tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post5843984948877433598..comments2024-03-26T11:22:41.940-07:00Comments on Genea-Musings: Dear Randy: What are Free-form Citations, and why are you using them?Randy Seaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17477703429102065294noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post-70985310966767739042011-05-19T10:20:35.588-07:002011-05-19T10:20:35.588-07:00Eileen,
Randy has done a great job of walking all...Eileen,<br /><br />Randy has done a great job of walking all of us, how follow him, through this "mess" (my words not his).<br /><br />I use Family Tree Maker and have used Roots Magic 4, and Legacy 7, dealing with this issue. (Free-Form vs another form).<br /><br />Here is my take. Family Tree Maker has one such "free form" citation format. It has been in use for 10 or so years.<br /><br />I think that Roots Magic and Legacy (older versions) had similar "free form" citation fields. All three programs continue to do this.<br /><br />I don't know exactly when the change took place, with Family Tree Maker implemented a Template feature, which basically took the templates as described in Evidence Explained! by Elizabeth Shown Mills, provided us with a tool so that we, the users, could fill in a number of fields to generate a more formal output for our Citations.<br /><br />All three programs that I mentioned have created these templates.<br /><br />My involvement with testing, much like Randy, was when I tried to Share my research with another, newly found cousin. That is where the real issue is, in my opinion.<br /><br />The vehicle we have to share is the use of a GEDCOM file. The last update to the description of what goes into a GEDCOM file was done 15 or 16 years ago and has not been officially updated nor agreed to since.<br /><br />I exchanged a test file with 6 or more different programs. The end result, when sharing of the file, was the Citations did not come through cleanly. I think that Randy has shown that in some details.<br /><br />As long as you don't share your information or you share your research between the same program (and version of program) your citations will probably come out OK, but going between different programs, and some times between versions of the same program may cause issues, especially when the more formal "templates" are used, or not used.<br /><br />There is an effort addressing the GEDCOM issue, but it will probably be a while before we, the users of any of these genealogy programs will see the end result.<br /><br />There is a flip side of this. I have done a lot of clean up of my data base, just as Randy has, by moving my Free-Form Citations into the Template Format. I have reduced some of the reports that I have generated by pages, by using the Template that Family Tree Maker provides and the end result of the EndNotes (the way that Family Tree Maker presents the Citations) is much cleaner and consistent. <br /><br />I hope that helps.<br /><br />RussCousin Russhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00326890362591254874noreply@blogger.com