In December 2008, I wrote a blog post titled 9 Genealogy Predictions for 2009.  It is now time to review that list and see how well the predictions matched reality.

1.  Two more desktop genealogy applications will support source citation templates from Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained. Currently Legacy 7 and RootsMagic 4 support this. The other two might likely be Family Tree Maker and The Master Genealogist.

Family Tree Maker 2009 now supports source citation templates following Evidence Explained.  To my knowledge, no other desktop genealogy applications have announced this support.

2.  One major online database (Ancestry, WorldVitalRecords, FamilySearch, Footnote) will announce upcoming support for Evidence Explained source citations.  Other sites will soon follow with their own announcements.

I am disappointed that none of the mentioned online databases support Evidence Explained source citations.  Please correct me if I am mistaken.  If GenSeek is released in 2010, maybe it will be the first.

3.  FamilySearch Research Wiki will grow to over 30,000 content pages (excluding talk and stub pages) by the end of the year. As of 28 December 2008, there were 12,573 content pages.

On December 28, 2009 there were a total of 20,298 content pages on the FamilySearch Research Wiki.

4.  FamilySearch will announce a replacement for GEDCOM. GEDCOM will still be supported for many years as software will support it as well as the newer format. Reasons for the new format will be to better support source citations and media.

This did not happen in 2009, but it might happen in 2010.

5.  I hope I am wrong about this one, but with the current economic downturn we could see financial pressure force one of the more-recently-started genealogy companies to merge with or be acquired by another company.  Worse case scenario, it could go bankrupt.

To my knowledge this did not happen.  In fact, Ancestry went public in 2009.

6.  Many more genealogy societies will join the social networking site, Facebook, by adding a group page. Searching groups today for “genealogical society | genealogy society” (the pipe symbol “|” means “OR”) returns 80 results. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of 2009 the total was over 200.

Finally a correct prediction! Doing a group search on Facebook resulted in 286 results for genealogy societies.

7.  More genealogy applications will be available for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Currently the iTunes App Store only lists three applications: MobileFamilyTree, FamViewer, and Shrubs.  This last holiday season, the iPod Touch was a hot item.  I wonder how many genealogists own one now.

This one was easy to predict as even one more app would have fulfilled the prediction.  There are currently 7 applications listed in the App Store:

MobileFamily Tree – $4.99

Reunion – $14.99

GedView – $3.99

FamViewer – $14.99

Mobile Tree – $4.99

Shrubs – $9.99

iCensus – $3.99

To learn more about some of these apps, check out the blog post titled, Genealogy Apps for iPhone, by Joan Miller. 

8.  Through blogs and podcasts, genealogists will hear more about the benefits of Web 3.0 (also called the Semantic Web) and how it applies to genealogy.

Web 3.0?  What is that?  You can find discussions about microformats and full fledged ontologies, but not much applied to genealogy in 2009.

9.  Genealogists are puzzle solvers when it comes to researching their family history, but do they play games?  I expect to see a genealogy-related game released in 2009.  It could be a casual game for Facebook or something more interactive for the Wii.  How about a Mii Familii Trii?  The game might teach research-related concepts (citation, transcription, etc) or (via GEDCOM import) put your ancestors in the game.

There is still so much opportunity in this area without much action.  I did find a casual game called Family Mystery: The Story of Amy where genealogy is used as the theme for the game but not much else.

So out of 9 predictions, I give myself a score of 3.5 which is about as often as I was correct when as a teenager I operated the “guess your age or weight” game at an amusement park.  After a few days, I was moved to the skee ball games which fit my talents much better.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2010 full of genealogy innovation and hopefully some surprises!

Between the script and the detailed description of the demo, you should be in a good position to answer the survey questions without the need to see the video.

Take the Survey!

Please take a few minutes to complete a survey about citing online genealogy sources.

• Click Here to take survey for individual genealogists or family historians
• Click Here to take survey for companies and organizations that provide genealogy software or services

SCRIPT:

Sooner or later anyone doing genealogy or family history research will meet up with the challenge of source citations. Some will immediately dismiss the topic and move on. Others will find the topic too big of a challenge to even try. Still others will set out with the best of intentions but will get bogged down in the complexity. The numbers that face the learning curve of source citations and conquer its intimidating slope are relatively few.

This has lead many to believe that citing sources is only for the professional genealogist. You may hear them say: “I’m just a personal family historian, no need to cite my sources.” The last time most of us were asked to create a bibliography or cite a source was for a paper we wrote in high school or college.

Researchers at every level should seek for credibility in their research. How else will we be able to separate fact from fiction? Citations are a minimum for our work to be considered as credible. The question is not “do we need to cite sources?” its “how do we make citing sources achievable by all?”

Currently citing sources is just too difficult. In recent years this is getting easier with the creation of genealogy citation guides, quick sheets, and software. But it needs to be even easier still.

There is another problem when it comes to online genealogy database websites like FamilySearch, Ancestry, Footnote, WorldVitalRecords, GenSeek and others. Similar sources on each of these websites have different citation formats or even no citations at all.

The amount of genealogy information currently on the internet is like a swimming pool full and in just a few years that will grow to an ocean full. To avoid adding more confusion to an already confusing situation, there needs to be standardized citations across these genealogy database websites.

In this demonstration I would like to show how easy it can be to cite online sources in your desktop genealogy software. What I am showing is prototype code. I am using RootsMagic 4 because of its support for citation templates from Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained. Other desktop genealogy applications that support these templates are: Legacy Family Tree 7 and Family Tree Maker 2009.

First I will create a new database in RootsMagic and will go ahead and close it. Now I will visit a sample genealogy website that contains some information on my ancestor, Worth Tucker. This website represents one of the larger online genealogy database sites mentioned earlier or could be a site containing someone’s personal research. On this site we find information about Worth Tucker’s property ownership in Elmo, Emery County, Utah. There is an extract from the book, A History of Emery County, as well as images of the book’s cover, title page, copyright page, and page 179. Notice also that there is a source citation for the book following a format in Evidence Explained.

Because the website contains the citation and supporting documents, I could use my desktop software to create a person entry for Worth and a fact or event entry for property ownership. I would then create a source and detail entry for the citation and link it to the event. I could also download the images to my computer and associate them to the source. But that is even more complicated than it needs to be.

This website supports a “Quick Cite” feature that allows easy import of the citation and associated files into my desktop genealogy software. When I click the button, the information is downloaded to my computer and the import begins. Since I have other genealogy software installed on my computer, I will be asked to select which program to use. In just a few seconds the information will be imported into my software and when I open my database then I will be able to see all the information properly cited.

Here is my entry for Worth Tucker showing the property fact. This fact has one source following the “Book, Basic format” template from Evidence Explained. The template fields are filled out correctly. Also imported was the source media. Here you find the three images for the source and here the image for the page that was cited. It even imported the extracted text from the source.

Now that is the way that citation of online sources should be done!

Is this a feature that interests you?

The technology to do this exists right now.

What is needed is for us to speak up and let the creators of our genealogy software and the online database websites know that this is a feature that we want. When the genealogy community unites to petition for records preservation and access, numbers count. The same is true when we want solutions to difficult challenges like source citation.

Contact the companies and organizations whose products and services you use. Let them know what you want. Send them a link to this video. Share this with friends and associates via e-mail, social networking sites or blogs.

Another way to participate is to complete a 5-minute survey that describes your level of interest in such a feature. The results will be shared with any individual, organization or company that completes the survey.

In Better Online Citations – Details Part 1 we examined how the QuickCheck model for “Book: Basic format” from Evidence Explained was coded in Family Tree Maker 2009, Legacy 7, and RootsMagic 4. From the screens we were able to identify implementation differences between the three applications. There are also differences between the applications in how citation information is conveyed via a GEDCOM export. The individual fields shown on the template screens are lost in the standard GEDCOM export making it impossible to create a rich EE-style citation in one application, export it to GEDCOM, and import it into another application while retaining that richness. In all cases (except when the exporter and importer of the GEDCOM is RootsMagic 4), the citation is changed from a “Book: Basic format” to a generic “old-style” (pre EE) format with important details lost.

In the previous post I skipped all details of the file format needed to support online downloadable source citations. From my own observations, from survey feedback as well as comments on this blog and through e-mail there are two main camps when it comes to this topic. One group feels that the best approach to take is an extension to the existing GEDCOM 5.5 standard (which was released in 1996). They feel that it is the best choice to lower the barrier of adoption and avoids YAFF (Yet Another File Format). See the comments from Tamura Jones from Part 1. The second group is open to a new file format based on XML (Extensible Markup Language) which has wide support among programming languages. As a programmer I lean slightly to the side of XML and that is what I used in the prototype shown in the video. But I am open to either view.

In that spirit of openness, I will first look at how the three applications that support EE-style citations represent those citations in an exported GEDCOM file. In this post, we will look at sections of GEDCOM which is a little technical but there will be plenty of explanations for readers of all levels. From the previous post we saw differences in how each application implemented the EE-style QuickCheck model and this post will show differences in how each exports them. You will also see some forethought in the export from one vendor.

For those who have never seen a GEDCOM file, each line starts with a number: 0, 1, 2, etc. A zero is the beginning of a new record and higher numbers are “nested” under lower numbers. It is a way of grouping information together. In the GEDCOM fragments I show here, I will indent the lines to make them easier to understand. I have also done some slight rearranging of lines to make the comparisons easier. After the number, each line has a tag which is a shortened identifier of the information contained on that line. You can see definitions of the standard tags here.

A GEDCOM file starts with a header that describes the software application that generated the file as well as the version of the GEDCOM standard:

Family Tree Maker 2009

0 HEAD
	1 SOUR FTM
		2 VERS Family Tree Maker (18.0.0.305)
		2 NAME Family Tree Maker for Windows
		2 CORP The Generations Network
	1 DEST GED55
	1 GEDC
		2 VERS 5.5
		2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED

Legacy 7

0 HEAD
	1 SOUR Legacy
		2 VERS 7.0
		2 NAME Legacy (R)
		2 CORP Millennia Corp.
	1 DEST Gedcom55
	1 GEDC
		2 VERS 5.5
		2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED

RootsMagic 4

0 HEAD
	1 SOUR RootsMagic
		2 VERS 4.0
		2 NAME RootsMagic
		2 CORP RootsMagic, Inc.
	1 DEST RootsMagic
	1 GEDC
		2 VERS 5.5.1
		2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED

The first line starts the header record which contains a source program (SOUR) that generated the file and a destination program or format (DEST) that will use the file. The level under source shows the program, version and company information. The GEDC or GEDCOM tag identifies that the file adheres to the specified GEDCOM version and format. FTM and Legacy shows 5.5 whereas RM shows 5.5.1. GEDCOM 5.5.1 was published as a draft in 1999 but the changes between it and GEDCOM 5.5 do not affect our discussion. The rest of the header record was removed as it is not important for our comparison. Even though the numbering and abbreviations take a little getting used to, the file format is pretty straight forward. The rest of the file is just as understandable.

As you might remember from the video, we have my great grandfather Worth Tucker who owned property in Elmo, Emery, Utah. The source of this information was a book. From the book we have 4 images: three that go with the source entry and one for a specific page that should be associated with the citation or source detail. Lastly, there is an extract from a page added as the citation text.

Here is what part of that looks like:

Family Tree Maker 2009

0 @I00001@ INDI
	1 NAME Worth /Tucker/
	1 SEX U

Legacy 7

0 @I1@ INDI
	1 NAME Worth /Tucker/
		2 GIVN Worth
		2 SURN Tucker
	1 SEX U

RootsMagic 4

0 @I1@ INDI
	1 NAME Worth /Tucker/
		2 GIVN Worth
		2 SURN Tucker

These next lines start an individual (INDI) record (notice the 0 prefix). The ID between @ characters (ex: @I00001@) uniquely identifies this person record from any other person records in the file. The name of the person is indicated in one or two ways. The NAME tag requires the full name with the surname between “/” characters. The name can also be broken in given name and surname as represented by GIVN and SURN. Some formats set the gender or sex to U for unknown or don’t include the tag unless it is set.

Included in the individual record is the property ownership event:

Family Tree Maker 2009

1 EVEN 80 acres
	2 TYPE Property
	2 DATE 1908
	2 PLAC Elmo, Emery, Utah

Legacy 7

1 EVEN 80 acres
	2 TYPE Property
	2 DATE 1908
	2 PLAC Elmo, Emery, Utah

RootsMagic 4

1 PROP 80 acres
	2 DATE 1908
	2 PLAC Elmo, Emery, Utah

FTM and Legacy choose to use generic event tag with a corresponding qualifying type of “Property” whereas RM simplifies it by using the property tag. Both are equivalent. Each includes the property description of “80 acres” and the date and place of ownership.

GEDCOM supports the concept of a master source with its information and multiple citation details corresponding to an event. In part 1, this concept was shown in the application screens in two screens (FTM 2009 and Legacy 7) or a single screen with different colored top and bottom sections (RootsMagic 4). The way this is represented in the GEDCOM format is to have a separate source record with a unique id and to reference that source record for the specific event being cited. Additional citation details are then given. Notice that the below section starts at level 2 and appears in the file at the same level as PLAC and right below it. This signifies that the event being cited is the parent level 1 or the property ownership event.

Family Tree Maker 2009

2 SOUR @S00002@
	3 PAGE 179
	3 DATA
		4 TEXT In 1908 Eliza Oviatt filed on eighty acres and Worth Tucker purchased
			5 CONC eighty acres of an adjacent school section. These properties became
			5 CONC the Elmo townsite, platted into lots that were sold to prospective
			5 CONC residents for $10.

Legacy 7

2 SOUR @S4@
	3 PAGE 179.
	3 DATA
		4 TEXT In 1908 Eliza Oviatt filed on eighty acres and Worth Tucke
			5 CONC r purchased eighty acres of an adjacent school section. The
			5 CONC se properties became the Elmo townsite, platted into lots t
			5 CONC hat were sold to prospective residents for $10.
	3 OBJE
		4 FORM jpg
		4 FILE C:\Users\mtucker\Documents\RootsMagic downloads - test\historyofemerycounty-page179.jpg
		4 _SCBK Y
		4 _PRIM Y
		4 _TYPE PHOTO

RootsMagic 4

2 SOUR @S1@
	3 PAGE 179
	3 DATA
		4 TEXT In 1908 Eliza Oviatt filed on eighty acres and Worth Tucker purchased e
			5 CONC ighty acres of an adjacent school section. These properties became the E
			5 CONC lmo townsite, platted into lots that were sold to prospective residents f
			5 CONC or $10.
	3 OBJE
		4 FORM jpg
		4 FILE C:\Users\mtucker\Documents\RootsMagic downloads - test\historyofemerycounty-page179.jpg
		4 _SCBK Y
		4 _PRIM Y
		4 _TYPE PHOTO
	3 _TMPLT
		4 FIELD
			5 NAME Page
			5 VALUE 179

The source tag (SOUR) here references the source record with the unique id between the “@” characters. We will look at its details in the next section. The level 3s and higher are for the citation detail. This citation is from page 179 of the source and text from that page is represented by the TEXT tag under the DATA tag. The concatenation tag is used to break up lengthy text onto multiple lines. Both Legacy 7 and RootsMagic 4 export the directory path to the image file of page 179. This is done with the object (OBJE) tag which specifies that the format of the file is jpg. The next three tags begin with an underscore character “_” which means that they are custom extensions to GEDCOM made by applications and that other applications are not required to support them. It appears that both Legacy and RootsMagic have chosen to support these tags. The _SCBK tag indicates if this image should appear in the scrapbook or media viewer inside the application with a Y value signifying “yes”. The _PRIM tag indicates if this is the primary image which is shown in the application in situations where only one image about the citation is shown. The _TYPE tag identifies this as being a photograph as opposed to some other media type. RootsMagic 4 has done something above and beyond the other vendors. It supports a custom template tag (_TMPLT) which we will investigate in a minute.

Before we continue it might be helpful to review page 646 from Evidence Explained to see how the Book: Basic format is represented as a source list entry, full reference note, and short reference note:

Take just a minute to examine the fields for each type, formating, as well as the ordering and contents of the author field.

The final section of the GEDCOM file that we will examine is the actual source record:
Family Tree Maker 2009

0 @S00002@ SOUR
	1 TITL Geary, Edward A., A History of Emery County
	1 NOTE
		2 CONC Geary, Edward A..  A History of Emery County:  .  Salt Lake City:
		2 CONC Utah State Historical Society, 1996.

Legacy 7

0 @S4@ SOUR
	1 ABBR History of Emery County
	1 TITL A History of Emery County
	1 AUTH Edward A. Geary
	1 PUBL Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1996.
	1 OBJE
		2 FORM jpg
		2 FILE C:\Users\mtucker\Documents\RootsMagic downloads - test\historyofemerycounty-frontcover.jpg
		2 _SCBK Y
		2 _PRIM Y
		2 _TYPE PHOTO
	1 OBJE
		2 FORM jpg
		2 FILE C:\Users\mtucker\Documents\RootsMagic downloads - test\historyofemerycounty-titlepage.jpg
		2 _SCBK Y
		2 _TYPE PHOTO
	1 OBJE
		2 FORM jpg
		2 FILE C:\Users\mtucker\Documents\RootsMagic downloads - test\historyofemerycounty-copyrightpage.jpg
		2 _SCBK Y
		2 _TYPE PHOTO

RootsMagic 4

0 @S1@ SOUR
	1 ABBR History of Emery County
	1 TITL Edward A. Geary, A History of Emery County (Salt Lake City: Utah S
		2 CONC tate Historical Society, 1996), [Page].
	1 _SUBQ Edward A. Geary, A History of Emery County, [Page].
	1 _BIBL Edward A. Geary. A History of Emery County. Salt Lake City: Utah S
		2 CONC tate Historical Society, 1996.
	1 OBJE
		2 FORM jpg
		2 FILE C:\Users\mtucker\Documents\RootsMagic downloads - test\historyofemerycounty-frontcover.jpg
		2 _SCBK Y
		2 _PRIM Y
		2 _TYPE PHOTO
	1 OBJE
		2 FORM jpg
		2 FILE C:\Users\mtucker\Documents\RootsMagic downloads - test\historyofemerycounty-titlepage.jpg
		2 _SCBK Y
		2 _PRIM N
		2 _TYPE PHOTO
	1 OBJE
		2 FORM jpg
		2 FILE C:\Users\mtucker\Documents\RootsMagic downloads - test\historyofemerycounty-copyrightpage.jpg
		2 _SCBK Y
		2 _PRIM N
		2 _TYPE PHOTO
	1 _TMPLT
		2 TID 372
		2 FIELD
			3 NAME Author
			3 VALUE Edward A. Geary
		2 FIELD
			3 NAME Title
			3 VALUE A History of Emery County
		2 FIELD
			3 NAME SubTitle
		2 FIELD
			3 NAME PubPlace
			3 VALUE Salt Lake City
		2 FIELD
			3 NAME Publisher
			3 VALUE Utah State Historical Society
		2 FIELD
			3 NAME PubDate
			3 VALUE 1996

FTM takes a shortcut and using the format specified for source list entry, puts that as the source note. The title (TITL) comes from how FTM automatically named the source when it was created. There are two things to note about the NOTE text: 1) it does not have a way to indicate that the book title should be italicized and 2) there appears to be extra periods and spaces in it.

Legacy 7 takes the approach of trying to stuff the EE-style citation into the fewer fields available for the “old-style” citation. There are 6 parts of a source list entry citation for a basic format book:

1. Author
2. Main Title
3. Sub Title
4. Place of publication
5. Publisher
6. Year

Legacy 7 implements the basic book template with the following fields (the last two pertaining to the citation detail):

1. Author Last Name
2. Author Given Name(s)
3. Author Suffix
4. Title
5. Short Title
6. Publisher City
7. Publisher State
8. Publisher
9. Publish Date
10. Volume Data
11. Page
12. Volume

The standard fields available in GEDCOM are:

1. Title
2. Author
3. Publication

So Legacy makes the following matches:

• GEDCOM Title = Title
• GEDCOM Author = Author Given Name(s) + Author Last Name + Author
• GEDCOM Publication = Publisher City + Publisher State + Publisher + Publish Date

Note that there is some formatting according to the source list entry and can be seen in the PUBL tag as it follows the order of fields and contains the colon and comma in the correct location. Also, the abbreviation (ABBR) tag is used to name the source in the master list after it is imported. The rest of the GEDCOM contents from the Legacy 7 file specify the 3 media files associated with the source. Nothing new there.

I have yet to do additional experiments to determine how the translation to “old style” citations works with more complicated citation formats.

Finally we look at RootsMagic 4. It also uses the abbreviation and object tags in the same way as Legacy 7. But some interesting things are happening in the rest of the file. Notice that the title tag follows the format for a full reference citation complete with parenthesis, commas, and colons. The title is between special formatting tags < i > and < /i > to indicate that it should be italicized. Where the page number should go is the textual placeholder “[Page]”. The custom subsequent tag (_SUBQ) contains the short note format although it should just contain the author’s last name. The custom bibliography tag (_BIBL) contains the source list entry format. It appears that a bug in the export is causing the bibliography entry to not show author with last name first. It is important to note that any application that imports a RM4-generated GEDCOM will get only the contents of the title tag and will have to manually edit it to remove the italicization indicators which they don’t support.

Now let’s get to the part where RootsMagic 4 has shown some innovation in their GEDCOM. Remember the custom template (_TMPLT) tag we saw for the citation:

3 _TMPLT
	4 FIELD
		5 NAME Page
		5 VALUE 179

There is also one in the source:

1 _TMPLT
	2 TID 372
	2 FIELD
		3 NAME Author
		3 VALUE Edward A. Geary
	2 FIELD
		3 NAME Title
		3 VALUE A History of Emery County
	2 FIELD
		3 NAME SubTitle
	2 FIELD
		3 NAME PubPlace
		3 VALUE Salt Lake City
	2 FIELD
		3 NAME Publisher
		3 VALUE Utah State Historical Society
	2 FIELD
		3 NAME PubDate
		3 VALUE 1996

Now compare that with the source entry screen:

Notice that in the yellow Master Source section, there are 6 entry fields: Author, Title, Sub-title, Publish Place, Publisher, and Publish Date. These correspond to the 6 template (_TMPLT) field name entries in the GEDCOM: Author, Title, SubTitle, PubPlace, Publisher, and PubDate. In the green Source Details section Page corresponds with the field name entry is the citation section: Page. The value tags contain the actual value. That way the details of knowing individual fields and values is not lost. Completing this is the template id or TID tag that is a unique number used internally by RootsMagic 4 to always refer to this template. That is why you can never edit existing templates in RootsMagic 4.

Here are the details of the template for id 372 as shown in the Source Templates screen:

It is interesting that each field is given a type to indicate if it is a Name, Place, Date, or Text. This could come in handy in future situations. Imagine searching all sources not just for the text “White” but for all sources that contain a name that contains “White.” Searches like that would return more appropriate results.

So what have we discovered is that the current three applications that support EE-style templates do so slightly differently on the input side (part 1) and vary greatly when it comes to GEDCOM output. As it stands today much is lost in the GEDCOM export rendering rich citations into blobs of text. RootsMagic 4 solves this problem in a proprietary way using its own template id and template fields names.  Currently no real interoperability exists between these applications when it comes to EE-style source citations.
This post is already long enough and I will likely expound on my ideas in a follow-up post. But imagine the RM4 implementation standardized and universally accepted. What a world of interoperability that would open up!

There is so much to think about. What do you think?

For those who want to know more, here are the details.

We will first start with the QuickCheck models found in Evidence Explained. These models can be used by software developers as a feature specification:

This example from page 646 specifies that a basic book citation consists of 7 parts:

1. Author
2. Main Title
3. Sub Title
4. Place of publication
5. Publisher
6. Year
7. Page

It also indicates the format of the citation specifying where to put commas, colons, periods, and parenthesis as well as when text is italicized.

These QuickCheck models as well as other citation formats specified in EE (Evidence Explained) have been coded into Legacy 7, Family Tree Maker 2009, and RootsMagic 4.

Now even though each of these 3 desktop genealogy applications used EE for their spec and received clarification from their outside business analyst, Elizabeth Shown Mills, there are slight variations in the implementation by each. To prove this, here are comparisons of each application and how it deals with a book citation:

RootsMagic 4

Legacy Family Tree 7

Family Tree Maker 2009

Here is a comparison of these three applications showing different interpretations of the EE citation model:

So currently we have 3 applications that support EE and each are slightly different. What is needed is a standard that each can measure up against so as more applications support these citation formats, tests can be created to verify compatibility. Some sort of consortium needs to be created to discuss the current differences and come to a consensus of opinion.

Let’s say that process has already occurred and agreement has been reached. Now a standardized file format can be designed to handle the additional level of detail required for the citation models. In some ways this file format would serve a similar purpose as GEDCOM, but would be updated with the capability of handling more-detailed source citation and referencing media such as images and files.

When visiting a website that supports this new file format, the researcher will encounter a download button or link that references that file:

In the above example, the link references a file called book.cite. The .cite extension represents a file of a specific content type (called a MIME type) identified as: application/cite+xml. The important thing to know about this is that a .cite file can now be uniquely identified from other content types.

We will not discuss the actual structure of the file at this point. Details will be provided in a later post.

When the researcher clicks the link, the web browser (in this case Firefox) prompts us if we would like to save or open the file:

As can be seen from the screen, the file is correctly identified as a CITE file and picks the default application used to open the file, ClickCite Launcher.
Part of the prototype code that I wrote was an application called ClickCite Launcher. Its purpose is to intercept CITE files and pass the file along to an importer application. The ClickCite Launcher application would need to be installed on the researcher’s computer and part of the installation would make a file association between .cite files and ClickCite Launcher. This is how Firefox knows which application to use.

The launcher application and the file association are for a computer running Windows. I am not familiar with Mac computers in this regard, but it would surprise me if a similar capability was not available.

This launcher application is aware of all installed applications that support importing of CITE files and presents the user with a list of desktop genealogy applications:

After an application is picked from the list and Import is clicked, the launcher application would start the importer application and pass it the book.cite file. The launcher application would likely be open source software whereas each desktop application that supported CITE files would provide their own importer. In the video demonstration, the importer for RootsMagic 4 presented no user interface and just updated the database file for the most-recently opened database, test.rmgc. The developers of the importer could choose to show a user interface that might include a list of all previously created databases and allow the user to choose which database would be the target of the import.

The process is depicted in the following diagram:

1. Genealogist clicks download link which causes the browser to download the file onto his/her computer.
2. When the file is manually opened or opened by the browser when the Open option is selected, Windows runs the application associated with the extension. In this case, .cite is associated to the launcher application. The launcher receives the location of the downloaded CITE file.
3. When Import is clicked on the launcher, the importer for the selected genealogy software is started and passed the location of the downloaded CITE file.
4. The importer loads the CITE file and adds information to the application’s database file.

I hope this addresses some of the technical questions that I have been receiving.

Phoenix, AZ – April 20, 2009. Every genealogist and family historian from beginner to professional will at some time confront the issue of source citations. Although great advances have been made in recent years to standardize and simplify citations, it is still too difficult. Today on ThinkGenealogy.com a video was released that proposes a better way to cite online sources.

http://www.thinkgenealogy.com/better-online-citations/

This 7.5 minute video consists of two sections. The first section discusses some of the current issues with citing sources especially when it comes to online sources. The second section demonstrates an approach to quickly and accurately cite online sources. The technology needed to accomplish this exists today. The changes proposed by this video requires collaboration between various providers of genealogy software and services.

As a genealogy community, we have at times united to get our voices heard in such areas as records preservation & access, NARA fees, and other topics of key concern. You are invited to watch the video, provide feedback, and learn how we can work together to make citing online sources approachable to all researchers.

About ThinkGenealogy.com

ThinkGenealogy.com is a blog created in July 2007 to discuss ideas and innovation in genealogy and genealogy software. It was recently recognized by ProGenealogists, Inc. as one of the 25 Most Popular Genealogy Blogs for 2009. To learn more, visit: www.ThinkGenealogy.com

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Previous versions of Legacy allowed for source citations, but not anywhere near this level.  So this improved citaion feature can be considered an incremental innovation.  Evidence Explained (or EE ) is 885 pages and contains around a thousand citation models for U.S. and international documents.  Just reading the book is an accomplishment in itself but then translating that into software? Amazing!

EE was published around August 2007 and Legacy 7 was released in June 2008.  I know that Geoff Rasmussen put in many hours during those months reading and re-reading EE, thinking about it, talking with ESM, translating citation models into software requirements, creating templates, and then testing them. I dare say that Geoff is in an elite class of a few that know this book backwards and forwards. Ken McGinnis and Dave Berdan spent many hours coding SourceWriter and the other Legacy 7 features.

With SourceWriter, a genealogist can more easily find the appropriate template among so many and then fill in the blanks with the needed information.  There is no question of which citation information is needed for the document that you are citing.

Quite possibly because of the innovative work of the Legacy team, other genealogy software applications now support or will soon support EE source templates.  If my 2009 genealogy predictions come true, more and more genealogy applications (desktop and online) will support these templates.  They will become a new standard.  So does that mean that this feature is an incremental change with side effects or a transformational change?

Let me end with a story.  For many years I have thought about EE’s predecessor, Evidence!, and how it could be implemented in software.  When EE  was published, I got more excited as I saw how the QuickCheck Models could be translated into software requirements.  It would take a lot of effort and time, but the time felt right.  I would catch myself thinking about this over and over, doing preliminary designs in my head.  One day I was driving home from work listening to a DearMYRTLE podcast interview with Geoff.  He was leaking some information about Legacy 7.  When he said something to the effect of “source citation models following Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained” I literally cried out “Nooooo!”  They had beat me to it.

I have since met the Legacy team and consider them as friends.  This is the first time they have heard this story.  They have had no warning about this post and will likely be surprised that they are the winners of the second ThinkGenealogy Innovator award.

As 2008 closes, we stop to ponder what awaits genealogy in 2009.  In coming up with this list, I have no insider information.  I simply looked at the information publically available and tried to determine what is possible or likely for the upcoming year. 

So here is my list of 9 genealogy predictions for 2009:

1. Two more desktop genealogy applications will support source citation templates from Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained. Currently Legacy 7 and RootsMagic 4 support this. The other two might likely be Family Tree Maker and The Master Genealogist.
2. One major online database (Ancestry, WorldVitalRecords, FamilySearch, Footnote) will announce upcoming support for Evidence Explained source citations.  Other sites will soon follow with their own announcements.
3. FamilySearch Research Wiki will grow to over 30,000 content pages (excluding talk and stub pages) by the end of the year. As of 28 December 2008, there were 12,573 content pages.
4. FamilySearch will announce a replacement for GEDCOM. GEDCOM will still be supported for many years as software will support it as well as the newer format. Reasons for the new format will be to better support source citations and media.
5. I hope I am wrong about this one, but with the current economic downturn we could see financial pressure force one of the more-recently-started genealogy companies to merge with or be acquired by another company.  Worse case scenario, it could go bankrupt.
6. Many more genealogy societies will join the social networking site, Facebook, by adding a group page. Searching groups today for “genealogical society | genealogy society” (the pipe symbol “|” means “OR”) returns 80 results. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of 2009 the total was over 200.
7. More genealogy applications will be available for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Currently the iTunes App Store only lists three applications: MobileFamilyTree, FamViewer, and Shrubs.  This last holiday season, the iPod Touch was a hot item.  I wonder how many genealogists own one now.
8. Through blogs and podcasts, genealogists will hear more about the benefits of Web 3.0 (also called the Semantic Web) and how it applies to genealogy.
9. Genealogists are puzzle solvers when it comes to researching their family history, but do they play games?  I expect to see a genealogy-related game released in 2009.  It could be a casual game for Facebook or something more interactive for the Wii.  How about a Mii Familii Trii?  The game might teach research-related concepts (citation, transcription, etc) or (via GEDCOM import) put your ancestors in the game. 

How about you?  What do you think genealogy will be like in 2009?  Don’t be shy about posting a comment.

This time next year we will revisit this list and see how well the predictions compare with reality.

I am excited for the chance to take if for a spin myself and see how it does for day to day use.