What's New?

During the past few months, I have been working on getting my database cleaned up. In particular, my sources and citations.  Elizabeth Shown Mills is THE expert on this subject in the genealogy field.  In my earlier days I tried using the templates in my resident software, Family Tree Maker. Then later, I discovered they weren't matching the correct Evidence Explained standard of Ms. Mills.  It is a time consuming venture, as I presently have over 550 source groups in my Steele-Rowell-Taylor-Witham database.

Then came the announcement from Ancestry.com last December that they would not be supporting my Family Tree Maker software any longer.  Mass panic ensued with thousands of people feeling they had been abandoned.  Then, about 2 months later, Ancestry announced that they had made a deal with Mackiev software company that would continue to support and update Family Tree Maker.  Many of us had followed another path with other database programs.  I had discovered Roots Magic which, in my opinion, has a very robust source module that followed Evidence Explained standards.  It would even build end notes, foot notes and bibliography notations for you. I also found that to link each fact or event to a source, the citation had to be retyped for each entry or person.  Family Tree Maker has a pop-up window which allows you to check off the facts that the source relates to.  Much faster.  Yesterday I installed a new source in Roots Magic and had to re-type it 39 times for the various people and events that were mentioned.  So, today I am going back to Family Tree Maker and continue my re-do of sources.  Roots Magic, for all it's depth is just too time consuming for my comfort level.