In the thread Transferring Notes from RM to FamilyTree, I revisited my decades old decision not to use RM’s Family Search Central tools to transfer notes to FS/FT. My results were positive enough that I am now beginning to use RM’s tools to transfer some of my notes into FS/FT rather than copying and pasting notes into FS/FT manually.
Armed with that success, I decided to revisit my similar decades old decision not to use RM’s Family Search Central tools to transfer sources to FS/FT. Again, my testing is fairly positive. However, there are some important cosmetic issues that give me a little pause. I suppose it’s unusual to describe an issue as both “important” and “cosmetic” in the same breath, so let’s see if I can explain. Here is an example screen that exemplifies some of the cosmetic problems.
- $In the Shadow of the Smokies. This is an old citation using a free form template that I have not yet converted to using my templates. I cannot see the citation information which is in the Page Number field of the free form template. So I cannot see what is going to be transferred. I need to be able to see both the source name and the citation name.
- $Obituary. Same as before. I need to see the citation name along with the source name.
- $Tennessee State Marriages, 1765-2002, Same as before. I need to see the citation name along with the source name.
- *book: Manly, Elizabeth Cate etc. This is a templated source. But the source name is too long to see. I need to see the whole source name, which should wrap to a second line. Also, the column divisions have no sliders so I can’t change the column widths. This is an extremely split source, so there is no citation name. But if there were a citation name, then I would need to see it.
- *book: Smoky Mountain Historical Society etc. This is a templated source. Same comments as the previous source.
I can click on the little i icon (information icon) to see more. But it’s still not everything. I need both the source name and the citation name, and they both need to wrap so I can the whole name.
Aside from these important cosmetic issues, transferring source citations from RM to Family Search seems to work quite well. But I’m not sure I want to adopt the practice with these important cosmetic issues in place.