5 replies to this topic

[Elizabeth Tilton]

Has anyone created a marriage sentence to share which reads something like:
Susie Q Smith married John Joseph Doe, son of James Josiah Doe and Nancy Lee Brown, on 20 Feb 2010 in Santa Barbara, California.
and the reverse, Groom married Bride, daughter of .........

Sorry to be such a klutz but I don't know how to do this. Without it I am dead in the water for narrative reports.

Thanks much from Elizabeth

[TomH]

Open Lists > Fact Type List, select the Marriage fact type and Edit:
Add the following roles and their sentences if they do not exist (I think TMG direct import includes these rolenames but a simpler sentence):

Father of Bride: [ThisPerson], as the father of the bride, attended the wedding of his daughter [Wife]< and [Husband]>< [Date]>< [Place]>.
Mother of Bride: [ThisPerson], as the mother of the bride, attended the wedding of her daughter [Wife]< and [Husband]>< [Date]>< [Place]>.
Father of Groom: [ThisPerson], as the father of the groom, attended the wedding of his son [Husband]< and [Wife]>< [Date]>< [Place]>.
Mother of Groom: [ThisPerson], as the mother of the groom, attended the wedding of her son [Husband]< and [Wife]>< [Date]>< [Place]>.

 
Change the default or Principal sentence to:

[Person] married [Spouse]<%Spouse%<, son of [Father of Groom]<?[Father of Groom]|<?[Mother of Groom]| and |>|>[Mother of Groom],>|<, daughter of [Father of Bride]<?[Father of Bride]|<?[Mother of Bride]| and >|>[Mother of Bride],>>< [Date]>< [PlaceDetails]>< [Place]>.

Then Edit one of the persons who married to share the event with the four parents, assigning the appropriate role to each. 
 
Example outputs:
 
Father of Groom: John, as the father of the groom, attended the wedding of his son Frank ALEXANDER and Mary Catherine KEEBLER on 24 Dec 1861 in Elizabethton, Carter County, Tennessee.
 
Principal (male with parent of bride witnesses): Frank ALEXANDER married Mary Catherine KEEBLER, daughter of Benjamin Franklin KEEBLER and Elizabeth Range WRIGHT, on 24 Dec 1861 at the John W. Tipton home in Elizabethton, Carter County, Tennessee.
 

Principal (male with no parent of bride witnesses): John ALEXANDER married Delilah WOODS on 22 Jan 1835 in Sullivan County, Tennessee.
 
The Principal sentence is tricky as it is designed to suppress "and" if either of the parent roles is empty, suppresses the commas around the son/dau phrase and the phrase itself  if both parent roles are empty, and has to switch the phrase according to the gender of the [Spouse] person. Ideally, it should also suppress the trailing comma of the son/dau phrase if  [Date], [PlaceDetail] and [Place] are all empty but that adds another switch of the form <?[Date][PlaceDetail][Place]|,|> to further confuse. It is often easier to redesign the desired sentence so that punctuation is not conditional on something and to make it gender neutral. That said, the RootsMagic sentence template syntax is more powerful than that of TMG's in this respect: the nesting of conditional switches, 4-deep in this case.

[zhangrau]

Wow. Very interesting !

[TomH]

I discovered a limitation in RootsMagic sentence template syntax: variable names having embedded spaces do not always work, for example a rolename in a gender switch. It is advisable to name roles without spaces.

Also, in the example above, the number of roles could be halved by using the gender switch and a common role for the father and mother of each person:
 

BrideParent: [ThisPerson], as the <%ThisPerson%father|mother|> of the bride, attended the wedding of [ThisPerson:HisHer] daughter [Wife]< and [Husband]>< [Date]>< [Place]>.
GroomParent: [ThisPerson], as the <%ThisPerson%father|mother|> of the groom, attended the wedding of [ThisPerson:HisHer] son [Husband]< and [Wife]>< [Date]>< [Place]>.

[Elizabeth Tilton]

Oh, Tom, what an elegant solution to the marriage sentence issue! I appreciate your spending the time and sharing of your skills to figure it out.

This is exactly how I want my default marriage sentence for all narrative reports to read:
Frank Alexander married Mary Catherine Keebler, daughter of Benjamin Franklin Keebler and Elizabeth Range Wright, on 24 Dec 1861 at the John W. Tipton home in Elizabethton, Carter County, Tennessee.
Surely I am not the only user who prefers this output!

But it is mind boggling to me to think I could really carry out your instructions with my modest level of skill. In TMG I use only the canned roles and customize the sentences to my liking, which works out fine for my needs since I am not a Power User. (My marriage sentence reads
[P] married [PO] <[PARO]> <[D]> <[L]> <[A]> )
However I have copied your messages into a file for printing, and some morning when I am feeling adventuresome I will give it a try.

You are a good Roots Magician. Thank you.

[TomH]

You're welcome, Elizabeth. It is delightful to think that I, too, could be motoring along with new software at 88! There is bit one RootsMagician: Bruce Buzbee, owner/developer of RootsMagic. I am the founder of the RootsMagic Wizards Guild so I claim only to be aWizard.

Your case demonstrates the need for the equivalents to TMG [PAR] and [PARO] in RootsMagic to simplify sentence construction and sharing.