8 replies to this topic

[ThirtyOhSix]

Hi,

 

In short, I want to know if RM template based sourcing is flexible enough to allow me to basically duplicate the sources as described in the book Evidence Explained.

 

I am new to Roots Magic, but I have been studying genealogy since 1999.  I have been using FTM and ancestry since starting on this journey.  This spring I encountered a bug which stopped my ability to sync with ancestry.com, so I started to explore other software.  I have tried MacFamily Tree, FTM, Legacy and even Gramps.  More importantly, I want to address my family tree's sources and make them meet best standards as defined in Evidence Explained.

 

So as an example from page 430 of Evidence Explained, for a Death Certificate from Kentucky.

 

Ancestry describes this sources as:

 

 

Source Citation

Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives; Frankfort, Kentucky

Source Information

Ancestry.com. Kentucky, Death Records, 1852-1965 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.

Original data:

1. Kentucky. Kentucky Birth, Marriage and Death Records – Microfilm (1852-1910). Microfilm rolls #994027-994058. Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky.
2. Kentucky. Birth and Death Records: Covington, Lexington, Louisville, and Newport – Microfilm (before 1911). Microfilm rolls #7007125-7007131, 7011804-7011813, 7012974-7013570, 7015456-7015462. Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky.
3. Kentucky. Vital Statistics Original Death Certificates – Microfilm (1911-1964). Microfilm rolls #7016130-7041803. Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky.

 

The actual Death Certificate can be seen here

 

 

Evidence Explained provides the following template for State-Level Records, Vital-Records Certificate.  Since I have the certificate in hand, I can site the actual source.

 

 

Source List Entry:

 

Jurisdiction.  Agency/Creator. Series. Repository, Repository Location.

Kentucky.  State Board of Health.  Death Certificates.  Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky.

 

First (Full) Reference Note:

1. Jurisdiction.  Agency/Creator, , Certificate Type & No Certificate Date, ID of Person; Repository, Repository Location.

1. Kentucky, State Board of Health., death certificate 28610 (1925); Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky.

 

 

Subsequent (Short) Note

 

Jurisdiction. Certificate Type & No.  Cert Date, ID of Person.

11. Kentucky birth certificate no. 28610 (1925), Ludy Rodgers.

 

So ideally, I want my source to show up exactly like this.  Lastly, how can I configure my source to where it contains all the information because in some cases I will not have the certificate in hand.  I will be depending upon ancestry.com or another source that has re-published or index the data of other sources like this death certificate.  If I did not have the actual certificate, I would need to cite ancestry and then put in citing, etc.... after the source.

 

If this were the case then, the citation would look like this based upon p 164-165 of Evidence Explained:

 

Corporate Records Online Images p164

Corporate Records Online Database p 165

 

I could choose either one of these, but lets say I did not have the certificate in hand or it was a bad copy and ancestry had provided some translation or other data that was important to the citation that prevented me from just making the citation as described above.

 

So I will this template from page 165: Corporate Records Online Database.

 

Source List Entry

 

"Database Title."  Item Type of Format. Owner or Creator, Website Title.  URL : Date.

"Kentucky, Death Records, 1852-1965."  Database.  Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.., Ancestry.  https://search.ances...646&usePUB=true: 2007.

 

First (Full) Reference Note

1. "Database Title,"  Item Type or Format, Owner or Creator, Website Title (URL : Date), entry for "Item of Interest."

1. "Kentucky, Death Records, 1852-1965." database, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry (https://search.ances...646&usePUB=true :  2007), entry for "Vital Statistics Original Death Certificates - Microfilm (1911-1954," cataloging "Microfilm rolls #: 7016130-7041803, Death Certificate, Name: Ludy Rodgers, Maiden Name: Cole, Gender: Female, Race: White, Death Age: 55, Birth Date 7 Feb 1870, Birth Place: Kentucky, Death Date: 9 Oct 1925, Death Place: Casey, Kentucky, USA, Father: John Cole, Mother: Lissie Jacobs."

 

Subsequent (Short) Note

11. "Database Title," Website Title, Item of Interest ...

11. "Kentucky, Death Records, 1852-1965," Ancestry, entry for  "Vital Statistics Original Death Certificates - Microfilm (1911-1954," cataloging "Microfilm rolls #: 7016130-7041803, Death Certificate, Name: Ludy Rodgers..."    

 

So Ideally I want to create a Master Source that produces each one of these citations and much more....  

 

Can this be done?  Ideally I want the software to prompt me for Name, Maine Name, Gender, Race, Death Age... all of the fields that ancestry.com usually describes?  How would I do this if it can be done.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jerry Bryan]

The short answer to your question is basically "yes", RM is flexible enough to allow you to do your sourcing according to Evidence Explained.

 

RM comes with a large number of built-in source templates, and most of them are based on Evidence Explained. The templates that are not based on Evidence Explained are based on Elizabeth Shown Mill's earlier book Evidence  or on a few other authoritative sources. RM's templates usually provide the authority they are based on and the page number, such as EE page 512. So you can cross reference the RM template with the page in Evidence Explained.

 

If you find that RM does not have a source template that meets your needs for a particular source, you can also define your own source templates as needed.

 

Having said all that, let me be a little bit of a grinch. I use Evidence Explained regularly and I keep my copy next to the computer where I work on genealogy. But in some respects, I find it a bit too abstract and hard to use. For example, you will search in vain in the table of contents or index for any reference to how to do obituaries. That's because Evidence Explained treats an obituary as a newspaper article. It seems to me that it's the obituariness of an obituary that's important, not the newspaper articleness. An obituary is an obituary no matter where it is published. And indeed, RM comes with a built in source template for obituaries, but said template is not based on Evidence Explained since Evidence Explained doesn't tell you how to do obituaries. Rather, RM's built in source template for obituaries is based on Evidence, page 93.

 

Jerry

[Jerry Bryan]

Can this be done?  Ideally I want the software to prompt me for Name, Maine Name, Gender, Race, Death Age... all of the fields that ancestry.com usually describes?  How would I do this if it can be done.

 

In trying to address your specific concerns, again the answer is yes.

 

Either you find a built in RM source template that already has all the fields you need, or else you define your own source template. You do so via Lists>Source Templates. If you design a source template, you define the data elements such Name, Death Age, etc. Having defined the data element, you also define a sentence using those data elements which become variables in the sentence. Variable names in the sentences are enclosed in [square brackets], viz. [Name], [Death Age], etc. There is much more to the Sentence Template language that just plugging in the variables. For example, you can make aspects of the sentence conditional, depending on the presence or absence or content of some of the variables. But that's the basic concept. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it's a very powerful facility.

 

Jerry

[ThirtyOhSix]

Roger that.  I think I figured out how to do exactly what I want but the really weird thing is that when I run a source list report, it shows the following the text below.  Why does the footnote and short footnote show the field names of the detail field rather than the actual data?

 

Also where do I change the template for the citation that gets created?

 

Footnote: Kentucky State Board of Health, death certificate [CertificateNo] ([Date]), [Name]; Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky.

Footnote (short): Kentucky death certificate no. [CertificateNo] [Date], [Name].

Bibliography: Kentucky. State Board of Health. Death Certificate. Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives,

Frankfort, Kentucky.

Citations:

1. Cole, Ludy (Death). Ludy Cole; 28610; 9 October 1925. Quality: Original, Secondary, Direct

[ThirtyOhSix]

where is the syntax language documented?

[Jerry Bryan]

where is the syntax language documented?

Help>Search.  Do a search for source templates. The first three items in the list will be Source Template Language, Source Templates, and Sentence Template Language. Read all three.

 

You cannot change any of the built in source templates. But if you find one that is almost what you need but not quite, you can copy it and you can change the copy. For that reason, if you are really into sources I wouldn't use any of the built in source templates. For any that I wanted to use, I would copy it and use the copy even if I didn't need to make any changes right away. But by making a copy and using the copy,I would be using a template that I could adjust if needed.

 

Jerry

[ThirtyOhSix]

That is the plan.  Thank you for the help.  I was just trying to figure out why the source list report shows the fields rather than the data at this point.

 

Thanks again for the help...

[Jerry Bryan]

Footnote: Kentucky State Board of Health, death certificate [CertificateNo] ([Date]), [Name]; Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky.

Footnote (short): Kentucky death certificate no. [CertificateNo] [Date], [Name].

Bibliography: Kentucky. State Board of Health. Death Certificate. Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives,

Frankfort, Kentucky.

Citations:

1. Cole, Ludy (Death). Ludy Cole; 28610; 9 October 1925. Quality: Original, Secondary, Direct

 

When the variable name appears like that in a sentence, it means that the variable hasn't been given a value. In other words, when you used the template to create a a source, you left that field blank. Many times, leaving a field blank can be correct. To account for a null variable the variable in the sentence template can be enclosed in <angle brackets>, for example <[Date]> rather than just [Date]. With the angle brackets, everything inside the angle brackets is nulled out if the variable is missing. This can include punctuation or other text, viz. <, [Date]>j will null out the comma and the blank before the date if the [Date] variable has not been filled in.

 

Jerry

[ThirtyOhSix]

ahhh.  Thank you very much