Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Creating Source Citations in RootsMagic 7 - Post 7: Copying a Source Citation to Another Name or Fact

Researchers new to RootsMagic 7 may have challenges learning how to enter source citations into RootsMagic, so I thought I would show how I enter a new source and then create a citation, with the Evidence Explained source templates, and with a free-form template (in a later post in this series).Previous posts in this series include:

*  Creating Source Citations in RootsMagic 7 - Post 1: New Master Source (posted 12 January 2016).

*  Creating Source Citations in RootsMagic 7 - Post 2: Adding Source Details to the Master Source (posted 13 January 2016).

*  Creating Source Citations in RootsMagic 7 - Post 3: Adding Master Text, Detail Text, Quality and Repository Information (posted 14 January 2016).
*  Creating Source Citations in RootsMagic 7 - Post 4: Crafting a Source Citation for a Published Book Found Online (posted 15 January 2016)
*  Creating Source Citations in RootsMagic 7 - Post 5: Crafting a Source Citation for a Census Entry Using a Source Template (posted 18 January 2016)
*  Creating Source Citations in RootsMagic 7 - Post 6: Crafting a Source Citation for a Census Entry Using a Free-Form Source Template ( posted 19 January 2016)

In this post, I will demonstrate how to copy an existing source citation for a name or fact/event and paste it to another name or fact/event in RootsMagic.


1)  I used the 1940 U.S. census record for my grandfather, Frederick W. Seaver (1876-1942) several years ago in Worcester County, Massachusetts, and the "Free-form" source citation from Post 6, shown below:




The key factor here is to note the "Memorize" button on the line below the "Census sources for ..." line on the screen above.  To copy the source citation (all of it!) to another Name or Fact, you click on the "Memorize" button.  RootsMagic remembers that specific source citation until the user selects another source citation to memorize.

2)  I created an "Occupation" Fact ( click on the "Add a fact" button, then selected "Occupation" from the Fact list) for my grandfather, dated 1 April 1940, in Leominster, Massachusetts, and entered his occupation and place of work in the "Description" field, as shown below:


3)  To add the Memorized source citation to the new Fact, click on the "Source" button on the lower right side of the "Edit Person" screen above.  That opens the "Citation Manager" screen and I then clicked on the "Paste" button (to the right of the "Memorize" button.  The memorized source citation information was added to the fields of the source template:


4)  I clicked the "Close" button and saw the green check in the "Sources" column for the Occupation fact:


5)  I also created an Alternate Name for Frederick Seaver (the name listed in the 1940 census), opened the "Source" button for the name, and pasted the same source citation to the Alternate Name.

Other Facts for Frederick Seaver that could have this source citation pasted to them might be:

*  Birth Year**
*  Birth Place**
*  Residence (in 1940)
*  Residence (in 1935)
*  Education Completed
*  Gender**
*  Race**
*  Income

I could also paste the same source citation into these Facts for the daughter, Geraldine Seaver:

*  Name (or Alternate Name)
*  Birth Year**
*  Birth Place**
*  Residence (in 1940)
*  Residence (in 1935)
*  Education Completed
*  Gender**
*  Race**
*  Income

The identical source citation can be used for all of those Facts quickly by usign the "Memorize" and "Paste" buttons in the "Citation Manager."

** Note:  I don't use alternate Facts for birth date, birth place, gender, or race. I am pretty much a "Conclusion" person and use my judgment to determine those items.

6)  I'm not sure what the next post will demonstrate - what do my readers want to see concerning source citations?


Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.


6 comments:

Unknown said...

Randy,
Since you stated that you want your source entries to be GENCOM compliant does that mean that you do all your sources in free form in RM? Do you know if any of the RM templates are EE and GENCOM compliant?
Rich

Nettie said...

The only time this has not worked for me is.... Have a memorized source on my clipboard [RM alt m], have pasted it to a different fact/person fact and then deleted the source from it original place. Then went to another new place to paste it and it is not on the clipboard any more. Had to go back and re memorize/copy [RM alt m] the source for another paste of the source. Hope this makes sense. Thanks Randy for the many good procedure ways to work in RM.
Nettie on RM forum.

Bonnie said...

Randy, I'd like to see your answers to the questions in this series and then I'd like to see the series grouped and accessible as a single link in your side bar.

Unknown said...

I would love to see how to cite vital documents.

Unknown said...

Thanks for these source citation posts. I'm on a mission to clean up my sources and it's so helpful to see how you approached the problem.

Charlie Poole said...

This is a great series even now, in 2023! I just went through all seven posts and duplicated the same entries using RootsMagic 9. Obviously, things work a bit differently (and have since version 8) but it's easy enough to figure out and probably a better learning experience than it would be if Randy did it for us!

Some differences...
* You have to name the source sooner in the new workflow.
* Source details end up in the "citation" so you have to create that.
* Copy and paste functions are located differently in rootsmagic 9.

Even so, it's surprising how little has changed underneath the UI differences.