Introduction
If you are new to Family Historian, and especially if you are new to genealogy, these are the topics worth reading before you commit much data to your tree. They cover how to learn ƒh and the features newcomers most often ask about, or wish they had known about sooner. This article is written for Version 8; if you are still using Version 7 or earlier, see Using an Earlier Version at the end.
There is advice in the ƒh help, on the Family Historian website and in our Forums (see Forum Usage Tips for posting questions, replies and screenshots). The Knowledge Base links to those rather than repeating them. For an overview of every topic, start at the Knowledge Base Home.
Help and Documentation
Press F1 in any window for the help page about it. The help’s Tips for New Users is a good first read, and What’s New in Family Historian 8 lists everything that changed in this version. Other guides are listed in Family Historian Documentation.
The Sample Project
The sample projectA Project is a Windows folder, created by Family Historian, which contains all your Family Tree information recorded in Family Historian. Normally located in the Documents\Family Historian Projects folder. is the place to experiment without risking your own data. To put it back as it was, open the Project Window (File > Project Window), click More Tasks and choose Samples > Reset Sample Project. You can do that as often as you like.
Projects
See Understanding Projects for how a project is laid out on disk and where it lives. If you are coming from another genealogy program, read the Importing to Family Historian section first.
If you are unsure whether to keep everyone in one project or split them into several, see the Structuring your project forum thread and Jane Taubman’s One Project or Many. Most people use one.
Customisations and Preferences
ƒh can be customised a great deal, and most preferences are under Tools > Preferences. Customisations are not stored in the project but in the Family Historian Program Data Folder, so they need backing up separately (see next).Backup and Recovery
See Backup and Recovery. The backup commands on the File menu save your project; Backup Settings on File > Backup/Restore > Backup/Restore Settings saves your customisations and preferences to a single file. ƒh also takes automatic snapshots of the project’s data file, and File > Backup/Restore > Revert to Snapshot will take you back to one.
Facts
FactsFacts are one of the key concepts at the heart of Family Historian; they are how you record the things that happened to, or described, each ancestor (Individual). are at the heart of ƒh: they record what happened to each person, and what described them. See Working with Facts for New Users.
Places and Addresses
Most fields explain themselves, but placesAccording to GEDCOM, a Place should hold "The jurisdictional name of the place where the event took place…" and addresses"The address structure should be formed as it would appear on a mailing label…", according to GEDCOM; however, this is capable of a number of interpretations, and Address and Place are best considered together. cause confusion. In Version 8 an address is a record of its own, linked to a place, with its own map position, pictures and notesFamily Historian version 6 and below supports two types of Notes: Local notes (associated with a single person, record, or fact); and Note Records (sometimes called Shared Notes), that can be linked to multiple records and/or facts. Version 7 introduced. See Working with Places and Addresses in Version 8, and Geocoding and the Map Window for putting places on maps.
Sources and Citations
Most users back up their facts by citing sourcesSource: "where information was found". This could be anything from an archive in a county records office, a book, or even a relative's recorded recollection. Citing your Sources helps to show how you reached a particular conclusion about an Individual.. See Sources and Citations in Version 8 (for New Users).
Ancestral Sources
The free Ancestral Sources program makes entering censusCensus records are national collections of population statistics. They usually record details about members of a household on a particular date, and are typically collected every ten years. entries and other common records much quicker. ƒh also has its own source-driven data entrySource-Driven Data Entry is a workflow that starts when you acquire a source, moves on to entering the details of that source and then on to creating the facts about people that you glean from the source (often automatically creating, described in the Sources article above.
Records, Smart Folders and Queries
Under Tools > Preferences, on the Records WindowThe Records Window provides a comprehensive view of all the information stored within a Family Historian project. tab, set each Record Type Display Option to Always show. The Records Window then has a tab for every record type, and nothing is hidden from you.
Some fields only appear on the All tab of the Property BoxThe Property Box is the primary window for data entry and for viewing details of stored records. It is used with records of all types. or in the Records Window, and are added by right-clicking. Most data is stored in the project’s GEDCOMGEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software. It is a file format that most genealogical programs and online trees recognise. file; pictures and other mediaWhen you add a picture, video, sound recording, document file etc into a Family Historian project, a Media record is created to represent that media item within the project; the Media record includes a link to the actual Media file. files sit in the project’s Media folder, and Tools > External File Links lists them. For more, see Formal Database Structure and Record Identifiers.
Smart Folders, new in Version 8, let you browse your records by category without writing anything: see An Overview of Smart Folders. When you want something more specific, see An Overview of Queries in Version 8.
Diagrams
Newcomers’ diagrams often show fewer ancestors than expected, and the answer is usually to View Both Spouses’ Ancestors. See Diagrams in Version 8 for the new look and how to change it.
Internet Data Matches
See Internet Data Matches for getting ‘hints’ from online databases. Version 8 adds hints from FamilySearch, whose Family Tree is free to use, and a FamilySearch Window for matching your people with it and copying information either way: see The FamilySearch Window.
Plugins
Family Historian Plugins add features without waiting for a new version of ƒh, and they run in the free trial as well as the full program.
Using an Earlier Version
If you are still using Version 7 or earlier, most of the above applies, but see Working with Places and Addresses in Version 7 and Below and Sources and Citations in Version 7 (for New Users). The Backup Settings command and Smart Folders are new in Version 8; for earlier versions the Backup and Restore Family Historian Settings pluginPlugins are small programs that allow new features to be added without upgrading Family Historian itself; some plugins are written by Calico Pie and others are written by users. does the backup job.