Transfer source from ancestry page to new reunion 10 page

[Willis Davis]

Hi,
I have been using Ancestry for a few years and decided to upgrade my Reunion software. I am trying to figure out how to copy photos, census info including source, and other things such as registry for the draft, civil war pension documents etc that I have appropriately sourced and stored on my Ancestry page so I may add them to my Reunion 10. Many times when I do the web search from the person box in Reunion 10, my own citation from Ancestry comes up in the results, but I cannot figure out how to pick it up and move it to Reunion. The new web search feature in Reunion 10 seems to indicate that it can be done, but how?
I have looked at the new features video and the help page, but can't figure out how.
Can someone set this newbie straight?
Thanks,
Willis Davis

[sgtbob]

Re: Transfer source from ancestry page to new reunion 10 page

Not sure if I can be of help, but will describe how I move data from Ancestry.com to my REUNION 10.

I do not save items to the ancestry page. If I want a census page I've opened on Ancestry.com, I click on 'save -->to my computer' which places the file on the downloads folder. In my case, the file shows up on screen and I 'crop' it to remove extra data and then save this file as .pdf in my 'Documents' folder', .jpg' for any pictures, etc. Then I open the person to whom I want the census added, prepare a 'new' source and drag the .pdf file to the 'Multimedia' portion of the source file. At the same time, I may add the web site address as a URL line in the 'Source Fields' or to the 'free-form Text' field if the URL exceeds 255 characters. I do this URL addition so that I may return to that site later if desired. Same with photos and other items, although I put photos, tombstone data, and documents in separate files.

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Transfer source from ancestry page to new reunion 10 page

I have always worked pretty much as Sgt. Bob does - but Willis is in a quite different situation, if I understand him: he has done his work within Ancestry and left it there. Getting it out and into Reunion is quite possible, but not as one simple easy move. But he should be able, in Ancestry, to bring up the original image of each of his sources, and download it.

[donworth]

Re: Transfer source from ancestry page to new reunion 10 page

Willis,

I save images of records I find in Ancestry using the "Download to your Computer" button when viewing them. They go into my Downloads folder as 1 to 2 MB JPGs usually. I find that preferable to using screen captures because I get the entire census page (or whatever) in the highest possible resolution so that I can zoom in on things that are hard to read, look at headings, etc. I rename the files that are downloaded in this manner so that they will sort properly (eg. WORTHDon1940censusLosAngelesCA.jpg) and move them to a folder structure I invented to keep images of all my sources on my own computer.

For records that don't have an image in Ancestry I either print the web page to PDF or I use a screen capture to JPG, rename the file as above and copy it into my source folders.

I don't bother to hook these files into Reunion directly using its media features. I copy and paste the source information off the Ancestry "about this database" screen into a structured source in Reunion. When I see one of those, I know there must be a corresponding JPG or PDF file in my source folder so I can go look for it by the person's name. The reason I don't bother to hook source images into Reunion is that I have switched from one genealogy program to another several times now as I moved from Mac (in 1998) to Windows to different versions of Windows, to Mac again (in 2008) or when whatever program I was using went obsolete and unsupported, forcing me to change. Each time I changed programs, any feature that wasn't part of the strict GED definition fell by the wayside. So I don't use any of the "differentiating" features anymore if they are not likely to be exportable to some other genealogy program. Media (such as photos, record images, videos, etc.) are notorious for not being handled the same way by different programs. Doing things my way, where there is no direct link between the program and my photos, images, and such, will work no matter which program I end up with.

Bottom line - I don't trust proprietary features. I've been burned too many times.

Don

[Willis Davis]

Re: Transfer source from ancestry page to new reunion 10 page

Thanks to sgtbob, Michael Talibard, and donworth!
I appreciate your kind and thoughtful replies.
When I started fleshing out my previous files to Reunion 10, I guess I was looking for an easy fix...I should have known better.
Somehow, I could not get my head around what I had to do. I should not have been so naive as to think pressing a button would get it all done...nice and neat!
Thanks to your wisdom and sage advice, I think you have me on the right track, and I can get a grasp on what needs done. I like your ideas about saving the data separate from the Reunion files and putting a reference on Reunion to go to my documents files and retrieve the source. My thinking had been toward attempting to get sources saved within Reunion, but the idea of filing separately while naming the census data for example, like you suggest Don in a logical and retrievable makes a whole lot of sense.
Thanks to all of you for pointing in the right direction from your experiences!
Much appreciated,
Willis Davis

[Al Poulin]

Re: Transfer source from ancestry page to new reunion 10 page

Hello all,

I am still ignorant of many Reunion capabilities, and I am of the same mind as Don about proprietary features. But I am thinking ahead about possibly putting my family file on a website. Should I link my downloaded images and my photos using Reunion's multimedia features, or will putting the family file on a website ignore those links in the first place?