14 replies to this topic

[CharlieL]

I’m a new user of RootsMagic4 having purchased it on March 5, 2011. After using it for a while I decided I needed a template for Find A Grave; but I had no idea about how to create one.
While at the National Genealogy Conference in May, I connected with Bruce and left with a copy of “Getting The Most Out of RootsMagic4”. Thanks to Bruce, the manual and some help from Renee Zamora I created a template for Find a Grave.
The Find A Grave template can be downloaded from  

https://sites.google...e/rm4templates/

The template is rather self- explanatory but I will go over each element of the template.

The first thing that I do when entering information from a Find A Grave memorial  is open my Find A Grave Template.
I then click on More and select Detail Text.
I then paste all info from the Find A Grave memorial into this field.
This puts all the detailed information there in your right “info pane” so that you don’t have to go back & forth from Webpage to RootsMagic. Then the necessary Find A Grave elements are filled in by copy and paste from the detail text field into each element of the template.

Find A Grave Template Elements

Master Source:  FAG – Your ancestor’s name
URL: http://www.findagrave.com
Deceased:   Name of Deceased Ancestor
Born/Died:   3 Jun 1911 – 4 May 2000
Comments: (user discretion, i.e “rest in peace; parents, etc.)
Memorial No.:  12345678
Cemetery:  your cemetery
Created By:  (This is to give created to all they wonderful volunteers out that who have dedicated their tine to create this memorial) Data can be found on the memorial bring viewed.
Date Accessed:  current date

Hope you find this template useful in your search for ancestors.

Charlie

[TomH]

You're to be commended for making such rapid progress in learning the 'ropes' of RM. I imported your template and have some comments and suggestions:

• Suggest you name your custom templates with a distinctive leading character, such as '_' or '!' so that they sort to the top or near top of the template list and do not get lost among the built-in ones.
• I'm puzzled that every field is at the Detail level, except for URL [web], yet you suggest the Master Source Name should be unique to each person (FAG – Your ancestor's name). Given the URL in your example is the root of the Find A Grave website, either there should be but one Master Source (FAG) for all graves or all the fields should be at the Master Source level to support a Master Source per person. Personally, I would prefer to have the single Find A Grave as a Master Source, cited uniquely for each person (what someone has nicknamed 'lumping' your citations under one source, instead of 'splitting' into many sources).
• Your Bibliography sentence will generate a separate Bibliography entry for each person in a report, identical to the long Footnote; as a 'lumper', I would prefer a single entry which would require the sentence template to be changed to something like: "Find A Grave, Inc., [web]". Generally, the Bibliography should not be a repeat of the Footnote. You could think of the Find A Grave website as a book and each Memorial number as a page in the book.
• Why do you not use the Date type for the fields [Dates] and [Viewed]? The nice thing about using the Date type is that the date format is controlled by an Option setting and will be consistent throughout a report or book, even if the setting is changed.
• In all of your sentences, I see what I think is a typo: "Assessed" instead of "Accessed".
• URL and "accessed on" should be in a common phrase, not separated by other fields (only my opinion).

[CharlieL]

TomH

Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate your feedback.

I will take each of your recommendations and hopefully advance a little in my knowledge of RootsMagic and the creations of templates.

Charlie

[CharlieL]

Will update soon.

Charlie

[TomH]

You're welcome, Charlie. Of course, there may be no one right way to cite and document your sources. The main thing is that others can follow your map to the same source.

[CharlieL]

Based on TomH recommendations’ I have made several changes to the Find A Grave template.
When doing research; once I located a cemetery that contains relatives; I generally search the cemetery thoroughly for all known relatives.

The template now has two parts
Master Source – FAG
This can be expanded to a specific cemetery also, as in ---- FAG – Any Cemetery
If you use it this way remember to “EDIT” the Cemetery name on the Master source line, i.e. FAG – Your Cemetery when you move on to another cemetery.
URL:
Cemetery:
Created By:
Accessed:

The next part is the SOURCE DETAILS
Deceased:
Born/Died:
Comments:
Memorial No.:

Since there are multiple ways that this template can be used or set up; please fill free to modify your downloaded template to suit your needs.

Charlie

[Nettie]

Okay mine is different:
Following EE  using Website as a book.

Master Source: EE Find a Grave
Author:  could not find an author or creator of the website so is empty
Creator: Volunteers
Title of Website: Find a Grave ?
Url: http://www.findagrave.com

Source Details:
Access type: accessed
Access date:  24 Jun 2011
Item of Interest: John Doe [can add detail to this line also].

Information found is in the note section and Detail Text file.

Reason I did this one, was there probably more graves to document and can document each one in the Source details section.  But one major Source name.

My cemeteries  are done with EE's Book, General [Source within a Source] adt redid.

If I used a book, with different volunteers this works well for me.

[Renee Zamora]

FindAGrave website was founded by Jim Tipton, so he would be the author.
http://www.findagrav....cgi?page=whois

[Nettie]

Renee Zamora, on 29 June 2011 - 09:52 AM, said:

FindAGrave website was founded by Jim Tipton, so he would be the author.
http://www.findagrav....cgi?page=whois

Thanks Renee.  

[Cynthia]

CharlieL, on 27 June 2011 - 02:58 PM, said:

I'm a new user of RootsMagic4 having purchased it on March 5, 2011. After using it for a while I decided I needed a template for Find A Grave; but I had no idea about how to create one.
While at the National Genealogy Conference in May, I connected with Bruce and left with a copy of "Getting The Most Out of RootsMagic4". Thanks to Bruce, the manual and some help from Renee Zamora I created a template for Find a Grave.
The Find A Grave template can be downloaded from  

https://sites.google...e/rm4templates/

The template is rather self- explanatory but I will go over each element of the template.

The first thing that I do when entering information from a Find A Grave memorial  is open my Find A Grave Template.
I then click on More and select Detail Text.
I then paste all info from the Find A Grave memorial into this field.
This puts all the detailed information there in your right "info pane" so that you don't have to go back & forth from Webpage to RootsMagic. Then the necessary Find A Grave elements are filled in by copy and paste from the detail text field into each element of the template.

Find A Grave Template Elements

Master Source:  FAG – Your ancestor's name
URL:     http://www.findagrave.com
Deceased:   Name of Deceased Ancestor
Born/Died:   3 Jun 1911 – 4 May 2000
Comments: (user discretion, i.e "rest in peace; parents, etc.)
Memorial No.:  12345678
Cemetery:  your cemetery
Created By:  (This is to give created to all they wonderful volunteers out that who have dedicated their tine to create this memorial) Data can be found on the memorial bring viewed.
Date Accessed:  current date

Hope you find this template useful in your search for ancestors.

Charlie

I downloaded the template, tried to import it to RM4.  It would not find it in my computer and I know its there.  So I tried closing RM and starting it again this didn't work either.  Any suggestions?  I have Windows 7.


Thank You,

Cynthia

[TomH]

You need to know where on your computer the file was downloaded in order to find it when you browse from Import. With Windows 7, by default the file will be downloaded to the Downloads folder under your personal folder (e.g. C:\Users\Tom in my case) unless you specified otherwise. To download, you should right-click on the link and select "Save target as" (or similar words depending on your browser), which gives you control over where to save it. Note that the file you download is "005-FindAGrave.zip", a Zip-compressed file containing the template file "FindAGrave.rmst". RM's Import Source Template browser by default only shows files with the extension ".rmst" so you will not see the .ZIP file. However, if you type "*.zip" into the filename field, the zipped folder will appear; double-click or open it and the template will import with the name "Find A Grave" down among the "F's" of the built-in templates. I recommend renaming it with a leading asterisk or exclamation mark or underscore, something to distinguish it as an editable, deletable template distinct from the built-in templates which are not (editable, deletable).

Having said that, I would encourage you to think carefully about the pros and cons of using Source Templates any more complex than "!MyFreeForm3". Have a look at this page, Source Templates, and the study linked therefrom.

[Cynthia]

TomH, on 02 February 2012 - 09:52 AM, said:

You need to know where on your computer the file was downloaded in order to find it when you browse from Import. With Windows 7, by default the file will be downloaded to the Downloads folder under your personal folder (e.g. C:\Users\Tom in my case) unless you specified otherwise. To download, you should right-click on the link and select "Save target as" (or similar words depending on your browser), which gives you control over where to save it. Note that the file you download is "005-FindAGrave.zip", a Zip-compressed file containing the template file "FindAGrave.rmst". RM's Import Source Template browser by default only shows files with the extension ".rmst" so you will not see the .ZIP file. However, if you type "*.zip" into the filename field, the zipped folder will appear; double-click or open it and the template will import with the name "Find A Grave" down among the "F's" of the built-in templates. I recommend renaming it with a leading asterisk or exclamation mark or underscore, something to distinguish it as an editable, deletable template distinct from the built-in templates which are not (editable, deletable).

Having said that, I would encourage you to think carefully about the pros and cons of using Source Templates any more complex than "!MyFreeForm3". Have a look at this page, Source Templates, and the study linked therefrom.

Thank you, Tom.  You were a great help.  Very much appreciated.


Cynthia

[Elynn]

CharlieL, on 28 June 2011 - 07:05 PM, said:

Based on TomH recommendations' I have made several changes to the Find A Grave template.
When doing research; once I located a cemetery that contains relatives; I generally search the cemetery thoroughly for all known relatives.

The template now has two parts
Master Source – FAG
This can be expanded to a specific cemetery also, as in ---- FAG – Any Cemetery
If you use it this way remember to "EDIT" the Cemetery name on the Master source line, i.e. FAG – Your Cemetery when you move on to another cemetery.
URL:
Cemetery:
Created By:
Accessed:

The next part is the SOURCE DETAILS
Deceased:
Born/Died:
Comments:
Memorial No.:

Since there are multiple ways that this template can be used or set up; please fill free to modify your downloaded template to suit your needs.

Charlie

Very nice - of course now I have to go and change all my findagrave source citations.  

[Rick B]

Does this template work with RM6? The link to the download only references RM4.

[Renee Zamora]

I need to update that webpage when I have a minute.  The answer is Yes! You can use the same source templates in RM4, 5 and 6.