The Comment Tag: By Request

Comments on the Comment Tag: By Request

In the beginning, TMG was a database manager, one I believed to be superior to others on the market because it allowed me the freedom to determine the information I wanted to enter, the manner in which it would be entered, and the way I would use it. I created many reports designed to help me facilitate my research efforts and analyze the results. In addition, I used pedigree charts and family group sheets, as they became available, to display my progress. All was good in my TMG-land.

Since TMG was such a capable database manager, it didn't seem too great a stretch to ask for automatic journal reports, and Bob Velke obliged. By using TMG's impressive array of sentence variables, the user could now generate a narrative report with very little effort. Essentially, TMG was now a word processor as well as a database manager. This journal report could also be sent to a real word processor for final polishing by the proud author. I was very happy - until I began to consider writing for publication. No matter how many roles I created, or how often I varied my individual sentences, my reports still sounded canned. Each report required extensive rewriting, and the process had to be repeated each time I found significant new information. What was this lazy person to do?

Out of this dilemma arose my Comment tag. It's simply a formatted memo field that I use to write my own narrative. This illustration shows the tag in action.

The tag automatically begins with a carriage return and a tab and ends with another carriage return. Hence, a double space separates each paragraph.
Embedded citations identify the source for each statement of fact. [Warning! At last report, embedded citations were not renumbered if the user decided to renumber sources in the Master Source List. In other words, don't renumber your Master Source List if you use TMG's embedded citation feature.]
The sort date places each comment tag in the correct narrative order.

All journal reports include a telegraph paragraph that includes basic life events: birth, marriage, death, and burial. I still use roles and sentence variables to customize these sentences. The rest of the report, though, consists of comment tags. To see the difference, compare these two reports.

Benjamin S. Gifford: Journal Report Using Tags

Benjamin S. Gifford: Journal Report Using Comments

Using the comment tag makes rewriting a journal report a little easier. As you find new information, simply add or rewrite the appropriate comment tags. Although you will still want to polish any narrative report in your word processor, a solid beginning has already been made!

Francis M. Gifford: Initial Report

Francis M. Gifford: Revised Report with New Information

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