Family Historian User Group

Don't be afraid of the program. Many of us use it on quite a basic level but we know there is help here if we have a specific problem. To start with I worked through some of the Sample family until I got the idea of using the program and now am completely happy using it in my own chosen way. (I'm su...

Pencil and paper, work on it for a a reasonably short time at one go. Come back to it often. Don't pause too long on words you don't get, just leave a space on your paper and come back to them later. You will gradually 'get your eye in' and words which seemed impossible may become clear later. Conte...

As jmurphy says, I would use an Excel spreadsheet. If you think about how you might want to consult your information you can make headers for columns so that you can sort the information in different ways. I do this for Parish record infrmation and GRO indexes for One Name studies.
Anne

Me too, David. Doesn't take long and is more reliable for me and my way of working. Provides a double check too.
Anne

What I do is display a tree for the relevant part of the family. I select 'birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial' to be shown in the diagram and then you can get a quick glance at which events you haven't entered.
Anne

I came to FH from Ultimate Family Tree. I chose that because it was recommended by a computer magazine. It was an OK start but had problems and eventually became unstable. I chose FH because it is 'British authoured' and started on the learning curve again. I used the Sample Tree and worked through ...

I don't use the focus window at all either. I work mostly with the property box sitting in the middle of the screen with the list of everyone in the project seen behind it.
Perhaps the OP might find that easier?

Anne

Oooh, that sounds good. Searching on the GRO index is quite tedious but it is free! I wonder if you will be able to search with just a mother's mn? The biggest problem with the GRO search is trying to second guess what mistranscription of the surname there might be. I use FreeBMD in conjunction with...

When you start to go further you will need to look up such things as census records and parish records. If you live near where all your ancestors came from you will be able to do this for free at your County Archive (Record Office, not the same thing as the Register Office!) However if, like me, you...

Victor, those are Dade registers and the best ones list the grandparents and where they were from as well. However there are very many more parish registers that do record the birth date in the margin, or in some cases in a special column. I don't think its that rare, just the policy of an individua...

I have used the standard query 'search for orphans' which, whilst doing that, sorts all individuals into their pools. Us that what you mean?
Anne

Jim, I am also interested in preserving my research after I fall off my perch and making it freely available. I did consider FamilySearch BUT I understand it works a bit like a Wiki and people can alter your tree. NOT what I want at all! I have settled on Ancestry for now and uploaded Gedcoms. I the...

I was doing it onto my new iPad which has iOS 11 so maybe its different. Whatever, its sorted now!
Anne

Sadly not in my case. The App still crashes almost immediately without importing anything except the file name, just as it did before.

Edit: Apologies! I didn't realise I needed go delete the App and download it again. Had thought the update would be automatic. All is fully loaded now.

Anne

Are you able to visit the local central library or Archive for the area? You might find it easier to do visual scans of census areas and pages on microfilm or microfiche. Before the advent of searches like Ancestry and others provide, I bought CDs with whole county censuses and went through them pag...

I had an answer from them in the end saying they expected to do an update 'soon'. I can still access the previous uploads I did ..... fortuntately I didn't delete them before trying to upload a new version! Away with all the family now and they're not showing much interest in family history. C'est l...

Use great caution and some maps when working out census places from any transcription. I have come across quite a few which are incorrect. If possible use the enumerator's description sheet at the beginning of each sub district. You need a map with older place names shown and a lot of patience but i...

It seems that an update to the Heredis app that I think some of you use for iphone and ipad is causing a big problem. It appears to be no longer possible to import a gedcom file by email or itunes. Over the last few years I have done this a number of times to update the data on my ipad. I use it to ...

Got my certificates yesterday with no problems, by downloading them from the website. Got my emails today!! LOL
Anne

Going back to the original posting ........ It is becoming clear that the GRO emails we are supposed to get with a notification that the certificates are ready to download are not coming through. A number of people have found that their images are ready for downloading on their GRO account and have ...

Ah, yes the newspapers. I've lost count of the number of times I've been 'stuck' and then found just the proof I need in the newspapers on FMP. Mostly marriages and deaths. In times gone by the newspapers just made a list of the local church events, I'm pretty sure the interested parties did not pay...

I have both and because I live well away from my areas of research it pays off very easily compared to the cost of travelling to Archives and staying overnight. Much of my family are from Yorkshire which Ancestry and FMP have very well covered with parish records but with little overlap ... hence me...

I agree the 10th too. I do think a quick burial would be quite likely burials tended to be much sooner after the death anyway in those days but it was well known how infectious small pox was.
Anne

This is precicely the reason I am gradually putting my trees on Ancestry and going through every person to make sure I am as satisfied as I can be with my research. If there is conflict with other trees I leave a note on mine to say so and explain my findings. If I can't find the answer I say so and...

Sorry, Mike, but there are many more ways of learning a program or website -- some people like you learn by exploring; others like me learn by reading; and yet others (like my OH) learn by doing; still others learn best by watching/listening; and others learn by being told/shown. I agree with that ...