Do you feel like you are always learning something new about your genealogy software or a genealogy web site. Since RootsMagic 8 is so so different from RootsMagic 7, that is a daily occurrence right now for me.
To make that process easier, RootsMagic has been releasing frequent webinars. Even though I have been playing around in RM8 for a couple of months, these webinars ALWAYS show me some little function that I haven’t found. And that was true when I watched the “Places and Locations in RM 8” webinar.
One of the ‘tidbits’ I learned about from this webinar was the ability to assign an ABBREVIATION to a place name. Since I use a lot of narrative reports, I’m constantly looking at the sentences and at times modifying them.
For example, I’m currently working with the US Army Transport Arriving and Departure Passenger Lists on Ancestry. Yes, I could just add this source to a military fact and move on to the next leaf hint. However, the information on this record adds ‘interest’ to military facts.
Name: Harlan O Thompson
Departure Date: 23 Mar 1919
Departure Place: Brest, France
Arrival Date: 30 Mar 1919
Arrival Place: New York, New York
Residence Place: Edgar, Montana
Father: Francis E Thompson
Ship: Aquitania
Military Unit: Headquarters Company 348th Field Artillery
Rank: Mus 3 CL F A
Service Number: 3132226
Notes: Headquarters Company, 348th Field Artillery
Search Photos: Search for ‘Aquitania’ in the US WWI Troop Transport Ship Photos collection
Thus, I create a MILITARY fact for both the departure from France and the arrival in New York. Since I’m using the MILITARY fact, it has a built in sentence.
Since this particular fact does not provide information on Harlan’s service, the sentence doesn’t work. Instead, I want it to refer to his departure from France. Thus, I need to click on the CUSTOMIZE link to open the EDIT SENTENCE window.
Over the years of messing with sentences, I’ve found that I can move the [DATE] to the first of the sentence.
By getting the date out of the way, it is easier to build the rest of the sentence. Since this particular fact is about his departure, I edit the sentence to change the words from ‘served in the military’ to ‘departed.’
Since the information I have entered in the DESCRIPTION field doesn’t make sense when it is immediately after the word departed, I simply move the [DESC] to the end of the sentence.
Those simple changes worked for the sentence regarding his departure. However, when I make similar changes for my MILITARY fact for his arrival, my adherence to standardized places makes the sentence seem wordy.
That’s when I remembered the tidbit from the webinar about ABBREVIATIONS for places. So I decided to try it. First, I had to set up the abbreviation in the Place. Thus, I need to locate New York, New York, United States in my list of places.
To use the abbreviation, I need to enter what I want to use for the abbreviation in the Edit Place field. As I do this, I need to remember that this is not an ‘official’ abbreviation, but how I want the place name abbreviated in sentences. For my example, I want to use New York City instead of the standard name.
To make my sentence use the Abbreviation, I changed [Place] to [Place:Abbrev]. Now, my sentence puts New York City into the sentence instead of New York, New York, United States.
Knowing how this will impact sentences, I know that I need to add abbreviations to many of my places. For example, since almost all of my research is based in the United States, I could easily use the abbreviation of Kansas for Kansas, United States. However, just adding the abbreviation is only 1/2 of the solution. I also need to look at sentences and modify them.
Fortunately, I can make a change to the FACT TYPE that will impact the standard sentences built on that fact type. For example, I use the Residence fact type to enter census information. This is one fact where I would like to use abbreviations for the places. So, I click on the command palette to get to the fact types and locate my RESIDENCE fact.
When I click on the Edit button, it opens the EDIT FACT TYPE window. The role type is where the sentence setup is defined.
When I click on EDIT ROLE, a window opens allowing me to change the sentenct.
So, I change the [Place] to [Place:Abbrev].
To see if that works, I went to one of the residence places for Harlan Thompson and added an abbreviation.
Going back to Harlan Thompson, I look at his 1940 residence fact that places him in Marshalltown, Iowa and the sentence had not changed. However, closing Harlan’s edit window and reopening it showed the new sentence.
Now that I know how to make global changes to the sentences, I need to think about how I want to enter the abbreviations. For example,
- Marshalltown, Iowa (City, State)
- Marshalltown, Marshall County, Iowa (City, county with the word county, state)
- Marshalltwon, Marshall, Iowa (City, county, state)
What about you? Will you put this abbreviation feature to work? How will you create your abbreviations?