Tool for UNmerging / splitting an RM source? (solved)

RootsMagic
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1

Hello all. I’ve been away for some time. I hope you’ve all been well.

I’m looking for a tool, internal to RM or external, that would allow me to divide out subsets of citations from a RM source and put them into a different RM source (with identical template design).

A practical example … I have an Ancestry-templated Source which has 200+ Kansas State Census records in it for various years (1885, 1895, etc).

My desire is to:

  1. merge the Ancestry-templated Source into a Source based on my own custom template, so that I can enhance the data with additional fields, etc.
  2. Split out subsets of citations for each given year into their own Source. That will give me 4 separate containers, one for each census year.

Step one is easy-peesy. I’ve done it numerous times. But I can’t locate a mechanism for step two within RM. Either I’m not looking in the right place, or it doesn’t exist.

Could someone lend a hand, either pointing out where it is in RM, or suggesting an external tool for it?

PS: If it isn’t natively part of RM, this sure would be a handy thing to add.

Thank ya
Kimberly

2

Glad your back @KimberlyGreen --missed you–hope all is well with you…

Okay I am no expert and maybe I’m not understanding what you are asking BUT after you complete step 1-- could you use Copy this source – under the 3 dots under SOURCES (left side) and then change each copy for the different years ?

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Unfortunately, the source copy mechanism doesn’t also copy the citations contained within. Tried that already. It would have been easy that way, sigh. But thanks for exploring how to solve my need! And I appreciate the welcome-back :slight_smile:

4

SQLITE website may offer some possibilities or R.J. Otter Github,
(using SQL and/or Python)

RJ Otter

SQLite Tools for RootsMagic

1 Like
5

@kevync1985 I think you might be my hero!

I have to experiment, but I think the R.J. Otter tool “RM -Change source for citation” may do what I need. I’m running RM 10 so it may no longer be compatible. However the folder was updated 2 weeks ago, so maybe the code was updated.

Oh, just realized Mr. Otter is part of the userbase here. Involking him ( @RichardOtter ) in case he’d like to comment on current compatibility.

Pasting part of the ReadMe.txt here so the Community search function can find it for other people later:

ChangeSrcForCitation
Utility application for use with RootsMagic databases

RootsMagic (RM) software has Sources and Citations.
Sources are also called “Master Sources”.
Citations are also called “Source Details”.

Sources are created using a Source Template. If 2 sources are created
from the same source template, they will have the same fundamental structure

A Citation is created as a child of a Source. Citations of different sources
created using the same source template will also have the same fundamental
structure.

This simple utility will move a citation from one source to another source,
but only if the 2 sources were created using the same source template.

For example, if you lump census source by US state and year, you will have a
number of sources all based on the same source template.
When entering a citation, you may accidentally cite a source set up for the
wrong year or state. Instead of deleting and recreating the citation, use this
utility to move it to the correct source.

======================================================================
Compatibility
Works with RootsMagic v8 and v9

.exe file version

  •   Windows 64bit only. Tested with Window 11.*

.py file version

  •   Python for Windows v3.12.3   64bit*

  •   The py file has not been tested on MacOS.*

  •   The script could probably be modified to work on MacOS with Python*

  •   version 3 installed.*
6

lol well thank you. @RichardOtter has some great scripts. I have used or adapted some of his (though I not used the Python yet). The only thing I have done with Sources / citations was to create 3000 citations automatically (I did attach step manually) – this was for Find a grave – it was test case basically.

Glad it was helpful. Sqlite and Python is not for everyone - but it really has a lot to offer. Fair to say in most cases it really only limited but a user abilities and understanding of the database structure.

Kevin

7

Regarding compatibility-
Ver 9 and 10 haven’t changed the source & citation elements, so the utility should work fine with 10.

A better introduction to the utilities can be found at:

1 Like
8

I can confirm that ChangeSrcForCitation …

  • works just fine with RootsMagic 10 databases
  • solves the desire to split out the citations to different Sources, albeit one-by-one. It’ll take a bit to move a few hundred citations, but does the job!

Thank you again @kevync1985 for guiding me to the solution. And thank you @RichardOtter for creating the solution!!

1 Like