Family Historian User Group

I had the same problem but ages ago, under XP. Probably with FH v4. In my case I decided that one of the online backup programs was using the data file at exactly the same time FH wanted it.

I stopped using the online back-up, the problem went away and my bill from my ISP went down as well.

Jane - thanks for the thought about checking what Lulu or Blurb might want. I'd actually not thought that far ahead but it makes sense to check out the options. John - somewhere I've got an old (paid) copy of Serif Page Plus - and MS Publisher as well - so it would probably be worth looking those ou...

I know - why isn't he using a web-site? Partly because not all my relatives are that IT literate. Partly because (for me) nothing beats plain simple paper to read. And file away on a society's shelves. Besides which - my ideal is this: - I write the chapters manually (in MS Word, say); - I paste the...

There may (or may not) be two issues here: 1. How do you put all this into FH? 2. How do you keep confidential that which should be kept confidential? If you have every confidence your FH data will never get out, then it doesn't matter what you put into FH. In this latter case, two families seem to ...

Ah - I should have mentioned, I altered my 'usual' text scheme to show the extra names on diagrams (well, I think I altered it - so long ago I can't remember). Immediately before the birth details, I have an item 'Name (a.k.a.)' for all box types, with a template reading 'a.k.a. %INDI.NAME[2+]:FULL%...

Re option 1 - I can say that I know this one works since I have Samuel Beech m Martha Cook, Feb 1825. Their 1st child is down as Samuel Cook b 1821. He also has an alternate name of Samuel Beech since the 1851 shows him with his parents and carrying the Beech surname, whereas in his baptism and the ...

'the correct surname (the mother's before marriage)' OK - let me pick up on this 1st. If the child uses the surname of the man she married, as you say, then that is just as correct as the mother's pre-marriage name. Remember that in the UK you can call yourself what you want, so we shouldn't invoke ...

Actually, I'm not sure that they would have known Ancestry were doing this. I've seen it suggested that the fiches were bought from a FH society, as a certain society's set of fiches were missing the first so many years - just like Ancestry's are. Since Crown copyright does not last for ever (only 5...

If the census and residence facts were in 1 to 1 correspondence, I'd agree Nick. However, what I normally end up with is X different census facts per person and then rather less residence facts, each of which cover a range, e.g. 'Resident in Nantwich from 1835 to 1851' and 'Resident in Crewe from 18...

Interesting - I've always used the census form (though not via AS) to create both census and residence facts - unless the form clearly spells out that the person is a lodger, boarder or visitor. My suspicion (unprovable?) is that the majority of grandchildren with grandparents were indeed resident w...

If you did go down the route of custom facts and were concerned about compatibility, it's my personal feeling that custom events are more likely to be accepted by a recipient program than custom attributes. Thus you might have a custom event for (say) 'Medal Awarded' and add what the decoration was...

Long filename problems seem to pop up in all sorts of places - including some versions of my back-up software, which is somewhat disconcerting. The only thing, I'm afraid, is to try and review those long names (if I understand you correctly). For instance in: 1841 England Census Class HO107; Piece 5...

duncalfa said: Personally I would attach any bastardy documents to the child - I have warrants, certificates, recognizances and orders at present. Perhaps a linked note would serve the purpose where the father is concerned? Do I need to say 'Illegitimacy' rather than the other word??? Attach the do...

For the Poor Law facts, you need to think whether or not they must have a value. If they must, then set them up as custom attributes, otherwise, set them as custom events. But there are very occasional exceptions - see the 2nd example below! If we take a fact of 'Named as father' then because we alw...

Thanks Jane. Like you, I split my sources down to a low level and put little in the citation - even so, I have numerous facts with several citations, the classic case being a birth where I try to cite each source carrying someone's age, so might have a registration index, baptism, several censuses, ...

The trouble is that if we have several Sources being cited against a fact, wouldn't we have to have a set of columns in the query for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc, etc citation? Or am I missing something in dealing with these beasties?

The only thing I'd add to the above is that I actually have 2 sets of folders, one for the stuff that has been recorded in FH, the other for what hasn't been put in yet. That way I can see what I still need to do. (I'm prone to capturing census images off Ancestry for someone and their family in one...

To reinforce the 2 previous replies: I'm guessing that where livery companies / guilds / etc held sway, then usage of the title 'Master XXX' might be controlled. But outside these areas, then the term simply means to say that they were an employer or worked for themselves, rather than an employee. M...

1. Menu item - Tools / Work with Record Identifiers This will shuffle everything down to fill in the gaps - BUT everything after the gap will be renumbered. By searching the Help for 'renumber' I found this bit: 'Family Historian never reuses record ids for deleted records when creating new ones. Th...

capnkeith said: I am surprised that the Ipad has not been discussed .... I am tempted to get one just for note taking at research libraries etc, they look much more convenient than a laptop. I would ask yourself very carefully how long your notes are. The only method of input is a virtual keyboard ...

Ben Sayer said: Adrian Bruce said: 4) It must have the ability to be used in a simple fashion by those who haven't much grasp of Evidence Management, while storing the data in such a way that when they do understand it, they can drill down and expose the assertions / assumptions / whatever that the...

Thanks for that Lineascope link. I think it interesting that (if I understood it correctly) the author was not envisaging it being used for every 'fact' in a 'database', rather as supporting explanations for some major elements. That could help with the workload because there's no doubt that doing E...

It's an interesting series of articles on that blog. I don't know if I'm being pragmatic, realistic or defeatist but I suspect little will come of these ideas for precisely the reason Jon alludes to. All(?) FH programs are based round GEDCOM. This generates a fairly tough series of requirements on a...

I've only just noticed this so no idea how long it's been like it, but it's like this for me on v4.1.2. I'm using 'Segoe UI' 8 pt (which I'd forgotten about - must be a Win7 font, in fact I think that it's designed specifically as a UI font). 'Assessment' is no problem for me but 'Where within Sourc...

1. Personally I usually keep my source titles in 'human-speak' with no references, e.g. 'Census Entry: Bruce, Edith, 1871, Dundee', recording the reference in the note box and the identification within the repository (which has to be added on the 'all' tab for a source, as a sub-item to repository) ...