# Best practices for managing sources, citations and media files?

**URL:** <https://community.rootsmagic.com/t/best-practices-for-managing-sources-citations-and-media-files/13533>\
**Category:** RootsMagic\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [March 30, 2025, 9:38pm UTC](https://community.rootsmagic.com/t/best-practices-for-managing-sources-citations-and-media-files/13533 "2025-03-30T21:38:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![KimberlyGreen](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.rootsmagic.com/kimberlygreen/32/1640_2.png) [@KimberlyGreen](https://community.rootsmagic.com/u/KimberlyGreen)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 12:34am UTC](https://community.rootsmagic.com/t/best-practices-for-managing-sources-citations-and-media-files/13533/4 "2025-03-31T00:34:28Z")

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> [@kevync1985](#):
>
> You might get a wide range of answers.

Whoo boy is _that_ an understatement! 😆

@MardeeB First, welcome!

I made a pretty detailed couple of comments about how I structure US & State censuses recently on [this post](https://community.rootsmagic.com/t/sources-citations/13417), so I won’t re-hash that.

If I could offer a single Cliff Notes nugget of wisdom … decide on what you consider sources versus repositories. That decision will affect a lot.

I for example, consider Ancestry, Family Search, MyHeritage, etc to be _repositories_ for 95% of their “records”. They didn’t originally create the document / record … they only store it like a library or warehouse. The exceptions have to do with specific indices they’ve actually created themselves. That viewpoint, in turn, means that any records / citations / “sources” I get from those gets re-worked.

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_[View the full topic](https://community.rootsmagic.com/t/best-practices-for-managing-sources-citations-and-media-files/13533)._