I’m finding that, if I associate a source with a person and facts in Ancestry, and subsequently pull that source down in TreeShare, RM will not reuse an existing source and just add new citations to it, but will create an entirely new source with the exact same fields. Should I not be doing that, and only making source/citation links in RM and pushing them up to Ancestry? I think this is somewhat new behavior, I believe when I started using RM about 6 months ago (I think pre-AN api change but post RM11 release) this wasn’t the case.
A related annoyance, which I don’t think is new behavior, is that RM will also create new citations for every individual citation link that comes down from Ancestry. For example, a Census source that is linked to a person’s name, birth, and residence will create 3 separate citations under the (possibly new) census source. I would think creating one citation with 3 citation links to it would be preferable. The solution is not to do the “merge duplicate citations” action because that doesn’t update the ancestry links. Once I do that, 2 of the ancestry link entries will point to non-existing citations and will show up as red on TreeShare. The quick fix would be to check for existing ancestry links when merging duplicate citations and make sure to update the Ancestry link to refer to the post-merge citation, but I would prefer to just have RM create one citation with multiple links.
I agree with the logic of what your are saying but I am not sure that would work for everyone’s needs. (That is often the challenge with implementing new features etc.)
The best way is to sync only up to Ancestry from the file on your computer. Keep it as the master copy and trust yourself not Ancestry to behave responsibly.
This is strictly in the backend, it would have no impact. The merge (duplicate) citations functions simply don’t do this - I’ve checked the DB tables before and after.
I have not reviewed – but there have been various issues over past years since Ver 8.
You might want to consider opening a ticket with support as to why and if its operating as “designed” or something else is going on
The only way to add a source once is to make sure all facts using it for a person are included before clicking Accept Changes. If it is added individually then it will have duplicates. If multiple people are using the same source it will be added on each of them. The only other way is to download the full tree.
RootsMagic won’t attempt to determine if a source already exists when pulling in new fact sources/citations from TreeShare
Merge duplication citations can’t be made to update existing ancestry citation links to point to the newly merged citations
To add a source once or add a citation once? Regardless, neither is true.
I just tested by pulling down a new census source for a person that cites Name, Birth, and Residence. That census already exists in as a source in RM, but it created a new source identical to the existing one and 3 citations, each with one link to their respective facts.
It seems to me that RM should be able to use the same logic in “merge all duplicate sources” to figure out if a source already exists or not. And I would think adding one citation with multiple links should be doable for a single pull (like you said when clicking Accept Changes).
If the citation is already in the database TreeShare has no way of reusing it. Each time you click on Accept Changes it will download a new copy. That is why I said to make sure all facts using that citation are included before clicking Accept Changes. If the source and citation are identical you can merge all sources and citations in RM. However, the Citation ID that Ancestry gave us maybe different turning some icons pink in TreeShare.