I don't generally make my own templates but when I do, I can usually munge something together.  This time I can't seem to get what I want.

I am trying to create a template that will allow me to enter an obit regardless of where it came from (clipping book, physical paper, website etc.).  I currently am trying to modify the built in template named 'Newspaper, Print Edition'.

Since obits seldom have a listed author, I deleted the [Author] and [Article] lines.  I am thinking it would be adequate in the footnote template to have something like:

Obituary, Ottumwa, Iowa Courier, June 4 2003, Kenneth Funk, page 2, col 1

So far what I have come up with is (for the footnote template):

[ItemType], <i>[PubPlace][Newspaper]</i>, [IssueDate], [Subject] <,page [Page]> <,column [Column]>

That means I have (or will) get rid of [NewspaperPlace], [SpecificContent] and [Annotation].  I have added [Page] and [Column] fields.  Is there anything else I should really have in this source, or any good suggestions (or even the loan of your template) that someone might be willing to suggest? Should I have something optional to note whether it came from a a newspaper site, funeral home site, physical paper etc.???

I am ok with lumping this all under an obituary source.  I don't want or need to have an individual source for each newspaper.  I literally have thousands of obits that I have gathered over the last 35 years and I am just now beginning to enter them as sources.  I have been really terrible about entering sources as I go along.

Eventually I plan to modify the obit for other types of annoucements such as weddings, anniversaries and so forth so I am trying to make this source template flexible enough I can alter it accordingly.

Jerry,

Is the template that you posted a sentence template for an obituary fact or do you use that as the footnote template in an obituary source?  I ask because if I recall you have a different way of presenting your facts (dot notation or something like that?), which is I find the post again, I need to read a little more in depth on.  If it is the footnote template, which details do show in the short footnote and bibliography templates?

I am currently using it as an example for my obit source.  I created a new source template and added the fields that you list as well as the column field that I want.  I will see how that works out.  In my master source, all I have is that it is an obituary.  All the other fields I have as citation details.

I suspect we all have our own "at a minimum" lists.  In my world the autosort of children isn't on it.  I don't find clicking on a parent then clicking Edit -> Rearrange -> Children to be overly inconvenient.  I would truly prefer updates mobile versions that work.  The iPad version doesn't if you have too many files in your RM Dropbox folder because the .rmgc file it at the very bottom of the list which hides behind the bottom bar where you select from Files, Tools etc.  I would also prefer a version of Rootsmagic that doesn't use those damn modal windows.  It makes several tasks much harder to do in my particular workflow.  I am also waiting for the day that the RM user interface gets updated to UWP instead of the Windows 7 and before interface.

Maybe if we were all willing to pay $59.99 for our software instead of $19.99 then we would get all of these "at a minimum" ideas faster.  I suspect most of us are not willing to pay that so we get things more slowly than we would like.

Life would have been so much simpler if I had settled on my source templates before I got 30,000 relatives in, so now I pay the price.  I am seeking assistance with the best source template (built in or designed) to use for online databases all of which come from Ancestry or FamilySearch (at least at this time).

I know Renee mentioned using one of the military record templates before and I have looked at that one.  I am also looking at one of the templates on Renee's site called 'Website with Multiple DB-URL in Citation' as well as the one called 'Website (with multiple databases)' that is built in.

My goal is one master source that I can use for both sites all though I would be willing to create a seperate source for each of the two sites.  I am also trying to do this in such a way as to be flexible if I should begin using other online sites with databases.

The only difference in the two named templates above is the part designated as being in the citation.  The fields are as follows in both:

1: Author

2: DatabaseTitle

3: CreatorOwner

4: WebsiteTitle

5: URL

6: AccessType

7: AccessDate

8: ItemOfInterest

9: ItemType

10: CreditLine

In the one without the URL, 6,7,8 are listed as Citation and in the other template 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10 are listed as in the citation.  Since I am trying to lump these into a single source as opposed to having an individual source for each database I am assuming that I probably want to move everything except for maybe Author and CreatorOwner to the citiation, does this sound reasonable??  Second question is what do you put in specific fields?  For example I have a FamilySearch item and the citation that FamilySearch created is as follows:

"Wisconsin, County Marriages, 1836-1911," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch...03/1:1:XRKZ-S75 : 3 June 2016), Mariah Shilts in entry for Emerson Allen and Delila Shilts, 28 Apr 1883; citing Boyd, Chippewa, Wisconsin, United States, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison; FHL microfilm 1,275,831.

So I am assuming the database title would be 'Wisconsin, County Marriages, 1836-1911'.  So would FamilySearch be the Author and the CreatorOwner?  What would you consider the website title?  URL, AccessType and AccessDate are pretty self explanatory.

I am assuming the credit line would be 'citing Boyd, Chippewa, Wisconsin, United States, Wisconsin Historical Society' so what would be the ItemType?  Would that be the microfilm?  The ItemOfInterest would be 'Mariah Shilts in entry for Emerson Allen and Delila Shilts, 28 Apr 1883', yes??

I know that sourcing is very person specific but I am sure most of you have some type of best practices that has worked well for you, and that is what I am trying to tap into here. 

Thank you for reading this far!

They are on the list but we haven't done any webinars for a while. We have moved to videos instead. Not sure when Bruce can get back to making videos again. He has a lot on his plate with the Ancestry Sync feature right now.

I went and looked at the videos.  Everything there was at least a couple of years old also.  Hence my question.  I am a programmer by trade, so I will muddle through I guess.

In webinar 48 Bruce said that there are two planned webinars, one for just sentence templates and one for just source templates.  Are these still planned?  Webinar 48 is nearly 4 years old now.  I am just getting started on working with the template language but I always appreciate some good explanation in addition to my wading through the docs.

You are likely to get a different answer from everyone who responds.  But what I do on cases similar to what you describe is to put the details into the notes.  Something like "Ken's father was in the military so he moved frequently as his father was assigned to new posts."  Then I go ahead and detail where the father was stationed and in some cases I added school info.  "Ken attended kindergarten and first grade in Norfolk, VA while his father while his father was stationed at ..... (whatever base name)".

There is no way I want to enter an event for every move.  Not when I can write it more as a bio.

I wish Rootsmagic had ignored an Ancestry sync feature that won't work well and perhaps figured out a simple way to generate leaf hints from a Gedcom import. Then they could have put real effort into a native mac version. Apple owns the consumer high end computer market and those potential customers have good choices other than Rootsmagic.

I wouldn't say Apple owns much of anything in the regular computer market.  They were hanging in around 7% last I checked and they had lost market share over the last couple of years.  Most of their money comes from other devices now, phones, watches, iPods, iPads etc.  With that small of a market share, software developers are going to focus on where they can generate a decent revenue stream and whether we like it or not, PC's have a many times larger slice of the pie.  I would say that a good mobile app for tablets (iPads included) would generate better revenue that spending a lot of time on a native Mac program.  Software devs got to eat too!

I have just discovered that this is also happening to me.  Yes, it is a custom source, specifically one of the findagrave.com source templates that I downloaded from Renee's page some time back.  I modified that template slightly and saved it with a new name.  Never had a problem until recently, then I suddenly had 8 copies when I went to use the source later.  I am using 7.5.4 so I mistakenly assumed it was fixed by now since the topic is nearing 2 years old.