I am creating a narrative report/book for my tree, which has over 15,000 individuals. With other software programs, I create the report and then the Bibliography. The bibliography is linked to individuals in my tree that share each common fact. For example, if the 1900 Census fact is #5 in my Bibliography, everyone who I have linked to the 1900 Census has a superscript #5 next to their name linking them to that source.
Rootsmagic doesn’t seem to do this. I have the 1900 Census as a source, but when I go to print the report with endnotes, that 1900 Census is listed over 1,000 times in endnotes attached to each person individually. If I click the box to “reuse endnote numbers,” the 1900 census is still printed in the endnotes section individually for each person, but with the same endnote number.
The “combine citations for a fact” doesn’t seem to do what I want either.
I tried the shared fact option, but I’m not sure how to “share” the 1900 Census with over 1,000 people.
I have to have references for people to verify my data, and also provide information for anyone reading the narrative report - to find the data themselves.
I printed a small 5 generation narrative descendant report, the endnotes were 4 pages long with the same source listed repeatedly. I am attaching a small section of the report.
How can I make this be 1900 Census listed once with the #1 attached to various individuals in the report; then British Columbia Death #2 listed once, attached to various individuals?
rzamor1 - but I had not run the merging tool after the data rebuilding tools. I closed out of everything, and ran the merging again - this helped a lot, not perfect, but definitely better. Thank you
Some or your “duplicate” citations must not be exact duplicates The exact duplicates will be merged by the automatic tool, but not duplicates that differ in even the slightest detail. The slightest detail that different be something so trivial as an extra blank somewhere. it can be very hard to find. You can force them to merge by doing manual merges on a case by case basis, or you can find and fix the slight detail where they differ.
The underlying cause of the problem in the first place is probably one of two things. One possibility is that you imported the data into RM, possibly even from a previous version of RM itself, and did not run the automatic merge tool after the import. Or possibly you are copying and pasting citations with the “copy” rather than the “reuse” option.
Hi Jerry, I did bring in a ged file from Family Historian and definitely did not run the merge function. My citations/sources are not created for each individual. When I want to cite an existing source, I go to the box next to the vital record for sources, add an existing source - and link that person to the existing source.
For example, if I find Elliot Smith in the 1900 Census and it has his month/year of birth - I add the birth data and link it to my existing source - the 1900 Census. If I find that Elliot was born in New York, I will also link to my existing source of New York births.
I don’t have any “duplicate” sources per se.
I do have sources linked to multiple people.
To do a manual merge with 15,000 individuals is mind boggling and likely not possible.
I am not copying sources, I am linking the vital record to an existing source.
This is a huge problem, because I want anyone reading the report to see where my data came from for authenticity.
So you start with the automatic merge. And use the manual merge only to clean up the ones not caught by the automatic merge.
Having said that, this is the sort of situation where caution is required so have good backups before doing the automatic merge. That’s because sometimes it will merge citations that actually are different, but where the differences are only in the media file or Web tags.
Start with Merge all duplicate sources. Then run Merge all duplicate citations. Then look for remaining sources that are still duplicate or remaining citations that are still duplicate.
Jerry - thank you, but this is truly impossible. There are 17,348 individuals in my tree, there are 21,218 citations, and 801 sources. To try to merge this manually would take me a year at least. And that is assuming I don’t make any mistakes, which is not likely.
My sources are not like yours, see attached. I list a single source and link it to many individuals. In Rootsmagic the source 1900 US Census is linked to 1,047 individuals.
It is the linking that would allow a bibliography to be created, with individuals linked to each appropriate source in the bibliography. The bibliography
This is how the prior 3 software programs have utilized the bibliography/sources and created a verifiable report.
Rootsmagic appears to do this differently with citations.
Jerry - here is a sample 1 page narrative report from Family Historian showing the sources (which normally would be at the very end of the report, but I only did 1 generation) and how they are linked to individuals in the report.
The source is listed once in the ending list, but attached to various individuals.
Rootsmagic, even after a merge, has in the ending list multiple duplicate source citations, attached to different people. for example: the 1900 census might be listed 100 times, attached to 100 different people
I apologize for not understanding. First of all, I think I understand that you wish to produce a bibliography and not a footnote/endnote list. If that’s the case, then your issue is with merging sources rather than with merging citations. If that’s correct, could you post two sources that are really the same but won’t merge automatically.
I am not proposing a gazillion manual merges. I’m proposing one automatic merge. I gather you have tried that and that it didn’t work. So I’m trying to understand why it didn’t work. That’s why I am asking to see two sources that need to merge but which haven’t merged automatically.
