Family Historian User Group

I created an example citation in the sample database for Charlotte Carrington's baptism (yes I know it's not properly cited but it's just a test!)

I used the Advanced - Church Records Database, Online template.


The citation I used was

Bath Parish (Somerset, England) "Register of Baptisms in the parish of Bath in the County of Somerset," page 73, entry 6, Charlotte Carrington, Baptism 15 Jun 1957, browsable images, Familysearch, (https://www.familysearch.org/search/film/008091960 : accessed 20 October 2021);

From FH7, I extracted the Gedcom file with the Export Gedcom File 5.0 plugin, using default settings apart from the GEDCOM Destination set to RMT (Roots Magic Tree)

I can find what looks like the citation in the Gedcom created.

1 NOTE Register Type: Parish Register
2 CONT Compiler: Bath Parish (Somerset, England) "Register of Baptisms in the parish of Bath in the County of Somerset," page 73, entry 6, Charlotte Carrington, Baptism 15 Jun 1957, browsable IMAGES
2 CONT Event Type: Baptism
2 CONT Database Title: Familysearch
2 CONT Principal: Charlotte CARRINGTON
2 CONT Date: 13 JUN 1957
2 CONT Church: Bath Parish Church
2 CONT Location: Bath, Somerset, England
2 CONT Url: https://www.familysearch.org/search/film/008091960 : accessed 20 October 2021

When imported to RootsMagic 7 and the source examined, the Footnote lacks the citation. Some of the citation elements are in the Source comments field. The template has included in the source comments field. It looks a real mess!

Ancestral Quest looks no better.


It looks like the citation terminates after the compiler field.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

I've moved this to the Import and Exporting Forum that is more appropriate.

The fundamental problem is that all products including FH supplement the standard GEDCOM with custom features.
Most products will only recognise the standard GEDCOM and their own custom features.
Some custom features have become de facto standards recognised by several products (but not all products).

Templated Source Citations and Source Templates are a specific custom feature of FH.
Some other products have Teplated Sources but use a different GEDCOM format (if they allow them in GEDCOM at all).

If you try and send a GEDCOM exported via the built-in File > Import/Export > Export > GEDCOM File command then only very basic details will usually survive the migration to another product.
The plugin you used tries to at least retain the data in a form that the other product should accept.
However, if you check the Help & Advice for the plugin it explains its purpose is not to faithfully migrate everything and it describes how it copes with each GEDCOM Destination.

A GEDCOM exported for RootsMagic will not play well with Ancestral Quest.

Kai,

Templated sources are remarkably similar in both concept and detailed structure between FH and RM. GEDCOM is generally not suitable for transferring non-standard features such as these, as FH and RM use different tags for essentially the same data. However, while FH does an excellent job of importing RM templates and associated sources and citations in a direct import (as opposed to GEDCOM import), it does not have the ability to export in a RM-compatible format.

It probably wouldn’t be difficult to add the ability to export FH templates as RM template files if required via a plugin, but that would not export individual sources and citations created from it. That is probably a step too far in term of complexity.

...and what would be the purpose of migrating those source & template details to RM?

Probably not very different to the GEDCOM export you have spent hundreds of hours developing over the years...

Collaborating with other researchers who don't use FH? Having confidence you can get your FH-specific feature out if you do move on to another app that fits your needs more closely?

Not being suited to GEDCOM transfer doesn’t make data worthless for sharing...

tatewise wrote: ↑

28 Feb 2022 19:04

The fundamental problem is that all products including FH supplement the standard GEDCOM with custom features.
Most products will only recognise the standard GEDCOM and their own custom features.

Thank you to Mike and Mark who kindly responded. I'd been hunting for a way to do it, mostly as a challenge to myself while exploring different export options, but I now realise GEDCOM won't support it.

I guess it could be included as a Note or a Text From Source if needed but no doubt that would bring its own issues and it likely would not be available as a Footnote in reports from the target system.

The point about exporting GEDCOM is covered in FHUG Knowledge Base Sources and Citations in Version 7 (for New Users) and Sources and Citations in Version 7 (for Upgraders) under Should I Use Source Templates?

The Export Gedcom File plugin offers options to exclude or convert to Notes for both Source records and the Templates.

It might be feasible to use other mechanisms such as directly accessing the SQL database of other products, but although there are similarities it is far from certain that the template concepts are fully compatible across all such products. So, until there is an agreed standard, migrating templated sources between products is fraught with difficulties.
BTW: Even the GEDCOM standard is far from satisfactorily implemented by the majority of products. I know because of the variants my Export Gedcom File plugin must cope with.