I have worked for years in updating my family tree in FamilySearch. It is now time to create a local database to prevent others from making “honest mistakes” and changing the data. I have chosen RM8 as my tool of choice, mainly due to the great integration with FS. I have watched hours of RM videos, read tons of KB articles, played with RM8, etc. Still, I have some questions.
I have imported my tree from FS into RM8, using the import tool, using myself as the starting point and doing the default 10 ancestors, 4 descendants.
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After the import, none of the sources are imported. I’ve seen the RM video where you go into each person in the FamilySearch Person Tools, click on the Sources button, and click on each source individually, clicking on the appropriate boxes to attach to RM facts. But with my small tree, that is still THOUSANDS of sources, and many thousands of fact boxes to check. Surely there must be an easier way to import all those sources? (Yes, I know many of you have thousands of hand-typed sources, but why repeat all that work when it’s right there in FS?)
a) I’d rather spend my time doing more researching instead of revalidating/entering sources that are already attached to the FS people. Suggestions on how I can avoid 10,000+ clicks and countless hours?
b) Each FS source is tagged to one or many events/facts. When selecting that FS source, the default option is to Add this source to RootsMagic, and you have to select the records to attach the source to. Why wouldn’t there be several of those same records already checked by default? ie. Findagrave source has name, birth, death, and burial tagged. Why wouldn’t Person, Birth, Death, Burial records be automatically pre-checked for the RM addition? -
The import with me as the starting point does a good job of filling in my tree upward, but it does not traverse back down the tree. ie. it does not import my 3rd cousins, 4th cousins, etc. It has my ancestors and their siblings, but none of their sibling’s descendants. So I’m thinking that the correct way to fill that in is to go as far up the tree as possible, and then do an import for each great-great-great…great grandfather importing many generations of descendants. I would think that this would import all of my cousins from that branch. BUT, when doing this, it:
a) It duplicates that person’s spouse, but with no children with that duplicate spouse. Is this a bug? If it is not, how do I handle this? Unlink, delete, or ??
b) It does not actually import any of my cousins. Specifically, it does not import any grandchildren of the person in question. While the import does claim it’s importing grandchildren, if I select any of my great-great-great uncles, it says zero children, which is not correct, as he has several. Is this a bug, or am I doing something incorrectly?
Thanks!