TMG (The Master Genealogist) is a very powerful and flexible genealogical database tool and in some respects can be rather complicated to use. In this article I describe the use of flags, filters, and focus groups for the purpose of exporting out specific data from TMG to GEDCOM. For my purpose I wanted to export out information regarding specific branches within my TMG database for import into PhpGedView. My goal was to create three separate exports: one for my maternal grandmother's family, one for my maternal grandfather's family, and a one for my father's side of the family (in my case I do not have enough information on my paternal grandmother's family to warrant creating separate exports for my paternal grandparents). Also, I wanted to limit the exported information to non-living individuals.

Creating and Setting Flags

To begin, I first needed to create a flag. Instead of creating three or more "Y/N/?" flags, I created one flag called "Blood Relatives" and I assigned a list of codes for the flag (A,B,C,D,E,L,Z). (I found more than one reason for doing it this way, as I explain below).

Calling the flag "Blood Relatives" is kind of a misnomer because I want to flag everyone who is related to either my father or my two maternal grandparents by either blood or marriage - in other words all of their ancestors, their ancestor's descendents, and their ancestor's descendents spouses.

This flag has more than one use. I use this flag not only for controlling export to GEDCOM, but also for output from SecondSite, and for setting the Accents feature.

To create the custom flag from the main menu select File -> Flag Manager and select Add

I created a flag called "BLOOD_RELATIVES" and allowed for the flag to have 7 possible values and I used the Description field to make note of what each value defined:

Z = None or not related
A = Related to my father
B = Related to my maternal grandmother
C = Related to my maternal grandfather
D = special flag for both of my maternal grandparents
E = special flag for my parents
L = Living Y or ?