Hi all! I went from RM7 & jumped to RM9 once it came out, & it’s what I currently use.
I’m not a fan of Ancestry’s share feature so I hardly use it in RM; there’s too many errors from people connecting info without validating it. I am more interested in RM10’s DNA features, since I currently enter all that info manually. (So tedious to do!)
I also created a lot of custom templates etc so I don’t want to lose those or the data that uses it. Same with roles etc. I was wondering if there’s enough features added (not just DNA feature) to make upgrading from RM9 to RM10 worth it.
For those of you who have actually gone from RM9 to RM10, could you share their experiences thus far?
Also, if I do choose to upgrade… do you have any tips/tricks/prep-work that I should consider to make the transition/data-issues less problematic?
Updated to add screenshots.
I currently enter DNA info manually & wanted to show the info I enter & whether it would be easier with RM10. Some of the entries are redundant but my process is a work-in-progress. LOL
This (below) is the People List view that shows their haplogroups so I could see the potential lineages and relations. I sorted by yDNA haplogroups in this instance.
The DNA notes below is just an example, as I’d delete what wasn’t available – like whether it was an autosomal or Big-Y DNA test, or if an X-Match was shown, or if the site offers cM numbers vs shared DNA percent, etc.
I found the rules based searches and rules based groups in RM10 to be fantastic new features that I use very heavily every day.
I also found the ability to copy facts to be a real game changer to make entry of census records easier (I don’t use shared witness roles for census facts). The way you choose the people to whom to copy facts leaves a great deal to be desired. But even with this problem, entering census data is much easier for me than it used to be.
I am not certain why so many fuss about the bad info on Ancestry. There are literally tons of original document images that provide plenty of documentation possibilities. Like many of the Youtube genealogy pros preach, use the records and take the trees with a grain of salt, use them solely for hints on where to go and where to look.
In regards to the DNA stuff, you are still going to be doing manual entry of that information. RM 10 doesn’t do much other than to give you some type of form entry for the details. So if your current system works, then you might not want to change unless this form is important.
Both DNA and the ability to copy facts might someday make it worthwhile, but both need further development to get me to change. I am still using RM7 for data entry simply because I find the user interface to RM8-10 to be an abomination of good UI design.
One consideration to keep in mind is that RM9 will never receive updates so if something breaks in it, there will really be no option but to upgrade.
Not upgrading to the current version of any software is generally unwise. No bug fixes, security patches or new features.
Ancestry is a wonderful source of records and hints to follow up manually. Just avoid believing the trees except as possible hints. Family search is almost laughably bad in what people do in their trees but also has records.
That must be a Mac specific thing. There is a long list of good reasons to not upgrade to the latest, at least not right away. You have even used one of those regards in regards to not upgrading to the newest release of the MacOS. Therr could be bugs in the latest version, there could be feature loss, just to name a few.
Pretty much any business that relies on mission critical software is not going to upgrade immediately without very thorough test. One reason for Internet Explorer and Windows 10 had extended support windows for these businesses.
On Windows upgrading or terrible tuesday patches can be disasterous. On mac if you are aware of new app updates and wait a week or so you are pretty safe. On the OS I always wait for xx.2 or .3 (not xx.0.x) and let the dumb bunnies debug for me.
I use the shared roles with census records so that I don’t have to reenter the shared info between people. Are you saying we’re now able to copy an entry and paste it onto another person’s record? (Not just the bits of text entered, but the entry as a whole.)
I do currently use color coding and sorting so that I can group/tag/find those people again, so it sounds like the rules-based features might be a game-changer for me as well.
I prefer to not be one of the Pioneers who take the arrows, at least when it comes to tech and software. When something new comes out, I give it time to have the bugs & glitches discovered/fixed. Being patient has saved me a lot of headaches!
As for FamilySearch, you are right – it can be just as bad as some of those Ancestry trees. The issue I have with Ancestry is the info has no sources or is grossly wrong or invalid. It just ends up being more work, especially if I’ve already got that person established & fact-checked on my tree. I won’t go into details because that’s not the point of my original post, but basically Ancestry profits from your uncompensated labor/time/data uploads (& other data that originated for free elsewhere) and hides it behind a pricey paywall.
That’s actually what I do with Ancestry sharing – use it to see what info is out there, and dig for that info directly from the source (which is often free - like the Archives), instead of thru Ancestry (which I consider as a 3rd party paywall). I don’t share my info with them & I don’t download their info into mine.
As for the DNA stuff – my system works somewhat, but it is a lot of repetitive data entry that I was hoping would improve with the DNA features of RM10. I log shared cM/strands amount, relationship calculation (2nd gg maternal etc), what their paternal/maternal haplogroups are, who the shared DNA relatives are (if any), etc. I also like to sort people by their haplogroups and see those connections. These were the types of things I was hoping would be simplified for me in RM10.
I started with RM7 & it’s UI was less cumbersome… but now, there’s so many facts/data that RM wanted to display in one screen so RM8 became quite the overhaul. RM8 made me lose a little interest, but then RM9’s features looked promising, so I took that leap. Now I’m just curious if RM10 will work better for my needs…
Jerry will probably explain it more fully BUT yes you can Copy a fact from one person to another and the notes and source citation also copies-- NOT sure abt media…
BUT I have NOT figured out a way to personalize the fact like you can do for roles-- perhaps @thejerrybryan has…
So instead of it saying Anna appeared in 1861 census in the household of her son Mel Acorn blah blah-- it just says Anna appeared in the 1861 census blah blah…
You can also move a fact from one person to another in case you every entered a fact to the wrong person…
Don’t know if you used the Association feature BUT that now will transfer and they upgraded drop and drag so it’s NOT a gedcom type import…
Going to suggest 2 things-- 1st is to download the RM10 essentials-- it’s free BUT not sure what you can and can NOT access thru essentials–JUST BE SURE TO COPY YOUR RM 9 FILES AND OPEN THE COPIES— so it doesn’t mess with your RM 9 copy… https://www.rootsmagic.com/Try/RootsMagic/
2nd-- check out some of these videos on RM 10–they don’t go to deeply into it BUT it will give you some ideas as to what is possible and what is on the DNA side of it…
That’s a good idea! I did wonder if the Essentials had the DNA features locked or not, so I could see for myself. I’m watching some of the videos as well. Looks like the related ones were posted just 3 months ago, so there might be more details there that wasn’t covered on the website. Thanks~
If by an “entry”, you mean a fact, then the answer is yes. It copies everything - date, place, media,citation, note,description, etc.
If however you literally mean “paste” then the answer is no. There is not a copy and then go to a different person and do a paste. Instead, you do a copy and you are in the RM Explorer dialog where you find and mark the person or persons who are to receive a copy of the fact.
I find the RM Explorer dialog fine for selecting the people to receive a copy of the fact if
there is a clear rule that can used to make the selection. For example, I have copied a fact to thousands of people all in one go - easy-peasy. But I find using the RM Explorer dialog not so fine to pick several family members to receive a copy of a census fact. Actually, there is an option to select a whole family. But that’s seldom what I need because there will be children not yet born at the time of the census or children who have died or who have married and moved out by the time of the census.
That being said, entering a census fact once and copying it to other family members is still much better than the way I had to do census facts before the copy fact feature was introduced into RM. But it still needs a much easier way to select close family members who are to receive a copy of the fact.
Personalizing is not the way “copy fact” works. It’s a very literal copy. In the case of census facts, I go back to each census fact I have copied and personalize the note. But even so, copying the census fact still saves me an enormous amount of time as compared to the way I had to enter census facts before.
When they were introduced in RM4, I tried using witnesses and roles with the census fact. It worked, but I quickly discovered that I still had to spend a lot of time customizing the note for each person so that witnesses and roles didn’t really save me any time. I also quickly discovered that lots of other genealogy software doesn’t support RM’s witnesses and roles. And I also quickly discovered that RM’s witnesses and roles are pretty unmanageable, like you can’t do a search or make a group on people who do or don’t have a census role. So for all those reasons, I stayed with real facts for census data. And now I use the copy fact facility with census facts. I’m a happy camper except for how hard it is to select the family members to receive a copy of the census fact.
I now use the Shared Facts feature in RM9 to share address changes, census records, births (twins) etc, which means I’ve also had to make some changes/additions to Roles so that the statements refer to the person I have open on my screen, rather than to the person who had the original fact shared. For the most part, this has been easier than having to manually enter the data for each individual that’s named/tied to that record. (Getting the roles set up initially was a PITA!)
My adult kiddos (& perhaps future descendants) may be intrigued about family trees & history, but not to the extent where they’d be willing to do some digging themselves. lol So I’ve been playing with adding world events to RM, which adds context as to why families/ancestry was where they were or why they left & such. (This info has actually helped draw in the kiddos. lol)
So for instance, the War of 1812 (or some other event) should be a fact I can copy & paste onto several people’s timelines at once. In the Person’s edit screen where I first entered & saved the info, I can’t right-click that line-item to copy & paste it onto several people simultaneously. I can delete via right-click, but I can’t copy/paste. I’d hate to use the Shared Facts feature since there’s going to be hundreds I’d need to share it with. But if for some reason, the info on that event changes – I’d hate to have hundreds of entries to update. How would you handle this?
For copying a fact, you can right click and then pick people using RM Explorer.
For sharing a role, it’s not a right click. But instead you can click on Shared and then pick people using RM Explorer. So it’s a very similar process. Well, in the case of clicking on Shared, there are a couple of extra steps because you have to click on + Shared Fact and then you have to pick a role.
The extra steps are necessary because you might be deleting a shared fact instead of adding one and you might just be wanting to look at existing shares instead of adding or deleting. And you really do need to choose a role. Those steps are not necessary when copying a fact. But to repeat myself, the RM Explorer part of the process is the same either way.
As Jerry said in RM 9, the only way you can do it is by mass sharing–making a group and color coding the group would make the selection process easier as you just look for the color in the list or do a search and save it-- for the witness role I used Principal 2 as the name and my sentence for the witness role is
[ThisPerson] participated in the War of 1812 <[date]> <[place]> <[desc]>. – so my sentence in a report says
Howdy Loose participated in the War of 1812 from 1812 to 1815 in Tennessee per War records obtained from Fold3…
Whatever you put on the 1st person in any field including description and notes is going to show up for all-- there is an individual note section for each witness BUT the only place you can see it is under witness in the shared roll or in a report…
If you decide later on that the info needs to be changed, you can just change it in the fact for any person and it will update all UNLESS the info was under the witness notes-- that has to be done on an individual level…
If you had RM 10, you could use the Copy Fact to add the info to a couple of hundred people at one time-- you would make a generic fact-- then either make a group and color code it or do a search and save it.
Add the fact to the 1st person-- then click on the 3 dots and select Copy Selected Fact-- mark the people you want by using the color coding or saved search and hit okay— if needed after that, you can go in and edit each person one by one such as listing their rank in the service etc…
If later the info changes and you can edit the fact sentence then it will change all the facts.
The downside is IF you realize after copying the fact that you made a mistake in spelling or the info changes ( and can’t be changed in the fact sentence), then you would have the problem of updating hundreds of entries-- in a case like that, I would make a 2nd fact-- War of 1812 v2-- and after making sure everything is RIGHT, I would use CHANGE FACT TYPE FOR EVERYONE UNDER TOOLS and then delete the 1st fact after making sure it’s NOT in use…
I, like many genealogy researchers, remain highly skeptical of any DNA testing Company (think what is happening now with 23 and Me, and Ancestry could change its DNA privacy promises with a simple 30-day notice of change of terms that most folks would ignore). Therefore, the “major upgrade” of RM10 offers little new usefulnes to me. I would have been much more willing to upgrade to RM10 if the DNA/health features had been offered as an add-on utility.
As a result, I will stick with RM9 as long as it remains reasonably functional for things like FamilySearch webhints. If those API links break, it will be time for me to leave (as a dedicated user since the first Family Origins).
