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Thursday, February 10, 2011

RootsMagic 4 Source Citations Uploaded via GEDCOM to Ancestry.com - a Surprise!

In my post yesterday, FTM 2011 Citations Uploaded via GEDCOM to Ancestry.com, I showed that the Source Citations created in Family Tree Maker 2011, when passed through a GEDCOM export and Ancestry Member Tree upload process, are imperfect - they are not exactly what FTM 2011 created in either a "Free-form source" or "Template source" format. 

In this post, I'm going to show what happens when a GEDCOM file is created in RootsMagic 4 and uploaded into an Ancestry.com Member Tree.  I was surprised by the results.  The GEDCOM file was the same one created and shown in Peeking at RootsMagic 4 Source Citations in a GEDCOM File - Post 1.

Here is the "Template Source" screen for Isaac Seaver's birth record for reference (a "Book: basic format" template):




After uploading the GEDCOM file to a new Ancestry.com Member Tree, the screen for Isaac Seaver looks like this:



I clicked on the Birth Fact "2 source citations" link and then on each source individually.  Here is the "Source Information" screen for the Birth source created from the "Template Source" in RootsMagic:



The information on the screen is:

Title: Systematic History Fund, Vital Records of Westminster, Massachusetts, to the end of year 1849 (Worcester, Mass.: F.P. Rice, 1908)
Author: [empty]
Publisher: [empty]
Publisher Location: [empty]
Publisher Date: [empty]
Call Number: [empty]
Notes: [empty]

Note that the Title field contains a complete Footnote style source citation, including the publication information within parentheses and the book title is italicized.  There are no entries in the Author, Publisher and Notes fields. 

The Repository information and the Citation Detail information also came through the GEDCOM process as typed in the RootsMagic source citation.  The Quality data did not come through.


Here is the "Source Information" screen for the Birth source created from the "Free-form Source" in RootsMagic:
 

The information on the screen is: 

Title: Systematic History Fund, Vital Records of Westminster, Massachusetts, to the end of year 1849 (Worcester, Mass.: F.P. Rice, 1908)
Author: [empty]
Publisher: [empty]
Publisher Location: [empty]
Publisher Date: [empty]
Call Number: [empty]
Notes: [empty]
This is exactly the same as the source citation in RootsMagic 4.  The book title is not italicized in the RootsMagic 4 file, and is not italicized in the Amcestry.com Member Tree file. The Repository and Citation Detail information (not shown) came through fine. 

Why does the Title field include the full Footnote source citation, and why aren't the Author, Publisher and Notes fields filled in above?  The simple answer is that the GEDCOM file created by RootsMagic 4 has a TITLe tag with the full Footnote source citation, and it does not include lines with the AUTHor, PUBLisher and NOTE tags. 

Why does the Title italicization come through into the Ancestry.com Member Tree?  The simple answer is that the Ancestry.com Member Tree recognized the [ i ] indicator in the RootsMagic GEDCOM file, and applied it. 

This is really good news, I think.  If a software program can format parts of a source citation with bold or italics or underlining, it's probable that the Ancestry.com Member Tree will include that formatting. 

I was surprised by both the full Footnote, of Evidence! Explained quality, being shown including the italicization.  That is really good news for me, I think.

The Seaver Source Citation Saga will continue [heck, I have to do something useful while being depressed about not being at RootsTech with my genea-blogging colleagues].

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