Welcome to Allen Mellen's TMG example page 1: Finding the tops of the tree.

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How to find the tops of the tree


For certain purposes it is useful to know the farthest back ancestor in each line. For example you may wish to produce a Genealogy Report or a Descendancy Chart or Narrative for multiple progenitors.

For this purpose I created a custom flag called TWIG with values NY (N is the default.) Then when I want a report based on the ends of the lines, all I need is to specify TWIG=Y.

Although TWIG could be set up by hand, it is simple to let the Custom Report Writer do it for you.

Choose the report — List of People. Remember to make a copy of the sample report. I named mine "Changing Flags&qout;.

The Filter

Filters are set up on the Focus Tab of the Report Definition.

At first I set up the following filter:

Is an Ancestor of Person Number [?] AND
Father-ID# Equals 0 AND
Mother-ID# Equals 0 END
Then I realized that the TWIG flag was generally useful is following lines other than my direct ancestors, so I omitted the clause "Is an Ancestor of ...."

Changing the flag

On the Secondary Output Tab, select Change Flag and choose the TWIG flag. Set the value to Y.

The primary output

It is not possible to change flags without producing an actual list of people. There are several options available to you. Until you are comfortable with filters, I suggest the following ouput columns.