Setting Flags

Flags can be set for each individual in the database by opening the "Flags Window" while viewing an individual, but this could be very tedious (not mention nearly impossible) to have to set flags for hundreds or thousands of people on an individual basis.

Within TMG there is a feature of the Reports that allows you create a "report" which instead of being a report designed for output to a file or printer is a "report" designed for setting flags.

In the list of codes for my "Blood Relatives" flag there are two codes "Z" for "not related" and "L" for "Living".  I first wanted to set the "Blood Relatives" flag for every individual in my database to "Z", then set the flag to "A", "B", or "C" depending on which group the individual is part of, and then finally set the flag to "L" for all living individuals (which essentially excludes the living from A,B, or C). There are only four people in my database for whom the "E" and "D" code would apply so I will just set those manually.

First to set everyone to "Z", from the main menu select Report -> List of... -> People. In the Report Definition screen under Configuration click the Add button and create a new report called "Not Related". On the Report Definition screen under "Subjects of the Report" select the "All People in the Project" option. Then click the "Options" button at the bottom of the Report Definition screen and from the Options dialog select the "Secondary Output" tab.

Check the "Change Flag" option. From the drop down select the "Blood Relatives" flag and then set the value to "Z". Check "Suppress Output..." option and then click the "OK" button.

Back at the Report Definition screen, select "Create Report". You will be asked to confirm if you want to change the flag for all selected individuals (say Yes), and if you want to change the last edited date for these individuals (say No).

The next step is to create three more "secondary output" reports that set the flags to "A", "B", or "C". To do this I repeated the steps above, but instead of selecting "All People in the Project" I need to create a filter so that only specific individuals are considered.

I started with my maternal grandfather and I noted that his TMG ID is 89 and so from the Report Definition Screen, I checked "Filtered Group" and clicked add filter. From the "Report Filter" dialog I created a new filter and called it "ancestors of maternal grandfather". In the filter section I created a query for "Is an Ancestor" "of ID #" 89 and down at the bottom I under "And then their", I checked "Spouses" and "Descendants".

The order in which I manipulated this flag was important. I started with my maternal grandfather because there is a trickle-down effect to setting these flags. As you may guess, by selecting "Spouses" and "Descendants", at least two people whom I do not want to have the "C" setting (relatives of my maternal grandfather) are going to get this setting (my father and my maternal grandmother), but that's okay because subsequent steps will clean this up.

Once you have created the filter select OK and back at the Report Definition screen click the "Options" button at the bottom of the Report Definition screen and from the Options dialog select the "Secondary Output" tab.  Check the "Change Flag" option. From the drop down select the "Blood Relatives" flag and then set the value to "C". Check "Suppress Output..." option and then click the "OK" button.

Back at the Report Definition screen, select "Create Report". You be asked to confirm if you want to change the flag for all selected individuals (say Yes), and if you want to change the last edited date for these individuals (say No).

At this point everyone who is related to my maternal grandfather by blood or marriage (including my maternal grandmother, my father, my mother, and also me) have the "Blood Relatives" flag set to "C".

The next step is to repeat the same steps I used for my maternal grandfather to set the "Blood Relatives" flag to "B" for my maternal grandmother's ancestors, her ancestor's descendents, and her ancestor's descendents spouses. Following this step everyone who is related to my maternal grandmother by blood or marriage (including my maternal grandfather, my father, my mother and also me) have the "Blood Relatives" flag set to "B".

Next I repeated the same steps I used for my maternal grandparents to set the "Blood Relatives" flag to "A" for my father's ancestors, his ancestor's descendents, and his ancestor's descendents spouses. Following this step everyone who is related to my father by blood or marriage have the "Blood Relatives" flag set to "A". The flags for my maternal grandparents will not have been changed in this pass because they are neither descendents of his ancestors, nor are they spouses of descendents of his ancestors.  (NOTE: this would not be case if my parents were distant cousins who shared a common ancestor, but this since this is not the case I did not have to be concerned with this).

There are two final steps to getting the "Blood Relatives" flag set correctly. First I want to exclude anyone who is living by setting their "Blood Relatives" flag to "L". To do this I create another "Secondary Output" report filtered on the built-in LIVING flag.  The LIVING flag is a built-in flag that defaults to "?" for each individual added to the database. TMG automatically sets it to N when a death or burial tag is entered, or when a birth group tag indicates that the person would be more than 110 years old. You can change the LIVING flag to Y to use it with filters. 

The filter query I created is "LIVING <> N" AND "BLOOD_RELATIVES <> Z".  This filter will include all living individuals who have had the "blood relatives" flag set to "A, B, or C" in the previous steps so we can now set the flag for them to "L".

Then from the "Secondary Output" tab, I checked the "Change Flag" option. From the drop down select the "Blood Relatives" flag and then set the value to "L". I then checked the "Suppress Output..." option, clicked the "OK" button, and then "Create the Report" - again saying "yes" to change the flag and "no" to change the last edited date.

The final step was to set the "Blood Relatives" for both my maternal grandparents to "D" and for both my parents to "E". I have done this so that within "SecondSite", where I have separate "websites" for my father and my maternal grandparents, I can include my grandmother on my grandfather's website and vice-versa. In "SecondSite", under Database -> People, you can set a single flag filter (one reason for creating one flag instead of separate flags).

In the example from "SecondSite" shown above I set the Flag Value Filter to include "BLOOD_RELATIVES" "CDE", which means that all of my maternal grandfather's relatives by blood or marriage, my maternal grandmother, and both my parents will be included in the output.