Wednesday, September 26, 2012

UPDATED AGAIN: Creating a Specific Source Usage Report in Family Tree Maker 2012

After two failed attempts (in Creating a Specific Source List Report in Family Tree Maker 2012 and UPDATE: Creating a Specific Source List Report in Family Tree Maker 2012, I think we've finally figured out how to create the Specific Source Usage Report that I want in Family Tree Maker 2012.  In email today, Russ Worthington suggested using the "Other" radio button in the "Selected Individuals" section.

Here is the process I used:

1)  On the "Publish" workspace, and the "Source Reports" section, highlight the "Documented Facts" report.



2)  When you click on the "Create Report" button above, the "Documented Facts Report" page opens.  In the right-hand panel ("Documented Facts Options"), click on the "Selected Individuals" radio button.  Then click on the "Individuals to Include" button, and the "Filter Individuals" window will open (see below).  Click on the "Filter In >" button and the "Filter Individuals by Criteria" will appear, as seen below:


In order to Filter In only the individuals that have a specific Master Source, enter the following in the fields:

*  Click on the "Other" radio button at the top of the "Filter Individuals by Criteria" window
*  Click the Dropdown arrow in the "Search Where" field, and select "Source Information"  There are different items in the Dropdown box as shown in the screen above.
*  Select "contains" in the second Dropdown box
*  Type in a portion of the title of your master Source in the "Value" field - I typed in "Vital Records of Westminster" because that was in the title of my specific source

3)  I clicked "OK" and after a period of time, 137 persons were added to the "Filter Individuals" window list.  I clicked "OK" and the "Documented Facts" report appeared:


There are 43 pages of entries for persons with a Documented Fact in Westminster, entered alphabetically by person surname and given name.  The report provides the Fact name and value, followed by the Source, Citation and Repository for each Fact with a Source citation.

The list above includes Facts for which the "Vital Records of Westminster, Massachusetts" is in the master source title field.  Note that the information in the "Value" field in the "Filter Individuals by Criteria" window doesn't have to be complete - it can be only a portion of what is in the field.  

However, the "Documented Facts" report above also includes other Documented Facts from other sources for the person.  For example, in the screen above, there are three documented facts for Joshua Bigelow - his birth in Watertown, his marriage in Watertown, and his death in Westminster.

While this is still not "Perfect," it is at least "Good."  The desired master source is included with the source citation detail and it can be used for the purpose I intended - to determine which Facts are sourced to the Westminster Vital Records book (in my example) so that the Source Citations can be reviewed, edited, added or deleted.

As most of my readers know, I go out on the ledge sometimes and crash and burn when I jump off without a net.  This happened in this particular case, but it stimulated discussions from Rosemary and Russ, and we eventually covered all of the bases and came to a "good" conclusion.

I would love to see an addition to the "Source Usage Report" in the "Publish" workspace - a separate radio button for "Find Citations in One Source" with a Dropdown box to select that specific Source.  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/09/update-creating-specific-source-usage.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

2 comments:

Cousin Russ said...

Randy,

Congratulations. Thanks for publishing how you created the report that you wanted.

I hope that you have provided Feedback to the developers on the Help, Online Help Center, Feedback link and let them know what you would like to see.

Thank you,

Russ

Geolover said...

Randy, that was an interesting series of reports on your attempts to get a relevant-to-event report on sources, that **included the full citation as entered.**

It should not be so hard.

Does the help feature of the software help at all to find what you wanted? If not, this, too, could use improvement.