How has it been going?

[Ben]

What has gone well for you with the first release of the Practical Citation guide and what could be better?

[kuehngenes]

Have read the first release, and tried my hand at a couple of the exercises. The page number reference of your first example didn’t seem to point to the correct reference – but them maybe it is just me.

More examples would be helpful. The approach is different from that which you recommended for census records a few months ago.

I have not converted over to Reunion, and my db of record is still in Legacy Family Tree 7.5, running in a virtual environment. One of the big issues to resolve is to how to migrate sources for 5000+ individuals. Most details were lost in initial attempt a few weeks ago, although Reunion 10 seems to be a better match than Reunion 9 which I tried and gave up on. Event recording in Legacy including media, descriptions, sourcing seems more robust than Reunion. For example, in Legacy, I have one master source say for the 1900 US Census, and then separate citation details for each locality and individual. Unfortunately in Reunion, the media is not supported and the details got merged, and exceeded the field size. So what is in Reunion as Census citations is useless – requiring 100% rework.

Also important to me is that I export Gedcoms to upload to my website running TNG. So it is not just getting the information into Reunion. So it is also important to test how a Reunion Gedcom Export will work with TNG.

But I plan to try my hand at Practical Citations over the next few days.

[Ben]

Hi Tom. You’re absolutely correct. I had an incorrect link and the “what” should have included that the source was volume 17 in a set. I’ve updated the guide. You can download it by clicking “MEMBERS” on the navigation bar then click the download link on your account page.

As for the trouble you’ve had converting from Legacy, you’ve run right into the sort of mess Practical Citation is designed to prevent. I haven’t tested the import of a Practical Citation GEDCOM to TNG yet. That said, I’m very confident it will go smoothly.

[liblady495]

Ben,

I was unaware of Reunion 10 until your information about Practical Citations came through. I have worked through some of the exercises, and need to practice some more. I have down loaded Reunion 10 but not spent much time with it. I am currently working on a major review of a family database, and not sure if I want to make the transition now or wait until I am finished with my review which could be several months down the road.

I like the idea of the practical citation, as the “formal” on is quite complex, and for beginners, is almost impossible. I will continue looking at the Practical Citations, and working on them, so I can use them. I did try to down load the new link and received the message it was damaged. 21

Thank you for your work.

[Ben]

I apologize. The download is fixed now.

[Ben]

@suzivegemite:
“the thought of deleting any information makes me nervous”
Understandably so! Can you post an example of what would end up in the Practical Citation fields and what would be deleted?

[marshrail]

Some or all of below may be just my inexperience with using Reunion, with doing source citations, or maybe just stupidity, but I do want to try to move from paper to computer and hope to start correctly and stay consistent. Thanks!

Implementing Practical Citation
I recently re-read the Practical Citation Manual a couple of times. It then became more clear to me why I hadn’t gone gunho on implementing Practical Citation (PC) though I had set it up last year. I decided that what would have helped me was to have had the answers to the Exercises (pp. 6-13) at the end of the manual, similar to what Thomas Jones has done with his new book, Mastering Genealogical Proof. I would have then been more confident that I was on the right track to implement PC. I know Ben said there is no right way, but still I would have felt that I at least knew what Ben’s best practice was.

Other Information to Record (pp.15-16)
Where and how might we store in our Practical Citation the information from this manual section? I see instructions on pp.17-18 about setting up PC with a custom reference number, and on p.23 putting quality in a Misc. Note. How/where do I put Representation information? In PC itself, in citation detail, through naming of multimedia file which is file containing the source?

Multimedia (Manual, pp. 21-22)
How do I handle multimedia if I’m using only one source for Censuses, for example? Will my 1920 US Federal Population Schedule census source have many multimedia attached to it, and I will tell which one applies in each case based on how I name the individual multimedia item? What might be a suggested file naming convention/pattern for naming those multimedia files? “…describe what part of the source is represented in the file by entering it in the Description field.” “…description of the file.” I’m not sure what location is being referred to as “Description field” and “description of the file”. Is it relating to the citation field of the source citation, or to the file name of the multimedia file, or to the metadata fields of the multimedia file, or ? Or maybe in the citation detail field I am to include the name of the multimedia file that applies to this particular family?

Manual Update
In Ben’s 3/28/13 post to Maureen he mentioned an upcoming manual update to address consolidating sources which involve Ancestry.com using FamilySearch.com files, or obtaining same info from 2 sources, one of which used the other’s databases. When is that manual update expected?

Custom Source Reference Numbers (p.18)
Manual indicates these should be put at “top of a source note”. I’m not sure where/what field/area/place that is being referred to as top of a source note? Explanation?An example?

Thanks for any and all help!

[Ben]

Hi Marscha.

Thanks for the feedback!

I’ve taken a to-do item for adding possible answers to the exercises in an appendix.

You’ll find the instructions for recording multimedia source representations on p. 21 and textual representations on p. 22. In Reunion 10, multimedia goes in the Multimedia tab of the source record while an abstract or transcript is best recorded in a person note.

I use only one source for each census enumeration year in the United States. I don’t keep multimedia representations of them because in the rare case that I need to look at it again, I look it up again.

The “Description” field is in the Multimedia tab of the source record. That’s where you could put the text describing what part of the source is represented in the multimedia file. Reunion 10 will populate this field with the file name. If you haven’t included all the necessary information in the file name you can click on the “Description” field to modify the contents after attaching the file. See the details in my reply to this topic: https://practicalcitation.com/forums/storing-sources-and-citations-reunion-10-forum/census-image-in-reunion-10/

I under estimated the complexity of providing instruction for consolidation sources. I’m still working on it and can’t say when it will be done.

On page 22 I’ve written, “The safe place to store source notes is in a Misc Note under Edit Person.” What I’m recommending is that if you use custom source reference numbers, add the reference number field to your custom source type and list the custom source reference number and description for each cited source for a person under a misc note attached to that person. To be sure it’s a lot of work so use custom source reference numbers only where the value outweighs the inconvenience.

—-Ben >@<

[Karen Miller]

I echo Marshrail’s suggestion “what would have helped me was to have had the answers to the Exercises (pp. 6-13) at the end of the manual.” The other thing that might help is to explain how the parts of a Practical Citation map to the GEDCOM Standard. For example, what does the standard say about what we are calling DESCRIPTIVE TITLE, ORIGINATOR, PUBLICATION FACTS, INFORMATION LOCATION. You did this for another member, Ben, who had questions about what to include in INFORMATION LOCATION. I found your reply very helpful.

Thank you
Karen Miller

[Ben]

Hi Karen! Thanks for the feedback. I’m strongly considering both of those suggestions for inclusion in future versions.

—-Ben >@<

[Author]

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