Karen, thanks for chiming in here! You are definitely the voice of
experience in my opinion. I think the main impetus for asking Legacy to
give more flexibility in sourcing output is that sourcing is truly at the
heart of any sound genealogy research. Without a source (as we see all too
often on the web), the data is not verifiable. It's like walking up to the
drivers license bureau and asking for a license without needing to prove who
you are. Wouldn't that be scary!
Legacy does offer sourcing options (which is great!), but I think that real
consideration should be given to the order and flexibility of output. That
way, as individual formatting trends change for sourcing, the program can
easily adapt. Mills is currently working on a new version of "Evidence!" so
I expect that we will see more changes soon.
I have already played around with my sources after reading Mills'
QuickSheet. Most of the changes could easily be made using a search and
replace. However, the need to print one element (web site address) from the
master source beside another element (accressed date) from the citation
detail cannot be accomplished. One also cannot change the output order
between master source components and details. These would be great changes
in my opinion, and would allow the user to easily adapt sources so they will
look good in a particular report or book.
Thanks to several of you for posting on this subject. Sourcing is *very*
important to me and I would think it would be as well to most of Legacy's
target market. Therefore, I do not consider this as asking for "bells and
whistles," but as asking to address a core need.
Thanks,
Gail Rich Nestor
Smyrna, GA
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~nestorgenealogy/
From: "Karen Sipe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Robin;
You have had some very nice responses. As a new researcher it may be hard
for you to know now what type of end product you will want. After many
years I am now struggling with the format I want for a book. I agree that
Mills is the best citation reference for genealogy, but at times
modification of her examples have served me better. The census is one
such
case. She starts her citation with the name of the head of house. Given my
one name study and the number of people and census that I have used this
would be impossible. I cite census to the year county state and have
about
16 pages of census sources. I can't imagine how many pages it would be if
I
used all the head of houses, too many for publishing a book. This is
becoming an issue since our computers can handle the detail type sources
but
books could have way more sources than information. For web pages I
include
the web address under publication information, it may not be quit right
but
it does work well.
Another consideration is the readability of your final report. A short
article with footnotes reads fine but a book with hundreds of pages would
become very choppy. I just tried a one generation report for my immigrant
ancestor's family and came up with a 9 page report 4 of which were
sources.
The first person had 25 sources-equal to about 1 page of sources. If these
were published as footnotes the number of pages the family would stretch
across would make reading more difficult. Endnotes would help keep the
reading pages closer together. And IMO most readers of family reports
want
the information not the sources.
I think you need to use Mills as a guide, following it as much as possible
but take into consideration your personal preference for your final
report.
Over time you may find it necessary to go back and change some of the
information you have put into one of today's current genealogical
programs.
UGG! None of us want this but I have already been through the process
because of technical changes - typewriter to computer, one computer
program
to another and I understand GEDCOM does not pick up all the wonderful
fields
some programs offer researcher which would mean you need to be careful how
you input your data if you want it to be GECOM compatible.
One thing I would like to see are customizable sources, where I can build
my own "type" and create the text fields and surrounding source text.
Have you tried adding you "type" to the choice of Types in the scroll
down?
This field can be customized. You also have text field in source detail
that many put the census or type in an obituary.
Like others I have asked for the ability to print a source citation report
that would be a bibliography, without names and database information.
Karen V. Sipe
From Gail:
In citing my sources, I would like to be able to include the web site
address as part of the "master source" in Legacy, and to include the
accessed date as part of the "citation detail." With Legacy, I cannot do
this and have it formatted as Mills' example above (combined within the
parentheses).
Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at:
http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp
To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/
To unsubscribe please visit:
http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
