Titles of the Sources Used in the Notes Section and Its Benefits.
I have used the notes feature in Roots Magic to copy down the titles of my sources, rather using a cumbersome source file because I want the abstracts of the records I have found in plain view and ready to reanalyze for use with children and parents. Often, I will go back to these abstracts, years later, and with the benefit of more information gathered along the way, am able to readily spot errors that have may have creeped into the details I have recorded on individuals. There is nothing in my source file about the 73,000 plus individuals that are in my database now. Unfortunately, I am not going to live long enough to acceptibly document my sources in Familysearch as it is presently organized.
My style of research and documenting frees-up my time up to use it for, to my mind, the most significant aspect of family history research--the search. I use Familysearch as a backup to my data, and the place I go to print ordinance cards. Otherwise, I spend most of my days in Ancestry.com, searching and documenting with ease. The less I am faced with the nit-pickiness of traditional genealogical research, the more enjoyment I have in the journey, and the more abundance I amass in the yield
When my records are tranferred over to Familysearch, no sources are cited, although I got my data from many primary and secondary sources. If, however, my notes were transferred in the process, I don't think there would be much skepticism about my conclusions.
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Comments
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I'm not sure what your suggestion actually is: are you wishing that the notes you add in your offline file would transfer more easily to FS? Or that Ancestry's and FS's sources worked identically? Or something else entirely?
You wrote: "I want the abstracts of the records I have found in plain view and ready to reanalyze for use with children and parents." This sounds like it may be a version of one of the functions already available in FamilySearch's sourcing system (which in my opinion is far superior to anything offered elsewhere, offline or on): the ability to create linked sets of sources using your Source Box. When I find a record that provides evidence about several people, I only need to enter a single source for it on FamilySearch. I can then attach instances of that single source to all of the relevant profiles, and if I discover a typo, or need to revise the URL, or get a better transcription or translation, I only need to update the source once: it'll be updated everywhere that it's used.
If you find it easier to just dump all of the evidence in a single text file, you can of course put that in a note on each profile, but you'll lose the ability to tag sources to conclusions, and unlike a linked source, you'll need to re-do your work separately on each profile. So I do highly recommend that you do some exploration of FS's sourcing features.
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By any chance are you posting to express your concern that GEDCOM files do not transfer notes or sources? It that how you are transferring your Ancestry information into Family Tree? Are you requesting that the GEDCOM import process be improved to include notes and sources?
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