You almost have to use a template for the template language structures to work. Go to the Lists - Source templates and find a template similar to what you want and copy it, I think that starting with "Personal Knowledge" should work. You can only edit copies of the built in source templates. I would call it something like PRIVATE CONTRIBUTOR or something to indicate what it is. Limit the fields to" Source name, Contributor (or Name as it is there) Details (Check the little box for This is a source detail field) that's all you need In the footnote template add something like: [Source name], <![Contributor]|Contributor wishes to remain anonymous>, [Details]. Short footnote would be something like: [Source name], [Details] and the bibliography just: [Source name], <![Contributor]|Contributor wishes to remain anonymous> This seems to keep the contributor's name out of the footnote for me. You would have to enter a different source name for each contributor so the short footnotes would be for the correct source. Alfred ============ Arthur & Pauline Kennedy wrote: > When people share information with me I include them in my RM file as > master sources, and put brief details of our correspondence in the > citations. This means that the names at least get listed in the > footnotes to reports, but it has occurred to me that there might be > times when I want to suppress the names but indicate that I could supply > them if appropriate. > > In the Help file I've found reference to a privacy switch for sources: > it seemed to say I could have two versions of the source name (eg "John > Smith" and "Private correspondent - contact me for details") and in the > report options set which one I wished to use. > > However, I can't get it to work (using RM6), so I'm not sure if I've > misunderstood this or am doing it wrong, or if it's not working > properly. In case it's relevant, all my sources are free form (and I > don't intend to change that), and the reports I produce are almost > always Family Group Sheets or Individual Summaries. Is there anyone who > uses this feature who could give me a bit of help, please? > > Thank you, > > Arthur > >

Thank you for your replies, Alfred. Your original thought: > Add fact, make it Private and attach the source you want to keep > private ONLY to those facts you have marked as private. wouldn't always work - sometimes it's only the source that I'd want to keep private, not the fact itself; and it wouldn't work with person sources. However, in view of the difficulties I'm about to describe, you've made me wonder if one workaround would be to define a fact "Private Information", which is never shared, and use that to include anything sensitive - or just put private sources in privacy brackets in the notes for the existing fact. Anyway, I've now tried something on the lines of what you suggest below. I've created a source template named !Private Individual, with footnote templates (full and short) of <![Name]|<i>Name withheld</i>><, [Details]>. The bibliography is the same but without the Details bit. This seems to work in reports in the way I'm looking for, but as this is an area I've never explored before, I have a few further questions: (a) In the source template, does it matter whether I define the type of the [Name] field as Name or Text? It doesn't seem to make any difference to the output. (b) Since existing free form sources can't simply be changed into template-based sources, if I decided to use this new template to make duplicates of all my potentially private personal sources, would I then be able to merge the old and new versions to get the desired effect? However, I've noticed a couple of things which make me unsure whether this is a path I want to go down: (c) When I use this template to create a new source, in the source list the Footnote/Bibliography panel shows "Name withheld" (in italics) rather than the name of the person concerned. Is there anything I can do to get the non-privatised name to show up there? (Including a [SourceName] field as Alfred suggested didn't seem to make it happen.) (d) I wonder if (c) might be connected with the way a source of this type is exported to GEDCOM. This is the section of a GEDCOM file where the new source is defined: 0 @S382@ SOUR 1 ABBR MMK2 1 TITL <I>Name withheld</i>. 1 _SUBQ <I>Name withheld</i>. 1 _BIBL <I>Name withheld</i>. 1 _TMPLT 2 TID 10000 2 FIELD 3 NAME Name 3 VALUE M------- K------ [full name edited out for this message] (There's also a section beginning 0 _STMPLT 1 TID 10000 1 NAME !Private Individual where the source template is defined.) What concerns me is whether other programs will interpret this correctly. I don't have any RM-equivalent programs to try it with, but I've found that GENViewer (a read-only utility) reads the source name as "<I>Name withheld</i>", and the non-privatised name (as in the line 3 VALUE) doesn't appear at all. This seems to me to be a deal-breaker. Interestingly, I tried swapping the parts of the Name field in the template, ie <!<i>Name withheld</i>|[Name]> and that seemed to deal with the issues at (c) and (d). Then to produce a report in the way I wanted it, I had to use the source privacy switch in the opposite way to what is indicated. (Or have I stumbled upon a bug?) I'd be grateful for any comments on these points. As this is a new area for me, I realise that I could be misunderstanding things, so any clarification would be appreciated. Many thanks, Arthur On 02/01/2013 00:28, Alfred wrote: > You almost have to use a template for the template language structures > to work. > > Go to the Lists - Source templates and find a template similar to what > you want and copy it, I think that starting with "Personal Knowledge" > should work. > You can only edit copies of the built in source templates. > I would call it something like PRIVATE CONTRIBUTOR or something to > indicate what it is. > > Limit the fields to" > Source name, > Contributor (or Name as it is there) Details (Check the little box > for This is a source detail field) > > that's all you need > > In the footnote template add something like: > [Source name], <![Contributor]|Contributor wishes to remain > anonymous>, [Details]. > > Short footnote would be something like: > [Source name], [Details] > > and the bibliography just: > [Source name], <![Contributor]|Contributor wishes to remain anonymous> > > This seems to keep the contributor's name out of the footnote for me. > You would have to enter a different source name for each contributor > so the short footnotes would be for the correct source. > > > Alfred > ============ > > Arthur & Pauline Kennedy wrote: >> When people share information with me I include them in my RM file as >> master sources, and put brief details of our correspondence in the >> citations. This means that the names at least get listed in the >> footnotes to reports, but it has occurred to me that there might be >> times when I want to suppress the names but indicate that I could >> supply them if appropriate. >> >> In the Help file I've found reference to a privacy switch for >> sources: it seemed to say I could have two versions of the source >> name (eg "John Smith" and "Private correspondent - contact me for >> details") and in the report options set which one I wished to use. >> >> However, I can't get it to work (using RM6), so I'm not sure if I've >> misunderstood this or am doing it wrong, or if it's not working >> properly. In case it's relevant, all my sources are free form (and I >> don't intend to change that), and the reports I produce are almost >> always Family Group Sheets or Individual Summaries. Is there anyone >> who uses this feature who could give me a bit of help, please? >> >> Thank you, >> >> Arthur >