GEDCOM output and RM's import of that. That is a fairly narrow funnel to filter your data through. My analysis illustrates why Jim Byrum's announcement about TMG 9.04 is so significant for GEDCOM export possibilities. I have spent quite a bit of time on Census data. I see that as a good example of the problems we all face. It seems like there are almost as many different, customized approaches to recording Census data as there are TMG users. There is no possibility that any data export/import will understand all of our customized nuances for census data entry in TMG, or any other customized tag for that matter. With that context, here is what I have discovered: - As has been well documented, absolutely no witness information is exported by TMG currently. Thus it is not imported. -If you use any kind of data subdivisions like [M1], [M2] or [CD1], [CD2], etc. your data comes across without interpretation, complete with imbedded "||"'s. It would be incumbent on TMG to interpret this kind of information during the export process if its meaning is going to be preserved. -- RM has two fields that represent all "Places". The labels from RM for these two fields are: "Place (City, County, State, etc.)" and "Place details (address, hospital, cemetery, etc.)". All TMG place fields get concatenated together, separated by commas and exported as a GEDCOM "place". On import, this data is put in the "Place" field. "Place details" is left unpopulated. -- RM has a family structure. So when you have two principals for an event such as a census record, it will be imported as a family "fact" if possible. There appears to be a lot of debate even among RM users as to whether the family facts are the best approach for anything other than marriages. -- RM has the ability to define roles in what is called "shared facts". They are nice but not as robust as the TMG role concept. Likewise the "shared facts" do not export well, just as roles do not in TMG. In fact many RM users avoid shared facts just as TMG users avoid roles and witnesses because of the export limitations. -- RM has a very robust sentence construction mechanism that I see as easier to use than TMG in some ways. But TMG and RM sentences are not compatible and thus are not imported. It would take some nifty programming to build a TMG to RM sentence translator, but it might be possible within limits. RM sentences are defined for each "fact" and also for each role in a "shared fact". -- The Description field in a RM fact is of limited length (90 characters, I believe) and its use seems to be up to the discretion of the user most of the time (see below). RM sentences may refer to the Description with the variable [Desc] but that is the only option. I.e. you either include the entire description in one place in your sentence or you don't. -- The Note field appears to be of arbitrary length, much like the Memo fields in TMG, but RM memos do not support the use of any sentence variables to allow for automated note generation and there is no facility to include Notes in RM sentences. -- Although RM has a "Narrative Report", it does not include the same things TMG narratives include. There are not as many options in RM to influence the formatting of the narrative. RM's report is intended to be a paragraph about each person created from sentences followed by the contents of the Note for each fact. It does have the option of putting the output from each "fact" in a separate paragraph, but that is about it. RM does work similarly to TMG with the substitution of pronouns for names and the sentence definitions do give you the opportunity to override the defaults. RM does not include marriages in its narrative. Neither TMG nor RM include births of children. -- RM allows you to define "Custom facts", similar to TMG. My custom tag types imported but the sentence was always "Sentence needs to be defined." -- RM supplies standard source templates based on Evidence Explained as well as other standards and you can define your own custom source templates similar to TMG custom source definitions. But none of the definitions, standard or otherwise, in TMG are translated on import. All TMG sources are exported as "free form". Thus no source is recognized as a census citation, for example, and the definitions of the individual source elements is completely lost. I have not done much with RM data export. For census information, the RM Description field is output as an "Event descriptor" portion of the standard CENS GEDCOM tag. For example, "1 CENS Contents of Description field would appear here". According to the documentation I have, I'm not sure that is a standard GEDCOM construct. The generic EVEN GEDCOM event tag is documented to support an "Event Descriptor" but I see no indication that this construct is valid for other events such CENS or MARR, etc. So importing the contents of the description field here may not be generally supported. For a Death fact, the Description field is output as a GEDCOM "CAUS" tag, indicating the cause of death. Thus in this case the meaning of the Description field is restricted if you intend to do GEDCOM exports. The NOTE field is output as a standard GEDCOM NOTE tag with subsequent CONC tags as necessary. NOTEs are generally accepted in GEDCOM, and they should export in just about all cases, I would think. As is so often the case, your mileage may vary... John N. -----Original Message----- From: tmg-refugees-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:tmg-refugees-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of karenhappuch via Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2014 8:19 PM To: tmg-refugees@rootsweb.com Subject: [TMG-REFUGEES] GEDCOM, note, and description Both Legacy and Rootsmagic have Note and Description in their Events (what TMGers would call Tags). The TMG memo field imports into both programs as Note. I'm assuming that Legacy and Rootsmagic's Note and Description fields are actually memo fields. Correct? And does anyone know if they would then both export to another program? Barbara *** To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TMG-REFUGEES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the message subject and body. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TMG-REFUGEES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com