Family Historian Version 2.3 adds Narrative Reports, a New Unique Copy-and-Paste Feature, Improved Support for Sources, and Much More. Its Due out on November 5th
and its Free.
Here are just some of the new features
Now Family Historian Can Tell Stories
Family Historians powerful report engine has been extended to support a new kind of report the Narrative report. With this type of report, information about individuals is presented in a story format, so it reads like a book. As you enter event and attribute information in the Property Dialog you can see the sentence that will be generated for the event or attribute.
The New Unique Copy-and-Paste Feature Makes Entering Repetitive Data Much Easier
There is much repetition of data in genealogy. Children are often born, baptised and educated in the same places. The sources for the data and other details are often the same. Family Historian now allows you to select multiple events and attributes and copy-and-paste them from one record to another complete with dates, places, sources, notes and any other information that may be included. This saves much effort and time when entering repetitive data. But to the best of our knowledge no other genealogy program supports this.
Better Support for Sources
When you can specify your sources for every item of data, a source listing at the end of a report, can run for pages. By allowing you to combine duplicated citations, and use Ibid. for repeated references, Family Historian can now cut this down considerably. The amount of space devoted to source citations can be less than a quarter of what it would be without this feature, and with no loss of information.
Other source enhancements include a new standard query for listing all sources for a given record, and the ability to define your own source types (e.g. Birth Certificate, Death Certificate, etc), and create queries or report on them. Source types auto-complete on entry, and you can edit and merge them globally.
Data Entry and Browsing is Easier than Ever
Data Entry improvements make entering data on diagrams (and elsewhere) quicker and easier. Mouse Wheel Users will appreciate the extended support for the mouse wheel scrolling (and zooming, if you press the Ctrl key at the same time) throughout the product.
Improved Support for Large Chart Printing
We know of no chart that is so big that it cannot be handled by Family Historian when run under Windows 2000 or Windows XP. But some very large charts over 15 feet wide when printed, say could cause problems when Family Historian is running on Windows 95, 98 or ME, owing to limitations built into these versions of Windows. Some genealogists want to be able to generate charts this wide and wider even if they have to stick numerous sheets together to do it. Now Family Historian includes a number of features to get round these operating system limitations and to make it easier to display, work with, and print very large charts even if you are using Windows 95, 98 or ME.
New Support for Step Parents and Step Children
Family Historian now allows you to identify step parents and step children as such (this is in addition to the numerous other relationship types already supported birth, adopted, fostered, de facto, etc).
Online Browsing of the User Manual is Now Much Easier
Some users like to print off the User Manual. Others read it online. All users will benefit from a new index for the User Manual. Users who prefer browsing online will appreciate bookmarks and links from the Contents page which make it easy to jump to the section you want.
Release Details
Family Historian is available from specialist genealogy suppliers and mainstream retailers in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Within the UK retailers include Amazon, PC World and WH Smith. It is available via eCommerce or Mail Order everywhere in the world from listed suppliers (see http://www.family-historian.co.uk/suppliers).
The current version of Family Historian that you can buy boxed is version 2.1.
Family Historian 2.3 is due out on November 1st, 2004. It will be made available as a free downloadable upgrade for existing users. The upgrade will do nothing if you do not already have a valid version of Family Historian installed.
For logistical reasons, Family Historian 2.3 will not be available for sale boxed directly, just as 2.2 wasnt. Users who wish to use 2.3 will have to buy 2.1 and upgrade. Prospective buyers should not wait for a boxed version of 2.3 because it is quite possible that there will never be one.
For more details about Family Historian generally, please see our web-site at http://www.family-historian.co.uk.