* correcting existing source/citations

[santatraugott]

I have recently resurrected a file I worked on years ago, in FTM, before I knew or thought much about sources and citations. It is now in FH, v7. The source citations range from non-existent to terrible, from the vantage point of several more years of experience. I would like to bring them all up to code, to what I would get using Essential templates for sources. There is no (or very minor) data entry of individuals involved, but I need to fix these sources and citations to them.

I have toyed with the idea of just starting over from scratch, using information from the existing file to create another version of it, this time correctly sourced, using Essential Source Templates. It's conceivable that by using the source-driven data entry, that would be manageable. It's not a big file -- about 3000 individuals. This strategy would also allow me to write better notes and incorporate additional information that I have subsequently learned, and also add media.

The Gedcom for this file has just been imported into Fh 7. I haven't done much work on it but I did define the sources I wanted to use as Essential, rather than generic or Advanced. I'm wondering if I would be better off to reimport it, and define sources as "generic" and maybe that would be a straightforward way to edit such sources as I already have, up to standard.

I am not a new user to Family Historian, although I would rate my skill level as beginner-advanced, rather than intermediate, and I have no experience with version 7. As to what I would want the source and citation records to look like, I want them to look as they would have looked had I entered them using Essential source templates in the first place.

Can anyone suggest a better plan than the alternatives above, to correct already existing but woefully inadequate sources and source citations?

[tatewise]

In case you have not done so, then first 'clean up' the Project using the Importing to Family Historian advice for FTM, etc.

Typically, the Source Citations imported from FTM will be Method 2 'lumped' Source Citations.
You will need to decide what Source Citations can remain as Method 2 and which need Method 2 'splitter' Sources.
If adding notes and media then Method 2 is recommended, and most Essential templated Sources use Method 2 anyway.
See Citing Sources: Method 1 and Method 2.

So you probably won't be retaining many of the existing imported Sources and thus it does not matter how they are defined.
They will eventually mostly get deleted as they are replaced by up-to-date Sources.

If you are going to effectively review the Project from scratch then you will need some form of research progress to-do list in order to keep track of what has been fully sourced and what is still outstanding. See Planning and Tracking Your Research.
Several users here have gone down that path and as you suspected it will probably reveal new source records and family branches not known before.