Big wish (External endnotes or footnotes)

[dtvmcdonald 0]

This is my really big wish for all genealogy programs that make narrative

style reports.

 

I don't like how any of them do source citations. What I would like

is the ability to output the report to a word processor file (e.g. rtf)

with the citations inserted as simple "tags", uniquely defined for

each master citation (but NOT citation details) followed by the

citation details, in the format which is read by the commercial (and

unfortunately not exactly cheap, but it's worth it) program "Endnote". The

report generator would also output, at the same time (or separately

as is now done for you preformed endnotes) a file which would contain

the info in each source in a form readable by the Endnote program

(which makes it into a source library). You then just run Endnote

on the two files, and using its extensive machinery you get your word processor

document formatted as you wish: footnotes, endnotes, and in any form you wish.

[Terry Reigel 0]

What is it that you want to do with Endnote that you can't do with TMG's source functions?

[dtvmcdonald 0]

What I want is a document that looks like this:

 

 

Ahnentafel of Sir William Douglas 2nd Earl of Angus

 

 

--- 1st Generation ---

 

1. Sir William1 Douglas 2nd Earl of Angus[CP: I, 155][sP: I, 174-175][JDM] was born circa 1399 at Mar, ABER, Scot. He married Margaret (Elizabeth) Hay, daughter of Sir William Hay of Locherworth and Alicia Hay, on 3 Dec 1414 at (dispensation date). He died in Oct 1437.

 

 

--- 2nd Generation ---

 

2. George2 Douglas 1st Earl of Angus[CP: I, 154][sP: I, 18 and 173; III, 388][JDM] was born circa 1380 at Mar, ABER, Scot. He married Mary Stewart, daughter of Robert III (born John) Stewart King of Scots and Annabella Drummond Countess of Carrick, after 24 May 1397. He died after 14 Sep 1402 at Homildon, LANC, Eng.

 

 

3. Mary2 Stewart[CP: I, 154][sP: I, 18 and 174][JDM][TAG, 775, 47 (2145)] was buried at Strathblane, STIR, Scot. She was born circa 1380 at Dumfermline, FIFE, Scot. She married George Douglas 1st Earl of Angus, son of William Douglas 1st Earl of Douglas and Margaret Stewart Countess of Angus, after 24 May 1397. She died after 1458 at Strathblane, STIR, Scot.

 

 

--- 3rd Generation ---

 

4. William3 Douglas 1st Earl of Douglas[CP: I, 154][sP: I, 18 and 173][JDM][RD600: 126] married Margaret Stewart Countess of Angus, daughter of Thomas Stewart 2nd Earl of Angus and Margaret Sinclair. He was born circa 1327. He died in May 1384.

 

 

 

References

 

 

CP Gibbs, et. al., The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by G. E Cokayne, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000 (Orginally published irregularly, in volumes, 1910-1960),

SP Sir James Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage: founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1908-1919. 9 vols.

JDM Entry hand checked by JDM.

RD600 Gary Boyd Roberts, The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants ( Genealogical Publishing Co. , Baltimore, 2004)

TAG The American Genealogist

 

where some of the formatting like the superscripts on teh names got lost, and some references are bogus.

 

You get the idea: I want each main source listed only once, with

a unique tag, and the details like volume and page number indicated separately inline for each reference. In a file with 10,000 people this makes a huge difference

in the size of the final printout.

 

Endnote can do this, and just about anything else you want, easily. All you would have to do is make the name of the tag in TMG equal to what you want as

teh tag here, and given them serial numbers, and insert the Endnote style

citations in the RTF file. For example, if CP is entry #11 in the list of

master sources and the othera follow in order, the first entry for a person

would appear in the RTF file as

 

1. Sir William1 Douglas 2nd Earl of Angus{CP; I, 155;#10}{SP; I, 174-175;#11}{JDM;#12} was born circa 1399 ...

 

and Endnote would do the formatting .. and you could, for example, change it to look like

 

--- 1st Generation ---

 

1. Sir William1 Douglas 2nd Earl of Angus[1: Vol I, p155][2: Vol I, pp 174-175][3] was born circa 1399 at Mar, ABER, Scot. He married Margaret (Elizabeth) Hay, daughter of Sir William Hay of Locherworth and Alicia Hay, on 3 Dec 1414 at (dispensation date). He died in Oct 1437.

 

 

--- 2nd Generation ---

 

2. George2 Douglas 1st Earl of Angus[1: Vol I, p 154][2: Vol I, pp 18 and 173; Vol III, p 388][3] was born circa ...

References

 

1 Gibbs, et. al., The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by G. E Cokayne, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000 (Orginally published irregularly, in volumes, 1910-1960),

2 Sir James Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage: founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1908-1919. 9 vols.

3 Entry hand checked by JDM.

4 Gary Boyd Roberts, The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants ( Genealogical Publishing Co. , Baltimore, 2004)

5 The American Genealogist

 

by changing settings in Endnote.

 

Can TMG do anything like this?

 

Doug McDonald

[Terry Reigel 0]

Can TMG do anything like this?

Sure. Change the Full Footnote and Short footnote templates to output only the abbrevation for the source and the citation detail. Then format the bibliography template to produce the source description the way you like it, and add a bibliography to the report. You will probably have to edit the report a tad to get the "References" phrase instead of the standard "Bibliography" label if that's important to you, though I suspect you could get even that by using a custom language.

 

There's a description of a somewhat similar idea on my website.

[dtvmcdonald 0]

Sure.

 

There's a description of a somewhat similar idea on my website.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes, that is the idea. We shall see if TMG can do it. If I don't demand that

adjacent multiple citations appear in alphabetical order, TMG may be

or may not be able to do it all by itself. Otherwise I will have to see if

I can force it into the Endnote input format.

 

By the way ... the way you do it on your web site is certainly a

much better and more standard way than the way TMG does it by default!

In all the scientific fields I use (Chemistry and molecular genetics ....

the latter, of course, having become vital to my genealogy since

the advent of DNA testing among my Clan) some method

similar to what you describe or what I describe are standard. I simply hate

the "short reference to previous cite" method unless that reference is

a simple serial number .... it makes finding things near impossible. The

non-scientists can be perversely strange sometimes.

 

Doug McDonald

[Terry Reigel 0]

If I don't demand that

adjacent multiple citations appear in alphabetical order, TMG may be

or may not be able to do it all by itself.

TMG allows you to sort the citations as you please.

 

By the way ... the way you do it on your web site is certainly a

much better and more standard way than the way TMG does it by default! 

In all the scientific fields I use (Chemistry and molecular genetics ....

the latter, of course, having become vital to my genealogy since

the advent of DNA testing among my Clan) some method

similar to what you describe or what I describe are standard.

Not more standard in genealogy - TMG's method is generally in agreement with recognized style guides for genealogy. However, TMG's beauty is the ability to customize to an amazing degree, which should get you at least close to what you have in mind.

[Karla Huebner 0]

This was an intriguing idea, though. I used to use Endnote for my academic work, and believe it or not, while Endnote is a good program, I used to wish it was as flexible as TMG's source handling. I never became an expert with it, but couldn't find any straightforward way to get the many varieties of Chicago Manual citations I needed (such as "compiled by," "edited and translated by," "by X with Y," and so on). And that wasn't even for genealogy. I now use Nota Bene with its Ibidem bibliographic component as this handles more humanities complexities than Endnote, including Czech letters.