Craig, welcome to the real world of Ancestry. The programmers who set up this "shared database" thing had their heads so far up their anuses it's surprising ANYTHING in our original databases gets transferred over. Source citations end up somewhere in the "shared databases", sometimes in Notes, sometimes when you click "Notes", sometimes when you click "Facts and Sources", and sometimes when you click "Comments". No, I don't know the trick to enter a source citation and be able to use it again for other people. As to the original "NOTES", I'll use the Notes I entered for myself in my database. When I go to myself in the "shared database", I can click on "View Notes" and see "most" of what I originally entered. I then can click on "Facts and Sources" and I see several "Unsourced Citations". I can click on one of those "Unsourced Citations" and then see what I originally had in my database for that event. I "think" there are several more places where our Notes and Source Citations show up in the Ancestry Shared Database, but, like you, the avenue to get to them is so convoluted I can't remember how to get to all of them. One word of caution about those who have been "invited" and those who have "Responded". If the "invitees" log on and use a different email address, user name, and nickname, the "invitee" list will still have them as "Has not responded to invite". I've been working on a REASOR family here in Knoxville, TN, trying to tie them in to the Germanna RÄUSER/RAISER/RAZOR/RASER/REASOR/etc. and have become so frustrated that I thought of just committing suicide and saying to Hell with Ancestry. The way Ancestry has set up their "shared databases" for editing should be a lesson to programmers on "what not to do". (BTW, I finally was able to connect the Knoxville, TN, REASOR families back to Culpeper Co. and to RÄUSER.) What really frustrates me is that when I use Ancestry's Census Records, type in a name, date, place that I "know" is valid, I get a "search not found"! These are Census Records I have accessed before and that I know are valid. Sometimes I can search for a child in the family and find what I'm looking for. As a matter of info, at our East TN Germanna Reunion earlier this month, someone mentioned that she had heard that Ancestry had earlier "farmed out" the transcriptions of Census Records to INDIA! I don't doubt it for a moment! Looking at the glaring errors in transcriptions, I don't believe that an American could have made such mistakes. Anyway, just bite the bullet, try to work around the obvious shortcomings of Ancestry's "shared databases/trees" and do the best you can. At least we DO have a place for a common database/tree now, and, with all Ancestry's shortcomings, can add to the databases/trees. Sarge At 9/29/2011 02:02 AM Thursday, Craig Kilby wrote: *********START OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT********* >Hi all, > >I need some help. Following George's excellent example of uploading a somewhat private tree to ancestry.com and inviting others in to help edit, a group of us did just that and it is called Northern Neck of Virginia Families. > >The "base" data base was my BALL FAMILY file and that more or less successfully uploaded. (I am not the administrator, but I gave the information to get it started). We also created a face book page to compliment the rootsweb list. Out of 157 list members, only 22 have joined the fb page and even fewer still have asked to be invited to the ancestry list. Confusion is rampant. > >ANYWAY, to my question. When my data base was uploaded none of the source citations (except their #) went through. > >The home person is William-1 Ball, emigrant. I entered two books as source citations for certain events in his life. I thought once I did that I would never have to do it again. > >Wrong. Next person in the family, I wanted to use the same source I had just created. The drop down menu was BLANK. > >How do I enter a source citation once and for and never have to to it again? Does anyone know the trick to this? > >ALSO--all of the data that had been in the "NOTES" section of the original database are so far buried in this ancestry database that I can't even remember how I stumbled across one of them. Any ideas on that? > >Craig Kilby **********END OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT*********** Germanna Database at Ancestry: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/28427876/recent?o_iid=41125&o_lid=41125&o_sch=Web+Property My Germanna Database at Rootsweb: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=germanna My Germanna Website at Rootsweb: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/index.html