Source URL's from RootsMagic

Discussion in Technical Forum started by Jerry Miller, Sep 16, 2015
JM
Jerry Miller
A couple of years ago I started using RootsMagic for my local edits based on Marie Byatt's comments and my trial of the links to FamilySearch (Thanks, Marie, wonderful tool). I'm trying to upload sources to include the URL's of web based documents I've found on FamilySearch (and elsewhere) to avoid the extra work of taking copies and posting them as photos.

Does anyone know how to populate the URL field in a TP source citation from a RootsMagic source citation? I've tried several ways, but can't seem to find the mapping.

I'm on V7 of RM.

Also, any comment on whether it's better to go the long way and take copies?

JM
Jerry Miller
A bit more research on this topic, since it is a bit obscure. The GEDCOM standard is pretty flexible, and RootsMagic accommodates this, so I should be able to create a Source Template that matches whatever Tribal Pages is expecting.

I'd like to be able to attribute prior research efforts where possible, but get the URL's in the right place.

Are there definitions somewhere about TP's 'source' and 'citation' import characteristics?

JM
Jerry Miller
A bit more research on this topic, since it is a bit obscure. The GEDCOM standard is pretty flexible, and RootsMagic accommodates this, so I should be able to create a Source Template that matches whatever more ...
Tribal Pages is expecting. I'd like to be able to attribute prior research efforts where possible, but get the URL's in the right place. Are there definitions somewhere about TP's 'source' and 'citation' import characteristics
Further research

It appears that Tribal Pages ignores 'Source Templates' when importing GEDCOM's.

Here's the Source Definition in my GEDCOM file

0 @S54@ SOUR

1 ABBR Barry's Bay Website

1 _TMPLT

2 TID 10000

2 FIELD

3 NAME Title

3 VALUE Barry's Bay Area Families

2 FIELD

3 NAME Abbreviation

3 VALUE www.barrysbayfamilies.com

2 FIELD

3 NAME Author

3 VALUE Sharon (Biernaski) Hallam

2 FIELD

3 NAME Published

3 VALUE 2011

2 FIELD

3 NAME URL

3 VALUE www.barrysbayfamilies.com

Everything after TID 10000 is being ignored.

The successful Source Imports define the fields directly, without the Template ID.

E.g.

0 @S54@ SOUR

1 ABBR Barry's Bay Website

1 TITL Barry's Bay Area Families

1 ABBR www.barrysbayfamilies.com

1 AUTH Sharon (Biernaski) Hallam

1 PUBL 2011

1 URL www.barrysbayfamilies.com

would probably work.

I suspect this is a GEDCOM standard that TP has either chosen not to implement or hasn't got around to doing yet. Any comments from TP?

Thanks, Jerry

(I'll also contact RootsMagic to see if I can get RM to format the GEDCOM to TP's implementation).

SW
Sherry Williamson
  website
Further research It appears that Tribal Pages ignores 'Source Templates' when importing GEDCOM's. Here's the Source Definition in my GEDCOM file 0 @S54@ SOUR 1 ABBR Barry's Bay Website more ...
1 _TMPLT 2 TID 10000 2 FIELD 3 NAME Title 3 VALUE Barry's Bay Area Families 2 FIELD 3 NAME Abbreviation 3 VALUE www.barrysbayfamilies.com 2 FIELD 3 NAME Author 3 VALUE Sharon (Biernaski) Hallam 2 FIELD 3 NAME Published 3 VALUE 2011 2 FIELD 3 NAME URL 3 VALUE www.barrysbayfamilies.com Everything after TID 10000 is being ignored. The successful Source Imports define the fields directly, without the Template ID. E.g. 0 @S54@ SOUR 1 ABBR Barry's Bay Website 1 TITL Barry's Bay Area Families 1 ABBR www.barrysbayfamilies.com 1 AUTH Sharon (Biernaski) Hallam 1 PUBL 2011 1 URL www.barrysbayfamilies.com would probably work. I suspect this is a GEDCOM standard that TP has either chosen not to implement or hasn't got around to doing yet. Any comments from TP? Thanks, Jerry (I'll also contact RootsMagic to see if I can get RM to format the GEDCOM to TP's implementation)
I exported my gedcom from Legacy and if I recall, the import ignored "baptism" dates as well as the transcription of marriages included in my citations. I know that tribal support worked on this but I found it easier just to copy and paste from my Legacy tree to the Tribal Tree.
JM
Jerry Miller
I exported my gedcom from Legacy and if I recall, the import ignored "baptism" dates as well as the transcription of marriages included in my citations. I know that tribal support worked on this more ...
but I found it easier just to copy and paste from my Legacy tree to the Tribal Tree
This is from the Wikipedia entry for GEDCOM, at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDCOM#Limitations.

*******************************************

Ambiguity in the specification[edit]

The GEDCOM specification was made purposefully flexible to support many ways of encoding data, particularly in the area of sources. This flexibility has led to a great deal of ambiguity,and has produced the side effect that some genealogy programs which import GEDCOM do not import all of the data from a file.[49]

*********************************************

So, I guess we just have to live with what works.

If you have any programming background, it's probably not that difficult to manipulate the exported file before importing it to TP. It's just a text file that you can open with a text editor like WordPad. But for most people, that's not an option.

JM
Jerry Miller
This is from the Wikipedia entry for GEDCOM, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDCOM#Limitations. ******************************************* Ambiguity in the specification[edit] The GEDCOM specification more ...
was made purposefully flexible to support many ways of encoding data, particularly in the area of sources. This flexibility has led to a great deal of ambiguity,and has produced the side effect that some genealogy programs which import GEDCOM do not import all of the data from a file.[49] ********************************************* So, I guess we just have to live with what works. If you have any programming background, it's probably not that difficult to manipulate the exported file before importing it to TP. It's just a text file that you can open with a text editor like WordPad. But for most people, that's not an option
Did a couple of quick tests tonight.

Not encouraging.

On the plus side, I used Wordpad to edit the GEDCOM file, and after my changes, everything uploaded OK, including things that came after my changes, so I didn't damage anything unintentionally.

However, very little success with getting reformatted data accepted by TP.

I have a source that is a newspaper article, so I changed the GEDCOM to add some of the fields that show up as blanks in the TP source reference.

AUTH worked, URL didn't, TYPE didn't, PUBL didn't.

More interesting is that when I used TP to change the source to include the URL, Source Type, and Publication date, and then DOWNLOADED the file, not all of the fields were in the download.

And then when I blanked the fields in TP and uploaded the file I had just downloaded, some of the just downloaded fields were still blank, even though they were in the GEDCOM file from TP.

So there are different rules on import and export, and a lot of guesswork trying to figure them out.