Opinions Welcome

My internet was very spotty last night, so I decided to take the time to work on my Roots Magic source lists. I was going good, but things got out of hand and I ended up putting most of my info into FTM instead of RM. So I decided to start the source list over since I hadn’t gotten much done there anyway. It wasn’t long before my original roadblock came back.

FTM 2010 Source List. Click for full size.

The image above shows how my FTM source list is going. I’m actually really pleased with how easy it is to sort through the sources on there.

RootsMagic Source. Click for full size.

Here is the same source in Roots Magic. Here’s my question. Should I really separate the censuses by county? In Roots Magic this could mean 15 different sources for the 1860 US Census alone. How do you organize your sources in Roots Magic? Here’s another wrench, how do you solve the problem of recording other families. I’ve been reading all over that I should be also noting the neighboring families. I can go back and do that no problem, but how exactly do you record that in your program without making a source citation completely ridiculous?

Please help this clueless, fumbling genealogist. My misadventures are getting very frustrating lately!

3 thoughts on “Opinions Welcome

  1. Claudia says:

    If you are citing the neighbors could you possibly say…..see reference of John Doe Family, Main St USA.

    I have to get busy on this myself but all I seem to be doing is reading blogs and not working on Genealogy.

  2. Kathleen says:

    Thanks for the comment Claudia! I think I’ve figured out what I’m going to do, but I need to try it out first!

    I hear you on the working on genealogy thing. I haven’t had the time to do it as much as I would have liked lately.

  3. Ben Sayer says:

    Hi, Kathleen.

    In RootsMagic, use a master source recorded at the jurisdiction level (usually county as you wrote), then use source details for each individual (or family if you’re creating a family census fact) you want to reference so that you can reference line, family, and dwelling numbers specifically.

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