Dear Rick,

I hope it isn't heresy to suggest that the best way to post your research on the web is to abandon Tree Share and use RootsMagic and GedSite together to put up the data in the form you prefer. Ancestry.com could still be used for research, of course. Ancestry Tree Share is rife with API problems, the necessity to bow to their formats, and constant repetitive web hints, many of which are duplicates, irrelevant, or just plain wrong.

It's only necessary to look at this forum's posts to see how much trouble Tree Share has caused and how much of your time and RM's time are wasted because of it.

I open RootsMagic 7.6.1, go to Tools/File Options/Ancestry and click on "Disconnect from Ancestry tree." RootsMagic locks up and I have to use the Task Manager to exit. The task manager reports "RootsMagic not responding." I'm actually not sure whether the Ancestry Tree is actually linked or not.

There's been so much trouble with Ancestry that I'm trying to disassociate RootsMagic completely from them although I plan to continue using Ancestry as a research tool.

I'm glad to learn that there will be words, and an option to abandon them and just show icons. However, my preference would be to bag the icons and just show text buttons. I hope it's not too late to offer this as an option. It should be a simple change.

I also hope it will be possible to show the icons/text horizontally at the top if the user so wishes.

You can enter alternate names or spellings using the built-in "Alternate name" fact. By using the sort date feature the alternate(s) can display at any point on the edit person screen or in reports.

I think the idea is that one would have a "source" -- say a book -- and that subsequent citations of it would only involve typing in a page number.That is, it was supposed to  be a time and effort saver. I fear that the source/citation bifurcation has mostly served to confuse thousands of people.

As I look at my own report footnotes I see that most of them can adequately guide researchers, but they are all higgledy-piggledy and inconsistent with one another.

I agree. I've thought -- going back to my TMG days -- that the distinction was artificial. It may have made more sense before Ancestry.com and other internet collections became the dominant research technique.

Similarly, while tracking repositories is suitable for identifying libraries, courthouses and the like, it doesn't really speak to the realities of internet research.

Did you check the index for the entries of people with missing surnames? RootsMagic, like every other genealogical program, would surely be making unwarranted -- and unwanted -- assumptions by assigning surnames automatically.

The father probably showed up on the pedigree screen as well.

I grant that single names are a problem; there are a few Native Americans in my wife's tree and I've entered their names as surnames. There may be other and better ways of dealing with those names, but I wouldn't expect much help or consistency from Ancestry trees in that regard.

Isn't this a little silly? RootsMagic is castigated if they release nothing and again if they release some but not all, and still again if they don't adhere to a "schedule" established by the pace of their releases. They can't win.

That said, I've believed for years that software companies are insufficiently transparent regarding their plans. RootsMagic isn't alone in being secretive. It seems to be a shibboleth in the industry that disclosure will give competitors an advantage. Since that's the case, there little's point in inveighing against the practice and even less point in criticizing RM8 for its failings before we've seen it.

Is it expected that RM8 will also be SQLite based?

Thanks, Tom. And thanks so much for writing so many useful routines for the use of RM users.

The sixth RM8 blog entry has been posted.  http://blog.rootsmagic.com/

Excellent news, especially including the unblocking of the main screen when editing screens(!) are open.

You can use search and replace for surnames. Once the screen opens, you can choose between "replace" and "replace all." "Replace all"  obviously isn't suitable in this case because you evidently have people who kept the original surname.

Unless you have a very large number of people to screen, search & replace is still probably your best bet. RootsMagic won't, AFAIK, descend the ladder.

Another option would be to make a named group consisting of the person who changed the name and all of his descendants. You could export the named group to a new database, make the change globally (i.e., "replace all"), import the people back into the main database and use the merge function to make it all coherent again. The first method looks better to me.

Family Historian 6.2 offers a chart of "all ancestors and relatives" which might come closer to what you want than an ordinary hourglass chart.

I too much prefer the forums.

Would it be possible to authorize a willing enthusiast to filter and remove the spam?

It's not just that I abhor Facebook, it's a lot easier to read and follow technical discussions — and perhaps occasionally contribute — on the forum. And, as TomH has said, both images and the like/dislike feature can be authorized for the board.

I hope I'm not missing the point here, but doesn't the media album/tools allow one to rearrange the order of exhibits? There's no need to delete and reinstall an item. GedSite seems to pick the exhibits up in the order one has prescribed.

On an Edit Person menu click Media, then on the Media Album click tools/Rearrange media items. There are move up, move down & sort by date buttons at the bottom.

I had occasion to invoke the Who Was There List report this morning, I think for the first time. I wanted to know who was in Kansas from 1880 to 1890. The report spat out the Kansas events — and also Arkansas events. I can see how this happened and why the search may have produced it. I'm wondering if there's any way to avoid it.

You might prefer a box chart: Reports/Charts/Box charts/Ancestors. You will have much more control of the output, format, etc.

Thanks, Renee.

No. Would it help if they were? I would prefer not to affect the format of places as I've entered them on event tags. It really isn't terribly important -- just a minor annoyance, easily coped with.

Thanks, TFTMTeutoppil. As I told Renee, it's only a minor annoyance and the report is more for research purposes than display or publication.

I'll try that. Thans, Renee.

This may be unlikely, but I know (to my occasional sorrow) that some gaming keyboards have a switch which disables some of the Windows editing functions.

What would be the downside to running RM7 (RM8 soon, I hope) in a Windows virtual machine running under Linux? Would there be any reason to prefer Windows 10 to, say, Windows 7?

Use the alternate name fact as needed and either modify the sentences or add notes as necessary (and discreet?)