Ok really confused
I have for a as an example a baptism fact as source eg a picture of a baptism record I have this under the media column on the persons page. I also have a source and citation. Should I add the media picture re baptism record to the citation part as well . Hope this isnt too stupid a question. Or just leave the record under media by fact. Ty
1 Like
One approach is to enter a source for the document like DIR(ectory) catholic church records 1760-1906. Then add a citation with the information on the baptism and a pdf of the document as media in the citation.
You may get other records from the same source but referring to different pages, years, people etc and each would have a separate citation and media.
1 Like
ty Rooty Ive been adding media to the fact via the add media, and then realised there was a media place on the citation edit field. Will go back and add to citations I think. Not very clear yet on some of the best ways round the areas like tis as yet. Had RM8 for quite a while ,but didnt really use it much now got 9 and am keen to do more . Its like starting again and getting into a rhythm with facts etc
1 Like
Not stupid at all. This question is surely one of the most asked questions on the RM forums.
1 Like
RM uses the terms “fact” and “event” somewhat interchangeably. They are things like birth, christening, baptism, marriage, death, and burial. They are essentially just statements that you type into RM. In this terminology, a piece of paper with a baptism certificate or a marriage certificate or anything like that is not a fact. Rather, it is a source and usually is first entered into RM as an image file. You might scan your piece of paper, or you might download the image from the Internet and never have a piece of paper. You then create a citation for your source in RM, and the citation prints in reports as footnotes or endnotes.
Image files can be linked to facts/events in RM or to citations in RM or to both. The most logical place to link image files is probably citations. The most convenient place to link image files is probably to facts/events. Some users do it one way. Some users do it the other way. Some users do it both ways. There is not just one “correct” way to do it.
In any case, your image files will not be printed in most reports. They will be for your eyes only while you are using RM. The exception is that the image files can be printed out as reports called Scrapbooks. The Scrapbooks are separate reports from things like Family Group Sheets, Narrative Reports, etc. The only exception is that you can enter one image for each person that can be printed for that person on quite a few different reports. Such images are usually photos of the person rather than being images of baptism certificates or marriage certificates or that sort of thing.
1 Like
@thejerrybryan, I started to respond this morning and as I typed I kept thinking that you could word the explanation so much better. So I waited, hoping that you’d jump in. And (as usual) it was worth the wait. I’ve been learning from your posts for over a decade in these forums. Thank you for all that you continue to do!
1 Like
ty Jerry sooo much that is a really clear and informative explanation .I feel more confident as to what to do now
After going through this thread (and finding it very interesting), I have just one question left.
Why does the media symbol not show up in the fact proof indicator column if you attach the media to the source, but it does if you attach it under the media column? Shouldn’t it show up no matter which you attach it to? Either way you are attaching a media file to the fact. I ended up double attaching a number of documents before I realized it just wasn’t recording it in the fact window.
The straightforward answer is that RM is being very literal.
An icon in the the source column means there is at least one citation attached to the fact, nothing more and nothing less. The presence of the icon in the source column doesn’t really say anything about proof, just that there are one or more citations attached to the fact. There can be multiple citations attached to the fact. You can’t tell how many there are just from the icon. And some of the citations could have attached media files and other of the citations might not have media files. The icon doesn’t tell you anything about that.
An icon in the media column means there is at least media file attached to the fact, nothing more and nothing less. Again, the presence of the icon in the media column doesn’t really say anything about proof, just that there are one or more media files attached to the fact. There can be multiple media files attached to the fact. You can’t tell how many there are just from the icon.
That being said, there have been requests for years for some sort of indication in the Edit Person screen that media is attached to sources. For example, the icon could be a different color or a different shape. But the most such an indication could mean would be that at least one citation had at least one media file.
There have also been requests for years for some sort of indication on the citation list itself that media is attached to the citations. The most an indication could mean for the citations with the media indication would be that the citation had at least one media file which was attached.
A very common question from new RM users is whether it is better to attach media files to facts or to citations or to both. My answer is that attaching the media files to citations is the more logical but attaching the media files to facts is more convenient because it makes it easier to get to the media files. I usually attach media files both places, even though it’s a bit illogical.
My final observation is that for sites such as Ancestry and FamilySearch, the handling of sources and media is such that the media file actually is the source. But RM and most if not all of its competitors on the desktop use a different way of handling sources and media so that sources and media are different things. As for me, I like to think of media files actually being the sources, even though that’s not quite the way RM and its competitors do things.
2 Likes
Thank you for your very interesting explanation. I agree that the source is actually the media in almost all instances. Actually, I have a hard time coming up with something where the media wouldn’t be the source. Maybe a recorded interview? The tape is the media, but the source would be the interviewee?
Since the changes I would like to see have already been requested, apparently many times, I will wait patiently and hope that the programmers will eventually get around to listening to the users and make the requested changes. Thanks again.
Yes, that’s the way I handle interviews. Similarly, for an email from a person, the email is the media and the source is the author of the email. I literally save email messages as files of type EML. For messages via Facebook, I do a screen grab of the message. The screen grab is the media and the person who sent the message via Facebook is the source. Etc.
Perfect! I love finding someone who is as anal as I am!
And let’s not forget that Marshall McLuhan said “The media is the message.”