Exceeding Expectations: A RootsMagic Fix Thanks to Mr. Otter
Have you ever received technical help that far exceeded your expectations? That was my experience when I got assistance from Mr. Otter with a RootsMagic issue.
Many genealogists rely on suggested citations from sites like Ancestry, but I prefer to use Source Templates to create sources and citations. While RootsMagic offers built-in templates, I often customize them by copying and modifying an existing one to better fit my needs.
Over a year ago, I modified my census citation template to include the image number and total number of images. Following RootsMagic’s documentation, I enclosed these fields in angle brackets ( < > ), which should cause the program to omit them from the footnote if left blank. However, as I worked on narrative reports, I noticed that these empty fields were not being skipped. Instead, the field names themselves were appearing in my footnotes.
Since I couldn’t figure out why this was happening, I resorted to manually looking up census records and entering the missing image numbers before finalizing my reports.
Then, while researching Isom Gallimore, I encountered the same issue while creating citations for FamilySearch county land records. Since image numbers are a crucial part of these citations, I modified my FamilySearch template to include them—and once again, the angle brackets failed to function correctly.
The Search for a Solution
Determined to fix the problem, I turned to the RootsMagic Community Forum and found a post describing the same issue.
As I read through the responses, I made an important discovery:
- If a template is modified after a citation has already been created, the angle brackets will no longer work as expected.
Just as I was starting to think I’d have to redo all my citations manually, I found a game-changing response from Mr. Otter—he had developed a script to fix the problem!
Running the Script
I downloaded the ChangeSourceTemplate script from Mr. Otter’s site and tested it on a copy of my RootsMagic database. While the process required careful step-by-step execution, it successfully updated many of my citations based on my FamilySearch template.
Now, my next step is to run the tool on my actual database for both the FamilySearch and Census templates. Through this process, I also learned an important lesson:
- Never modify an existing template directly if I want changes to apply to old citations.
- Instead, I should make a copy of the template, modify the copy, and then apply the new version to existing citations using the script.
A Huge Thank You!
Thanks to Mr. Otter and the incredible community of developers who create scripts to enhance RootsMagic, I was able to resolve this frustrating issue. Their willingness to share solutions and develop tools for the genealogy community is truly invaluable!
Have you ever had a similar experience where an online forum or community expert saved you from hours of tedious work? I’d love to hear about it!