Export to FTM 3.1

[Teresa C]

At the risk of asking a sacrilegious question :-)...
I'm playing around with FTM 3.1, now that it's future is secure. And as expected I have come across the issue of importing Reunion sources.
In Reunion, I have followed the one source per citation approach - mainly because that's how I started using sources 30 years ago when I first started digging in to my family history. I know there are divided opinions on this - but if I had my time over again, I would opt for the few sources, many citations approach.
But, as it is, I now have literally thousands of sources - the majority of which, in the true definition of the word, are probably citations.

One of the reasons I am considering FTM is the way it manages sources/citations, and so I'd like to be able to merge all my 100's of individual 1851 census sources into one 1851 census source with hundreds of citations. Just one example.

So - my question is, has anyone done this? Any clever ideas? If changing the way I manage sources means changing each of my thousands of sources manually, I may decide to let sleeping dogs lie, as it were.

One of the other key reasons I'm looking to change is the fact that Reunion has no standard way to rate the quality or reliability of sources.

Thanks,
Teresa

[AE Palmer]

Re: Export to FTM 3.1

At the risk of asking a sacrilegious question :-)...
I'm playing around with FTM 3.1, now that it's future is secure. And as expected I have come across the issue of importing Reunion sources.
In Reunion, I have followed the one source per citation approach - mainly because that's how I started using sources 30 years ago when I first started digging in to my family history. I know there are divided opinions on this - but if I had my time over again, I would opt for the few sources, many citations approach.
But, as it is, I now have literally thousands of sources - the majority of which, in the true definition of the word, are probably citations.

One of the reasons I am considering FTM is the way it manages sources/citations, and so I'd like to be able to merge all my 100's of individual 1851 census sources into one 1851 census source with hundreds of citations. Just one example.

So - my question is, has anyone done this? Any clever ideas? If changing the way I manage sources means changing each of my thousands of sources manually, I may decide to let sleeping dogs lie, as it were.

One of the other key reasons I'm looking to change is the fact that Reunion has no standard way to rate the quality or reliability of sources.

Thanks,
Teresa

Hmm. Deep philosophical thinking we are!

Since you have “followed the one source per citation approach,” and now have 1000s of source entries, you do indeed are on the cusp of a dilemma. To expand on your 1851 Census example, I would:
1) NOT consolidate all of these sources into a single source entry.
2) I would consider consolidating those entries into “regions.” E.g.: 1851, location A; 1851, location B; 1851, location C, etc., as this as approach limits the number of sources to a few dozen at most.
As for changing your approach to sourcing at this stage of the game, the process of merging sources is messy, LONG WINDED and fraught with potential error(s) introduction. Moreover, it is strictly a manual operation – inspecting each source and comparing it with the previous entry.

While it is true that Reunion (as currently configured) does not offer a “standard” method of offering quality / reliability statements, the Free Form Text Box is an excellent place to put such information.

[Teresa C]

Re: Export to FTM 3.1

Hmm. Deep philosophical thinking we are!

Since you have “followed the one source per citation approach,” and now have 1000s of source entries, you do indeed are on the cusp of a dilemma. .

How eloquently put - I am most definitely on the cusp of a dilemma!
And I guess it is a philosophical question - but my thinking, and the way that sources are now available, has evolved over 30 odd years.

I think I will either go the "whole hog", as they say, and consolidate everything, or leave it as is. For me at least, staying with Reunion means one source per citation, as it does not (at the moment) support linking media to a citation. Ideally I'd like to see both possible - linking media to source, citation - and while we're at it, places!

Thanks Arnold, for your contribution to my philosophising :-)))

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Export to FTM 3.1

As long as we are philosophising, I would say 'the devil is in the detail.' If your decision is to stay as you are, then you could address whatever problems arise for you from having thousands of sources. What are they? It may be that different ways of sorting or handling your sources would help. Currently, what goes wrong?

[Teresa C]

Re: Export to FTM 3.1

As long as we are philosophising, I would say 'the devil is in the detail.' If your decision is to stay as you are, then you could address whatever problems arise for you from having thousands of sources. What are they? It may be that different ways of sorting or handling your sources would help. Currently, what goes wrong?

Good question, Michael :-)

Part of it is my desire to record my evidence in the most widely accepted and audit-worthy way. I'm a scientist, and my brain is wired that way :-)). If I read a scientific or historical paper/article that makes claims, I expect the evidence to presented in a way that's universally accepted and that I can follow up and find for myself. I want my research to be able to be validated easily by anyone who cares to review it, now or in the future.

The other part is more practical - locating sources in my database can be really difficult. For example, I have about 10 different sources that come from the 1851 census of Theddingworth, Leicestershire, because there are 10 different households that are relevant and I have a media item for each - thus I have 10 different sources. When I want to consult one of them, I have to look at each of them individually to find the one I need. It's probably just a matter of redefining the detail I have in each field - it's a work around, and maybe that's OK if it's just me that looks at my research.
If anyone would like to share how they manage this type of situation, I would be interested to hear :-)

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Export to FTM 3.1

...10 different sources. When I want to consult one of them, I have to look at each of them individually to find the one I need.

Detail please, Teresa - at such moments, are you gazing at the list of sources? If you go to the source from one of the people via the little red number, you should land on the relevant one without even seeing the list, no? And what, typically, are you then looking for?

[John Meara]

Re: Export to FTM 3.1

At the risk of asking a sacrilegious question :-)...
...Any clever ideas?

Hello Teresa. Here's a suggestion: One way to deal with the merge of many similar bits of text (e.g. hundreds of citations) may be in the GEDCOM file that you use for the transfer. I have trees in Reunion, Ancestry, MyHeritage, Family Tree DNA and FTM on my Mac. I have a number of times used edited Gedcom files to update between these programs or online trees, however I haven't previously played with sources/citations in a Gedcom file.

In addition to the usual good practice of saving backups at every stage of the process, you can use one of the simple text editing programs (Notepad on a PC, or Text Edit on a Mac) to do a "find and replace" for the relevant text lines in the Gedcom file. You should be able to quickly identify the individual code lines in the file for these multiple sources/citations, replace each type or region etc in a number of passes through the file to produce an edited version for upload and checking. I cannot guarantee success, but worth a try?

As mentioned in another post by Arnold Palmer, this approach may be fraught with potential error(s), but with good attention to detail, I reckon it may be worth a try. This approach may also provide for Arnold's suggestion of consolidating those entries into “regions.”

[Teresa C]

Re: Export to FTM 3.1

Hello Teresa. Here's a suggestion: One way to deal with the merge of many similar bits of text (e.g. hundreds of citations) may be in the GEDCOM file that you use for the transfer. I cannot guarantee success, but worth a try?

Thanks for the idea John.....I'll give it a try. I'm good with back ups and attention to detail, so it may work for me :-)

Cheers,
Teresa

[BL Samuel]

Re: Export to FTM 3.1

Hi Teresa,
I've just had the experience of trying to export to FTM-3, tweaked the gedcom a wee bit according to Ben Sayer's directions. everything transferred correctly, except for sources! What a mess... I use Reunion's "free form" to record sources. Some sources moved ok, but most, only the citation detail showed up. I asked for help from support at FTM, who responded with the suggestion that I first title all my sources in Reunion, then make a gedcom. I don't see that Reunion has a separate title field for the source list though.

This may be a deal breaker for me as a do-over of sources on 1100 people doesn't fit my schedule...I really like so many features in Reunion, but also like FTM too.

If you solve this source issue, let us all know! Thanks, Bonnie

[sgtbob]

Re: Export to FTM 3.1

Hi Teresa,
I've just had the experience of trying to export to FTM-3, tweaked the gedcom a wee bit according to Ben Sayer's directions. everything transferred correctly, except for sources! What a mess... I use Reunion's "free form" to record sources. Some sources moved ok, but most, only the citation detail showed up. I asked for help from support at FTM, who responded with the suggestion that I first title all my sources in Reunion, then make a gedcom. I don't see that Reunion has a separate title field for the source list though.

This may be a deal breaker for me as a do-over of sources on 1100 people doesn't fit my schedule...I really like so many features in Reunion, but also like FTM too.

If you solve this source issue, let us all know! Thanks, Bonnie

If anyone can resolve this issue, please share it. I've had the same issues in moving to FTM 3 for MAC and thus far, it becomes a mess. Also, sad to say that MacKiev has still not resolved the upgrade for those of us who have FTM3 on our MAC units - lots of promises have been received, but to date (nearly a year has passed since they took over) nothing concrete.