I’m back at the computer, and I very much like Tom’s suggestion. Even if it’s just a couple of people in a new database with sort of a dummy source/citation using that template, it would be easier to follow using a much shorter citation. I actually typed your full citation into my computer to try to recreate the problem, and the length of the citation made it hard to follow. And Tom’s suggestion of a 255 character limit on how much data is being processed might be the problem.
I also wondered if there might be some sort of character in your source data that is a treated by RM’s template language as a special character that needs to be escaped. I didn’t see any such character, but it’s something to think about.
If this were my database, I would start with a very short citation using that template and dummy data that is very short. Then I would gradually replace the short dummy data with longer data that is more real until I had the full citation entered. If the short data works and then something breaks when it gets longer, then maybe you can see what causes the failure.
TomH:
It is an RM7 database, though when I import it into RM8 the issue follows.
Yes, John Grays Citation does have an entry in the Item of Interest.
Deleted all of John’s citations off and saw the same issue
Reduced verbosity (to one word) and saw the same issue
Exported to a new database and saw the same issue.
I suddenly thought I remembered seeing a / character in your source data. If so, it needs to be escaped by preceding it with an additional /. In other words, you need to type a // into a field in a source template in order for it to print a single /. But when I looked just now, I couldn’t find a /. I think I saw something like 7/4/3 that would need to be entered as 7//4//3 in a source template to be printed as a 7/4/3. An un-escaped / would wreak havoc with how your citation prints. Characters that need escaping in this manner if you want them to print instead of being directives to the sentence template language are < > / [ ]
I may be remembering a mirage. If so, my apologies.
Looking at the source (imported into) in RM8 there are 4 citations, 2 for John (bap and mar) one for Jane, and one for Mathias. So I went back and deleted first the John Baptism citation and printed a report, then deleted just the marriage citation, and finally deleted both citations in Johns info. in the first two instances Janes Item of interest does not show up. Once I delete both of Johns citations then her item of interest shows up. However Matias doesn’t. So it appears that only the first person using the source gets to have their Item of interest displayed in their citation. Does this sound right?
Thejerrybryan,
That is good info I don’t remember knowing this, so thank you. I went into the Source record and yes there is a / so for the purposes of what we are doing I just deleted them and replaced them with spaces. I still saw the behaviour I mentioned above.
Doing additional digging with other source records and the behaviour does appear to be consistent. Using RM8 to identify the citations attached to a specific source record. in the several source records I looked at, only the FIRST citation gets the “Item of Interest” included in the citation, after that succeeding citations leave off the “Item of Interest”
I did reach out to tech support back on 1/28, and provided them a copy of the database and several screenshots, but I suspect they must be overwhelmed right now as response times are a couple days each response and a little vague for me to follow. So I appreciate the two of you taking a crack at it!
Not quite. The same source could be used literally thousands of times. The way that it works is that it’s the first person using any particular citation who gets to the their “item of interest” displayed in the citation. That’s because the “item of interest” is in the full footnote sentence and the “item of interest” is not in the short footnote sentence. And it’s only the first person using any particular citation who gets the full footnote. You will not get a full footnote just because it’s a different person if the citation is the same for the second person as it is for the first person.
If the “item of interest” not being in the short footnote is the the real problem, then maybe the best solution is to make a copy of the source template you are using, to add the “item of interest” to the short footnote, and then to use your modified template instead of RM’s built-in template. But RM is still not going to go to a full footnote instead of to a short footnote just because it’s a different person. The only thing that matters is whether it’s the first appearance of a particular citation or whether it’s not the first appearance. It doesn’t matter which people or how many people are associated with the citation.
At long last I think I sort of understand the problem, but it’s complicated. I decided to make a video rather than composing a super long message. Unfortunately, the video itself is pretty long at 12:41, but as I said it’s complicated. Video about the Item of Interest Problem in a source.
The video was so long already that I stopped it before I was really done. But it’s possible sort of to fix the problem without making a new source template. Namely, in the video I have the following data:
For John Doe:
Item of Interest: John Doe
Page details: page 97
Item number: line 12
For Jane Smith:
Item of Interest: Jane Smith
Page details: page 97
Item number: line 15
If you change it as follows, it works much better. You still get a short footnote for Jane Smith instead of a full footnote, but it works much better. The reason that it works better is that the Page Details field is in the Short Footnote and the Item of Interest and Item Number fields are not.
For John Doe:
Item of Interest:
Page details: page 97, line 12, John Doe
Item number:
For Jane Smith:
Item of Interest:
Page details: page 97, line 15, Jane Smith
Item number:
Added: I decided to make a second video (length 2:04) to show the possible fix that does not require making a new source template: Possible fix
YES! I watched your first video and you beautifully explain the behaviour I was struggling with. Thank you so much. I also watched the second video where you describe a possible work around.
I did want to clarify one thing. In the video you state that the behaviour is correct because the first time the Master source is used it should be a full footnote. After the first time it should be a short footnote, regardless of the citation. I would think that the full or short footnote should be based on the Citation rather than the Master Source? This is in fact how at least one other genealogy program does it.
Perhaps rzamor1 could chime in here and confirm which is the expected behaviour for RM7/8? and if this is by design or a possible bug?
I can then adjust the way I use the Master Source/Citations
This gave me fits as well in trying to analyze your problem. But here’s a classic example that helps to clarify it for me. What if the source is a published family history, for example The History of the Doe family by John Doe. A typical citation might be something like the following.
John Doe, The History of the Doe Family, self-published, 1953, page 29.`
The source in some sense is John Doe, The History of the Doe Family, self-published, 1953 and the citation in some sense is page 29. What if then we have a second citation for the same book, say to page 42. How should that citation read? I can see a couple of possibilities.
John Doe, The History of the Doe Family, self-published, 1953, page 42.
John Doe, The History of the Doe Family, page 42.
The first form is a long footnote and the second form is a short footnote. I think what you are wanting to see is that first appearance of page 42 will trigger a long footnote and that all subsequent appearances of page 42 will be short footnotes. But that’s not the way it works. It’s the first appearance of John Doe, The History of the Doe Family, self-published, 1953 that triggers a long footnote. The page number changing has nothing to do with triggering a long footnote. What genealogy has done is to expand this concept to other kinds of sources such as your parish records where there is not a published and bound book with an author but rather there is a collection of records and you need to cite certain individual pages from that collection.
My strong preference would be that short footnotes be banished from the face of the earth and that duplicate citations should always be merged, no matter if they are being printed as footnotes or as endnotes. A citation for page 29 of John Doe’s book is a different citation than a citation for page 42 of John Doe’s book. And if page 29 were cited 114 times in a genealogy report, then citation for page 29 would appear only one time and would be referenced 114 times by the same superscript. Well, it would be at most once per page for footnotes and at most one time overall for endnotes. For endnotes, page 29 would appear only once in the endnotes and would be a full citation. For endnotes, page 42 would appear only once in the endnotes and would be a full citation.
But that’s not the way genealogy and citation standards seem to work. And that’s not the way RM works. It’s my sense that RM is working pretty much like most other software in this regard, and it’s pretty much what is taught by English teachers and by librarians. Any English teachers and librarians out there feel free to correct me if it’s really being done in some other way these days.
Hmm,
I understand your example and I am willing to accept, I would offer that I see it slightly different in that each citation (due to the detail record information) is quite unique, and therefore I would consider the Short footnote to kick in the second time the full AND identical citation is given rather than the the second time the Master source is given. At least, that is the way it seems to me. Regardless you provided great insight to the issue I was having and I am happy for that as I was going crazy trying to figure it out! Thanks so much. And if Rzamor1 agrees with your interpretation of what we are seeing I am good with that!
It doesn’t really help your concern, but I actually do my sources a little differently so I don’t encounter the same problem of short and long footnote processing being a problem.
I don’t use footnotes because they would take up 1/2 to 2/3 of each page of a narrative report and there is no opportunity for combining duplicate citations. Instead, I always use endnotes.
I have my own templates instead of using RM’s.
I always use “Reuse endnote numbers where possible” option. This makes my endnote lists as short as possible and the same citation never appears twice in the endnote list.
My templates store all sourcing data in the yellow area of RM7 (the Master Source area) and no sourcing data in the green area of RM7 (the Source Detail area).
My templates set the short footnote to the same value as the footnote. However, that’s “just in case”. The short footnotes never actually come into play because of items 1, 2, 3, and 4.
I don’t claim that’s the only way to do it nor that it’s the best way to do it. It’s just a way that works for me. I started doing it that way because it provided me with the equivalent of reusable citations in RM7 even though RM7 doesn’t actually support reusable citations. I have since come to realize that there are other advantages.
I get a very clean citation list where short footnotes never even come into play.
It provides the shortest possible citation list. It therefore saves a lot of paper when I take printed reports to family reunions for distribution.
It produces citations that export very cleanly to virtually any other genealogy software.
I have a fairly short list of source templates to deal with - one for census, one for birth, one for death, one for obituary, etc. It makes it very easy to figure out which template to use. My templates are sorted to the front of the source template list because of the way I name them.
If I find that I need a new template or a tweak to an existing template, I can just make the change rather than depending on the software developers for support.
I have considered very seriously changing my methodology just a bit to take advantage of RM8’s reusable citations. But so far I have been deciding to stick with my current methodology in RM8. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.
This thread has been super helpful both in understanding how RM processes the source info but also in modifying the way I enter source information so thanks for that. I close with one last thought. Since I was using a default template, my only comment is that there apparently is no point to the “item of interest” field being in the detail portion if it will not be displayed other than on the first footnote!
In my quick and informal survey of RM’s built-in templates as a part of responding to this thread, I found some of the templates where a detail item did not appear at all in either the long footnote or the short footnote. Rather, the detail item only appeared in the bibliography. This sounds strange, but for the templates I found that worked that way the detail item that appeared only in the bibliography seemed to have something to do with the repository information. I suppose that it makes sense that for the footnote and short footnote we don’t care what the repository is. But this means that if at different times you use different repositories for the same collection that you need different bibliographic entries. It can all be very confusing.
You can always make copies of RM’s built-in templates and change which fields are detail fields and which are not. Then use your copy of the template instead of the built-in template. An additional advantage of this approach is that you cannot correct typographical errors in the built-in templates such as extra or missing spaces, extra or missing commas - that sort of thing. You can correct typographical errors in your own copies of the templates. Also, if you make your own copies of the built-in templates, you can adjust which fields are on the footnote vs. the short footnote sentences.