Importing RootsMagic Shared Events Into Legacy 8

I was really excited when I received an email a few days ago announcing that Legacy 8 was now available.  While Legacy isn’t my main genealogy program I do like it.  I was especially looking forward to trying out their new shared facts/events feature.  Shared facts is an option that I use often in RootsMagic.  I was very interested to see if Legacy could import shared events from RootsMagic correctly.
I downloaded the standard (free) version of Legacy 8 and I was glad to see that shared events are useable in the free version.  I exported a GEDCOM of my database from RootsMagic 6 and imported it into Legacy 8.  Then I went to David Gallant’s profile as he has a number of shared census record events.  I was very happy to see they were all there.

Importing shared facts from RootsMagic into Legacy 8 step 1


The first column after the event descriptions shows a symbol with 2 people.  This indicates that the event is shared with other people.

Importing shared facts from RootsMagic into Legacy 8 step 2


When you click on edit the event window pops up.  I was disappointed to see that the event note was NOT carried over from RootsMagic.  It does generate an event sentence in the bottom part of the window, but the transcribed census that should show in the notes window is missing.  I can see the media was attached properly.

Importing shared facts from RootsMagic into Legacy 8 step 3


Clicking on the share events button brings up a window showing all the people linked to this event.  You can also add new people here.  In this window I see it has correctly  listed David Gallant’s second spouse and 2 children.  Legacy has imported the role types that I created in RootsMagic.

Importing shared facts from RootsMagic into Legacy 8 step 4


If you click on edit role a new window pops up.  Here you can select what role this person should have, or create a new one.  I was surprised to see for all people who are attached as a shared event person the notes DID get imported correctly.  Why would Legacy import this note but not the primary one? 
The sentence template in the bottom window needs a little work.  Legacy seems to use the role name in the event sentence.  I see a tab for overwriting the sentence for an individual.  To edit the sentence for the role globally you need to use the drop down role menu and go to the very bottom.  The create/edit role opens a menu to do this but I haven’t figured out how to code a new sentence yet.
I do like that on this screen you can mark the event as private and have the option to included the main event note of the primary person to the shared note.

Importing shared facts from RootsMagic into Legacy 8 step 5


When you open a persons edit window you can quickly see if the events are a shared event by the blue arrow shown before the fact.  Clicking on edit takes you directly to this persons event notes, there is also a text link to edit the primary persons event/note if needed. 

I’m very happy that Legacy 8 has the ability to import the shared events from RootsMagic!  It’s not quite perfect, with the main note missing and the sentences needing some work.  But this will still be a big help in sharing our GEDCOM files with others.  Now I’m going to have to try creating some new shared events in Legacy and see how RootsMagic imports them.

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