In your templare move the URL to the citation (put a y in the source column). That will move it to the citation. That’s what i do with my French recorde and it takes me directly to the correct place.
@MYoung
HUGE thank you! That’s exactly what I needed. I had been trying to figure out what that column marked “D” was; if you click “source detail field” it puts an X in the column named “D” which then puts a “Y” in the Source column after you click ok. In that same area, what does the column mysteriously named “?” indicate? It doesn’t seem editable, but I’m curious as to why it’s there and what it means.
Another question:
What does “Access type” mean? The hint is not helping me. Does it refer to online vs. in person? That’s what I’d imagine, but I don’t see that in EE citations, and my having viewed it online is surely clear from the citation of a website. Does it mean something else?
I think that earlier in the thread you were thinking of having two URL’s. There would be one URL for the volume that would get you to the first page of the volume and it would go into the Master Source. There would be a second URL for the page and it would go into the Source Details. I suppose that’s ok, but I see little reason to have the first URL. Why would you ever really want to link to the first page instead of to the actual page? And having linked to the actual page, don’t most sites with these kinds of collections support an easy way to get to any other page including the first page?
To tell you the truth and despite having had a 50 year career in IT, I’m not sure of the value of recording all these URL’s. For one thing, I’m very oriented towards printed reports, and the URL’s are not clickable on paper. For another thing, for publishing online instead of on paper I’m by no means sure that the URL will still be good 1 year from now or 5 years from now or 100 years from now.
I do like to record in broad general terms where I found things online, like ancestry.com or familysearch.org or fold3.com. But that’s not the same thing as having a specific URL to a specific record. So instead of URL’s, I like to try to include enough information to find the record again without relying on a specific URL. How is that for an IT person not being very trusting of IT?
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No – I was trying to envision a way to split a two-part URL into the Source and Citation areas, only because I didn’t know you could move the whole URL to the citation page. Now that I understand how to do that, I can link to the page.
I’m recording URLs because proper citation requires it, but I hear you on these things likely being obsolete sooner or later.
The ? column ? – x indicates there is a long hint defined for this source field. This long hint can be more detailed and show examples to help the user understand the data to be entered into the field. There is no restriction on the characters that can be used, or that will be displayed. This is entered when defining the field.
For Access type, that’s accessed, downloaded or viewed. so if you download a copy I’d put downloaded, the default is usually “accessed”
Using F1 when in the database and searching for sources will giving you a little more information especially the Creating Source Templates section. Always a good way to go.
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The reasons I personally record them:
- EE acknowledges that “Identification of a website’s address - its URL - can be tricky.” But it still coaches that the specific URLs should be cited.
- My own potential near-future need. Generally I download an image when I access it. Occassionally though I just view it, particularly when exploring an unverified person. Later I might want to go back and grab that image, so it’s easier if I’ve recorded that URL. That’s happened frequently enough to justify the effort.
- Data exchange. If I ever do need to give someone else a link, so that they can look up the same data, it’s handy to have that URL captured. I’ve done this on occassion with a cousin. I’ve also used the URLs while posting corrections to a different record (Census) as evidence of continuity.
Like you, I also record additional location information.
I don’t think it’s lack of “trust”. I think it’s just a deep understanding of the steep obsolescence curve of technology and realizing that future-proofing is needed. Even NARA struggles with it, so you’re in good company.
(Dang Jerry. Fifty years! Now I feel like just a pup at 30 years in.)
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I agree. The RM citation system is Byzantine. RM desperately needs best practices explained, not one of the RM videos that tells you ALL the things you can do, but not what you should do and why.
While I don’t recall discussion about the development back in Alfred’s day with the old rootsmagic_users mailing list, I did correspond with the Canadian consultant Bill Bienia who worked on Source Templates and the Sentence Template Language for/with RootsMagic Inc. He produced as well the RootsMagic 4 Tip Sheet which condensed to one page the definitions with examples of the sentence template language and is still valid for RM 10. It’s available on the Tech Support site at
https://support.rootsmagic.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=✓&query=Tip+sheet
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I may be doing something wrong, but I can’t get the Tip Sheet to come up. It looks like it may not be there anymore.
You can find it here on FB also. Tip Sheet
Yes, those come up for me just fine.
Don’t know if this would help you get an idea or what-- ran across this yesterday and it can easily be used for anywhere
just a thought
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An enormous thank you to all of you who helped me figure out how to source records in RM. One of the best things about doing genealogy is making connections. Sometimes it’s with family, of course, but other times it’s with people who also love this hobby of ours. I am very appreciative of all the advice and those of you who took the time to write out and explain how you do things. It has helped me tremendously.
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I worked in IT for 30 years and I feel the same way. I think when you work in the industry, you realize where the hazards are, and technology is constantly changing. I’m with you on the URLs - we can’t be sure that those websites will still be there, and even if they are, that they won’t move the records around and break all the links. Heck, look how often you get a 404 “page not found” error on other websites, and those don’t have anywhere near the amount of content that the genealogy sites have.