Roots Magic 6 and linking to Family Search Family Tree

It's been a good week of researching my Smith family. I will write more about this in a separate post.  This week I've been faced with a data management issue.

I have an issue with merging data between Roots Magic and Family Search.  I have used the "share" fact process on some of my census events.  In effect, an individual fact is not created for everyone that a fact is shared with.  It's more like creating a link to the one instance of the fact.  In theory, this is an excellent approach.  It saves a lot of data entry time and since there is one master instance of the fact, a change to that record reflects wherever the fact is shared.

The issue with this is that the "shared" facts are not available for merging to Family Search Family Tree.  Obviously, that is a deal breaker for me.  So I need to replace every shared fact in my database with a regular individual fact for that event. The problem is I can find no report to run that will show "shared" facts.  Since it is not recognized as a fact as such, it will not appear if I run a fact list for an individual.  I have found no way of identifying all of the people that have shared facts that need to be replaced.

Fine tuning my work process for Roots Magic, Ancestry member tree and Familysearch Family Tree

My work  process has been slightly fine tuned and is now working fairly smoothly.  The steps are as follows:

1. On Ancestry.com work the "shaky leaf" hints.  Prove out the hint prior to accepting.
2. Add the hint to the person on my ancestry member tree.
3. Download the record and save to my computer
4. Create a source for the person / fact in my Roots Magic 6 program.
5. Share the data between my Roots Magic database and my matched person on the Family Search Family Tree.
6. If data or sources are available on Familysearch but not on Ancestry I will have them automatically update my Familysearch Family Tree record.
7. Sync the updated record between FS Family Tree and Roots Magic.
8. Manually update my Ancestry member tree. 

This is a rather involved process but it allow me to keep my three family trees all updated and pretty much in sync.

I do have to manually add my photos to both Ancestry and Familysearch which I have not done a lot of yet.

Working with RootsMagic / Family Search Family Tree and Ancestry.com / my Ancestry Member tree

I have spent the last several days working on my online family trees.  I have one on Family Search and one on Ancestry.

I use RootsMagic for the most part to update my tree on Family Search.  The RootsMagic integration with FS family tree works fantastic.  I can easily copy facts, sources and notes as well as add new people or correct the FS record.

I was using Family Tree Maker to integrate with my Ancestry tree.  However, I've now stopped updating my FTM 2012 and am maintaining the tree only on Ancestry.  To do this I've modified my workflow as follows:

1. Use RootsMagic determine the source documents needed or the person to locate.  I use the ToDo's to keep track of  what to be done.
2. Manually add the new person to the Ancestry tree (if required).
3. Find the needed source documents on Ancestry if available.  Add the source to the person on my Ancestry tree.  Add the source document to my Shoebox in Ancestry.
4. Manually create the person in RootsMagic (if needed).
5. Manually create the necessary sources and citations in RootsMagic (using the ones in my Ancestry shoebox).
6. Sync the person, facts, sources and notes from RootsMagic to FS Family Tree.

This workflow is fairly labor intensive but not too bad considering it will maintain three trees.  I have saved several steps by eliminating my FTM 2012 file.

I'm still not completely settled.  I need to spend more time looking at pulling sources from Family Search, updating my FS family tree directly and then syncing back to RootsMagic and finally adding to Ancestry member tree.

I also need to start utilizing the RootsMagic person's research log.  For hard to find source information I find myself wasting time checking the same places for the same source information over and over again.  Maintaining the research log should help eliminate this problem.

Working with RootsMagic 6 and FamilySearch Family Tree

I have finally finished matching all of my deceased people in RootsMagic with their counterpart in FS Family Tree.  I am very thankful that I did not go the route of uploading a gedcom.  It is unbelievable how many duplicate records have been created for the same person for many of my ancestors.  I'm glad that I did not make the problem even worse.

For those people where no FS Family Tree person was found they could be easily added by a single button click

Now that the matching process has been completed I can proceed with FS Family Tree cleanup and sharing information between RootsMagic and FamilySearch.

I believe the process that I use will be as follows:.

1. Create list of all deceased people in RM (showing name, Birth/Death dates and FamilySearch ID.   This will be my list to work from.  I may do this using the RM "Group" function.
2. Find and merge all of the duplicates in FamilySearch for a given person.
3. Compare my RM6 database record with the resulting record in FS.  This will be done using the RM Family Search Person tool.
4. Add any facts or sources from RM6 that do not exist in FS.
5. Make note of any information found on FS Family Tree.  Validate and source this info then add it to my RM database.

This will be a very long, time consuming process but I feel that eventually it will be worth the effort.  I really enjoy the way RM6 integrates with FS Family Tree.  It will make the comparison and update phase so much quicker.

If you are really series about this I would highly recommed the following free webinar from RootsMagic.
Webinar # 52 Using FamilySearch Family Tree with RootsMagic found at  Rootsmagic Webinars

Lost in summer things and genealogy software program change to RootsMagic 6

It has been quite some time since my last post.  It has also been quite some time since I've done any serious family history research.  Been very busy with "summer" things.  Mostly Grand kid's related.   Many many baseball games, overnight visits and cookouts.  I've really enjoyed my summer.

Now it's time to get back to family history.  Lot's of things have been happening, especially over at Familysearch.  I've been working on loading the family tree into the new Family Tree program there.  I was doing this manually as my current software program (Legacy 7.5) is still not working with Family Tree.  I decided it was time to give RootsMagic 6 a try.

So far I'm very pleased with the program.  Fairly simple to use and the interface with the familysearch Family Tree is great.  I have spent several hours viewing the on line "how to" webinars to become familiar with the program.  So now I'm using two genealogy software program Family Tree Maker 2012 (to sync with my family tree on Ancestry and RootsMagic 6 to sync with my tree on familysearch.  At some point in the future I'm going to have to decide which one to work with as my primary.  I really don't want to be maintaining two different programs.

I imported my Legacy database directly into RootsMagic without going through a gedcom.  For the most part everything appears to have worked fairly well.  Of course, the sources all came in without the sourcewriter (ee format) style.  Also many of the locations shown in the census and residence facts was dumped into the description field instead of the place field.  Using standard RootsMagic queries / filters I've been able to identify the problem records easily.  Now I'm working on cleanup.  Re-linking the images was also very easily done in RM.

One good thing about switching programs and the resulting file cleanup process is that it forces you to look carefully at your data again.  I'm seeing several areas that need some real detailed review and cleanup.  My "To Do List" is growing daily.

Hopefully I will also get back on track with this blog, posting more family information.