A GEDCOM can be edited to change the character encoding. RM7 seems to export in UTF-8. If TNG wants something else, open the GEDCOM in Notepad, click file/save as. At the bottom of the save dialog you'll see a button which offers UTF-8, ANSI, Unicode and Unicode big endian. Choose your poison and save, either with the existing file name or a new one. Your data will be unaffected.

If I were guessing, I'd try Unicode first.

 

I'm not sure that the Notepad save option is going to do anything useful. Does it even recognise that the GEDCOM is UTF-8? It is in plain text with a tag:

1 CHAR UTF-8

The Notepad trick worked with TMG -- I no longer recollect whether it was an import or export which was giving the problem. It's true that the Notepad save won't change the CHAR designation in the GEDCOM, but that can be done manually if necessary.

I'm pretty sure that Notepad will save in the designated character set, whatever the state of the input file.

>>> I want somebody to answer the telephone. <<<

Yes, and I want to win the lottery and to see peace in the Middle East in my lifetime -- all just as likely. It must be a corollary of Murphy's Law that any paid activity that can be done by a machine will be.

Your database isn't "online," or shouldn't be. It's a file on your machine. To attack it a hacker would have to control your machine, probably through a virus or "Trojan" actually running in your machine. This kind of malware can be inserted into a machine from a flash drive or by accessing a malicious web site. Those are the ways that the infamous "ransomware" can get into your machine. Your defenses against these intrusions are the built-in firewall and regular scans by Windows Defender or other anti-malware programs.

The defenses are incomplete if one accesses unknown web sites or falls for any of the all-too-common scams. For example, words to the effect of "Microsoft has detected malware (or computer problem). Click here to remedy." NEVER "click here" unless you're dealing with a known and legitimate web site.

One of the chief means of getting people to malicious sites is by an e-mail which purports to come from a friend. The malware has somehow gotten into a friend's e-mail list and sends out something like "John thinks you'd be interested in this." The web address you're asked to click on is completely unknown to you. Don't do it!

A little prudence can go a long way.

Should your browser come up with some kind of scam message don't click on anything. Go to the task manager, highlight the browser program and click on "End task." Then run a full system scan, first with your anti-virus program and then with the free download version of Malwarebytes. I keep Malwarebytes on my machine so I don't have to try to download it while under assault.

Hackers are much more likely to be after bigger game than your RootsMagic files. The best way to protect yourself is to maintain a full backup set on an external device which isn't always connected to your computer and to an external site -- i.e., not your home. I periodically send a flash drive with a full system backup to my son who lives a hundred miles away. Were my house to burn down the data would still be protected -- if the rascal can remember where he stowed it.

Some people use a cloud service like Dropbox for their backup files. I don't care for them myself, but many do.

You are worrying unnecessarily. Trebor22 is correct in suggesting that the risk is equal whether you whether RootsMagic is in use or not while you are connected to the internet. Indeed, I suspect that almost all of us use RootsMagic while connected without harmful results. And you seem to be maintaining a desirable level of security.

RootsMagic's GEDCOM output meshes extremely well with John Cardinal's GedSite and GEDCOM Publisher software. The former uses the GEDCOM to build flexible and elegant web sites; the latter constructs e-books from the GEDCOM file.

There are two real improvements that could be made. A RootsMagic GEDCOM does not include witness sentences or sentences from the Alternate name tag. I hope that this can be remedied in Version Eight.

John Cardinal's GedSite program meshes extremely well with RootsMagic and can be used to make wonderful web sites.The home page is at https://www.gedsite.com/en/index.htm. There are links on the page to example sites, including (full disclosure department) my own.

1. The GedSite problem  with family order has been fixed; I was mistakenly using a beta version and incorrectly assumed a bug in the release version.

2. I thank cvernons for pointing out the Spouses & Parents buttons in RM7 which I am ashamed to admit I never noticed before this evening.

Are you certain that only one copy of RootsMagic is open?

Tex LKarence wrote: "This is what ticks me off about Ancestry.com. Even if your brother sits at a computer next to you, and he puts your mother into his tree then you also have to put your mother into your tree."

But suppose it's not your brother, but some semi-literate whose research is sloppy, who is prone to jumping to conclusions, who doesn't bother to provide evidence, and who is often in error, but never in doubt? We've all seen them in Ancestry.com and Family Search histories.

kbenson wrote "I ~believe~ robertacobs0 really meant more than one copy of the database being open at the same time (one cannot run more than one copy of Rootsmagic itself)"

Mea culpa -- thanks for straightening that out.

I would like to search for people for whom I've used the Alternate name tag, and preferably to be able to search for each of the the tag's variations: married, nickname, immigration. etc.

The find function for the person list doesn't seem to offer such searches. Is there a way to do this that I've missed? If not, the omission is Altername name from the find list would seem to be a programming omission.

I owe Kevin a vote of thanks for suggesting the list function which does some of what I need. And I agree with Tom and Vyger that the search & filter facility for alternate name tags by the listed types and also by no_type should be part of the basic program. I'll try to add a suitable request to the wish list tomorrow.

Thanks to all who responded.

Robert

One cannot search the person list to find people who have alternate name tags. I would like to see that ability added, and added so that one can search by the various flavors of the alternate name tag: married, immigrant, AKA, spelling variation, no type designation, etc.

I'm aware -- there is a very useful thread in RM7 issues -- that information about alternate name tags can be obtained via the fact list and through /Reports/Lists/Fact list, but the report generated doesn't show the types of the alternate names in the database. Moreover, it's cumbersome to edit the alternate name tags of individuals when they have been generated by the list and or report function.

What a good idea. I'd try to come. I would like to suggest that it be held in a place where there is a good genealogy library as well. Salt Lake City, Houston, Boston and New York come to mind immediately.

She probably entered the RM8 key code accidentally. There should also be an RM7 key code.

I hope the web isn't "the future," or at least not the entire future. We've already seen the conniptions that developers and users have suffered whilst trying to shoehorn their formats and data into Ancestry and Family Search. It would be far better IMO to have one's own flexible software so that formats and reports are obedient to one's own needs, wishes & designs.

Web data also presents issues of privacy, security and permanence which are not under users' control. Not for me, thank you.

Is there an SQL query that will add an empty birth event to any person who doesn't have one? That might be a handy addition to the RM tools.

Windows may have assigned a different drive letter to the pen drive in the other laptop(s). If you press Windows-key-X you can select "disk management" which will allow you to reset drive letters.The settings are usually persistent, but there are a variety of things which can make them change.

It's like Animal Farm: some jpgs are more equal than others. Try loading your recalcitrant jpg into an editor (perhaps Paint or Photoshop Elements) and save it out as a .jpg Try the saved file in RootsMagic. As Tom H suggested, .jpg files can be internally organized in several different ways.

Legacy may be good software, but it's failure to permit unicode characters is a deal breaker for me. I want Łódź, not Lódz.

Microsoft’s latest shenanigans show increasing abilities to reduce users’ control over their own machines and increased tendencies to do just that — recent alarming article in Forbes Magazine is making me think of moving away from Windows if the trends continue. Has anyone successfully run RootsMagic in a virtual machine under Linux?

I've been a RootsMagic user ever since Wholly Genes folded, but I haven't encountered any "meaningless promises." I agree that "confirming this is on the enhancement request list" is annoying.

I would prefer that the list of enhancement requests were posted, together with the number of users who would favor each. Family Historian does that; it makes one feel more a participant in the software's direction than a supplicant, begging at the gate.

If I may say so, I think it's an error to lay one's frustrations on the heads of small specialized software companies. I know nothing of the economics of software publishing, but it's clear that if one wants to hire a full-time programmer at, say, $50,000 per annum, that one has to sell 1000 copies of a $50 software package every year just to pay the programmer alone -- and one hasn't even begun to pay for overhead, taxes, food for the family, a roof over one's head, and the services of a charming and technically adept person who has to write "confirming this is on the enhancement request list" on the forum, probably more often than she cares to.

Instead of the period, would it be possible to use the old invisible non-breaking space? It may be Unicode (U+200B). I don't recollect the ASCII value, but I'm pretty sure there was one. This goes back to the glory days of WordPerfect.

Use the "sort date" feature on the edit person screen to establish a date one day after the birth event.