Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

[Teresa C]

My Sources need a bit of a clean up, and I'm considering taking up Ben Sayer's Practical Citation method.

I love the simplicity of it, but one concern I have is losing the ability to sort my Sources by Type if everything is the same Source Type. I use the Source panel frequently, and having over 1000 Sources it is really useful to be able to sort them by Type so I can easily find the one I need.

Does anyone using Practical Citations have any experience with this? How did you get around it?

Thanks!
Teresa

[s1xc00k]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

My Sources need a bit of a clean up, and I'm considering taking up Ben Sayer's Practical Citation method.

I love the simplicity of it, but one concern I have is losing the ability to sort my Sources by Type if everything is the same Source Type. I use the Source panel frequently, and having over 1000 Sources it is really useful to be able to sort them by Type so I can easily find the one I need.

Does anyone using Practical Citations have any experience with this? How did you get around it?

Thanks!
Teresa

Hi Teresa,

I recently moved from FTMM3 to Reunion and have applied Ben's approach to sources. One thing I have founs is the one source type takes some getting used to and I have often "toyed" with the idea of having a source type for grouping, i.e. by having the same principle Ben outlines but splitting my sources into groups by using different types.
That been said, I am currently using the List Window and select Sources and use one of the other source fields to group information, e.g. title or publisher. To find Ancestry records, I would enter Ancestry in Publisher; To find census, enter Census in title etc.
My thinking is that if I can group fields together using the list window, should I "complicate" the simplicity of the design Ben outlined. I am still not decided but this is my approach so far.

[Teresa C]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your thoughts. I was thinking of doing something similar and creating Source types that were basically all Practical Citation types, but just with a different name. Butthat kind of defeats the purpose of the simplicity :-).
Your suggestion of using the List Window is a good one - I'll give it a try.

Funny that you've just moved from FTMM3 to Reunion.....I'm currently considering going the other way. But after a good look at FTMM3, there are some key features that Reunion has that FTMM3 does not that I don't think I can live without, so I'll be sticking with Reunion for a while at least :-)

Cheers,
Teresa

[Trevor Stephens]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

I use Practical Citation and have modified the names of all my sources to provide me with a quasi "Type" field by using a three character Type.

To ensure that I maintain consistency, I also use the same three characters, cross referenced to Source Number for all Media that I use as a Source.

So, for my Denis BULLIVANT, a source entry looks like...
177. BEC: BULLIVANT Denis Charles, abt Jan 1906, York, Yorkshire, England,
www.ancestry.com, England Wales FreeBMD Birth Index Q1 1906.

and the Multimedia filename is...
1906 Qtr 1 BEC177 BULLIVANT - England Wales FreeBMD Birth Index

Where...
177 = Source Number
BEC = Source Type (Birth Entry Confirmed) I also use BEX for Birth Entry Unconfirmed.
BEC177 = Source Type/Number concatenation.

Attached is my XRef table. Note that my convention for naming sources puts the Type as the first three chars of the 'Descriptive Title' to facilitate sorting by Data in the Reunion Sources table. My naming convention for Multimedia is Date-first for documents and SURNAME-first for persons'photos.

[Teresa C]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

That is a neat way of doing it! Thanks for sharing your method, Trevor.

Seems like there are some creative ways of getting around this!

Cheers,
Teresa

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

... Ben Sayer's Practical Citation method. I love the simplicity of it, but one concern I have is losing the ability to sort my Sources by Type if everything is the same Source Type.

I think you are right to be concerned. Ben has some good ideas, but I really don't think this is one of them. Source types are a key, and very useful element in the way Reunion handles sources, and I can't see why one would wish to throw them away.

[sgtbob]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your thoughts. I was thinking of doing something similar and creating Source types that were basically all Practical Citation types, but just with a different name. Butthat kind of defeats the purpose of the simplicity :-).
Your suggestion of using the List Window is a good one - I'll give it a try.

Funny that you've just moved from FTMM3 to Reunion.....I'm currently considering going the other way. But after a good look at FTMM3, there are some key features that Reunion has that FTMM3 does not that I don't think I can live without, so I'll be sticking with Reunion for a while at least :-)

Cheers,
Teresa

Teresa - FWIW - I tried for + years to make Family Tree Maker work even while maintaining my REUNION program and could never get the damn thing to work right on my iMAC (FTM, FTMm2, FTMM3 ad nauseum). The most frustrating thing was that the programs would NEVER register. I tried all the bells and whistles I was subjected to by more than 30 technicians and dozens and dozens of phone calls over this 4 year period and finally gave up in frustration, as did the tech's! Please Leicester don't cease operations - REUNION is the best program I've tried over a 25 year period and believe me I tried a lot of programs, even unto LINUX based ones. None of them approach REUNION and it capabilities.

[suzivegemite]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

Hi,

I use PC and have done since the beginning. Have kept source types but simply added a PC to the end. Eg. Index PC. Church PC

I couldn't imagine losing the ability to sort my sources so this is my simple workaround.

Sue

[janelucas]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

My Sources need a bit of a clean up, and I'm considering taking up Ben Sayer's Practical Citation method.

I love the simplicity of it, but one concern I have is losing the ability to sort my Sources by Type if everything is the same Source Type. I use the Source panel frequently, and having over 1000 Sources it is really useful to be able to sort them by Type so I can easily find the one I need.

Does anyone using Practical Citations have any experience with this? How did you get around it?

Thanks!
Teresa

Could someone point me to the page for the one source suggestion? I've search through his site and can't find it.. unless I am misunderstanding completely, which wouldn't surprise me! Thanks

[mrstucci]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

I am not sure what I am going to do to cite my sources. That being said I have pondered Ben Sayer's method. I have pondered other methods. But right now I am just organizing notebooks but will follow this discussion. Judy

[gathompson56]

Re: Using just one Source Type - Practical Citations

I am glad this question was raised. Although my source list is pretty small it seems "Source Type" is too valuable to toss aside. But the use of the 4 primary fields for ALL source types that Ben has outline seems invaluable.

I am going to retain source types but rebuild all of the fields to be consistent with Ben's concepts.