Several months ago I joined the FamilySearch Labs CETs feature to upload my own family tree, separate from FamilySearch Trees. They told me they were working with RootsMagic, which was developing software for this. How is the project going?
I’d like to make one suggestion, which is to have a setting in RootsMagic that allows us to pick a specific citation sentence (footnote, short footnote, or bibliography) for the citations. I have imported a gedcom to WikiTree and the citations come out a total mess. I ended up having to copy each footnote from RootsMagic and pasting it into WikiTree. I’d like to avoid that for FamilySearch CETs.
Don’t expect an answer from anyone at RootsMagic since it’s their policy is not to comment on what they are working on. No company tells what they are working on, it would be suicide.
I suspect you have encountered a known problem where citations created by some but not all of RM’s source templates become mangled when those citations are exported from RM to other software.
May I ask whether you are using RM’s source templates, or are using the free form template? And if you are using RM’s source templates, can you list a few of them that you use where the citations are mangled when exported to WikiTree?
I mostly made all my own templates, but it seems none of template sentences are used. Instead RootsMagic puts each source template field under its own name. (I suppose if I had done them all free form, it would be as bad.)
My hope is that they don’t do it that way with FamilySearch CETs
Source: S12610 FamilySearch.org ; downloaded; 31 August 2025; marriage of Nathan Davis Jr. and Mary Nurse Name: URL FamilySearch.org Name: AccessType downloaded Name: AccessDate 31 August 2025 Name: ItemOfInterest marriage of Nathan Davis Jr. and Mary Nurse Name: FamilySearch.org ; downloaded; 31 August 2025; marriage of Nathan Davis Jr. and Mary Nurse
It probably has something to do with the Gedcom specification. This is how it appears in the Gedcom:
Since you are using your own templates, can you show is a screen shot of the template for this citation. The view of template that is needed is when it is being edited. Thanks.
The data in the GEDCOM from 3 _TMPLT on down will be completely ignored by WikiTree because it is RM’s proprietary template extension to sources and citations that a lot of genealogy software doesn’t understand.
What WikiTree will process is
2 SOUR @S12610@
3 PAGE https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRSP-NNR?view=index; downloaded; 31 August 2025; marriage of Nathan Davis Jr. and Mary Nurse
WikiTree will also process the following for your source, which is not displayed in your screen capture.
The citation in WikiTree should be the data from the 1 TITL record concatenated with the data from the 3 PAGE record. Is that what you are seeing? I may have it wrong, but I can’t be sure until I see your source template.
I may have misinterpreted this thread. However, it is my belief that the Freeform sources seem to transfer to large shared databases without becoming convoluted. I share now on Geneanet but initially tried to make them useful for the large WorldConnect database on Rootsweb. For years I have made these freeform sources as simple as possible hoping they would make sense in the places to which I exported gedcom files. PersonallyI plan to eventually upgrade to one of the later RM versions from RM7. Are there admonitions from the experts against using free form sources?
On the contrary, sources and citations created with RM’s free form template will always transfer correctly. There are no admonitions against using them because of any problems with them transferring correctly.
Free form templates are one of four ways to set up our sources and citations in RM to assure that they always transfer correctly. The four ways that I am aware of are the following.
Use RM’s free form template for all your sources and citations
Use only those RM source templates where all fixed text and master source fields in the footnote sentence are to the left of all source details fields in the footnote sentence.
Use source templates of your own design. In the source templates you design, make sure that all fixed text and master source fields in the footnote sentence are to the left of all source details fields in the footnote sentence.
Become a complete source splitter. Use RM source templates of your own design. In your source templates, make sure that all source fields are master source fields and none of your source fields are source details fields. You can also be a complete source splitter while you are using RM’s free form source template by putting all your data in the Footnote field and none of your data in the Page Number field. But if you are using the free form source template anyway, you are already safe for transfer without also having to become a complete source splitter.
I once began a project to analyze all of RM’s source templates to determine which ones were safe for transfer in all cases. I didn’t get very far because there are so many source templates and because analyzing them is so tedious. I was going through the list alphabetically. The following table shows how far I got before I ran out of steam. Hopefully, the table illustrates the nature of the problem, even though the list of templates is extremely incomplete. The ones with the green check marks are safe for transfer. The ones with the red X’s are not safe for transfer. If you read the sentence left to right and if you see yellow before green, the template is not safe for transfer.
That’s a good thing to do, but it does not solve the problem. Using two examples from my analysis, if you use the Ancestral File template or the Ancestry Member Tree template, any sources and citations generated with those templates will be mangled on export when you uncheck the “Extra details (RM Specific)” option. If you use those templates, your only hope is actually to check the “Extra details (RM Specific)” option and export to software that understands the “Extra details (RM Specific)” option.
As far as I know, the only apps that understand the “Extra details (RM Specific)” option are RM itself, GedSite, GEDCOM Publisher, and Family Historian 7. FamilySearch and Ancestry certainly do not. One that I’m not sure about one way or the other is Family Tree Maker. There may be other apps that understand the “Extra details (RM Specific)” option that I’m not aware of.
Since I don’t have the original RM source template to analyze, I have been looking further at what has already been posted to see what I could figure out.
I was incorrect that WikiTree is ignoring everything from 3 _TMPLT down. That’s part of RM’s “Extra Details (RM)” specific data. The extra details are normally ignored by software that doesn’t support RM’s “Extra Details (RM)”. In this case, WikiTree is not ignoring it, but it is not processing it correctly. So this is a case where Renee’s suggestion to turn off RM’s “Extra Details (RM)” option is spot on. That works fine for free form templates. That works fine for RM’s templates that keep all fixed text and master source variables to the left of all source details variables. But it still doesn’t work for RM’s templates that do not keep all fixed text and master source variables to the left of all source details variables.
So try Renee’s suggestion. It may fix all of your citations. It may fix none of your citations. It may fix some of your citations and not others. It all depends on your source template and whether they keep all fixed text and master source variables to the left of all source details variables.
I have been so focused on the problem of RM’s source templates for which citations are mangled when exported to other software that I failed to notice that WikiTree is trying to process RM’s extra details and is doing it incorrectly. My apologies for that.
