I’m currently working on a multi-family “revisit” that involves taking a lot of secondary sources and tagging them with the reference numbers in the books of reference. I’m using the standard GEDCOM REFN tag in RM but using a prefix that identifies the source.
That’s fine, but a lot of these people will have two or three REFN tags. After I’ve progressed toward completion of each secondary source I’d like to create a _source tag to contain the reference number for each source. I have a prefix I’ve used for each to make them easy to identify.
That said I’ve not used custom tags and would like some advise of what to avoid and how to best preserve them moving to other platforms.
Your description is unclear to me. I think it may be your possible use of terminology from other software that is different from that of RM. If you are asking about custom Fact Types and are they transferable to other programs, the answer is “it depends” on the medium and the importing program.
GEDCOM allows them and RM exports them accordingly. You would need to confirm whether the importing software does. Many do.
TreeShare is questionable. I haven’t tested it but Ancestry did support a RMUID custom Fact type imported from a RM GEDCOM years ago and vice-versa but I’ve a vague memory of a mass diddle with a text editor going one way or the other.
I doubt that Family search does.
And there’s a couple of apps that read a RM database directly, FH7 for one, which do.
I assume you mean REFN facts, or attributes if you prefer, as RM doesnt have flags in the sense that some other programs do. If you are planning to use custom facts, again not tags, then the only real way to check is to try importing a test file. It has been my experience that most modern programs don’t have a problem with custom facts these days. In some cases there may be awkward sentences for the fact, but the actual data does survive the import process. Your mileage may vary with Ancestry and other online trees.
Currently I have REFN facts with descriptions like HOYL01200 and CAP-J2744 which create a narrative sentence like “In referenced sources he has reference number HOYL01200”.
In this case I’d like to create two custom facts _HOY and _CAP and use SQLite to change all the REFN with HOYL to _HOY without the HOYL prefix and those with CAP- to _CAP without the CAP- prefix.
The end goal is different sentences like “In Heyl Genealogy he is 01200” and “In Carpenters A Plenty he is J2744”.
Ok, we’re talking about converting a subset of the Reference Number events from that RM Fact Type to a custom Fact Type. I would make a test copy of a small subset of your database. Create your custom Fact Types in it, use the “Change fact Type” control in Edit Person to convert your REFNs to them or simply add new ones. Then export to GEDCOM and inspect it with a text editor to see the results and import to your target programs to test the transfer.
As for SQLite, the statements for mass conversion are pretty straightforward and you know where to go to discuss further.
My primary concern is I’ve never (intentionally) used custom fact types. When I’ve ended up with them through some TreeShare quirk or file sent by a fellow researcher they seem to cause some problems in narratives or elsewhere.
It would seem simple, just create the new types, define a sentence, and change the FactID and remove the prefix in SQLite for the desired facts. I’m not terribly concerned is they don’t go to Ancestry or FamilySearch as RM is my master. I’m mainly concerned with how RM treats them and that they’ll export to GEDCOM unmolested.
I’m just a little gun-shy after my issues with PlaceIds > 32768 then the citation merge fiasco so I’d like to be sure I’m not loading another gun and pointing it at my foot.