Family Historian User Group

I have been with My Heritage for five years with a tree of over 8600 names. My subscription is due to expire and I cannot afford to renew.
I have exported a GEDCOM to Family Historian 6.
After a couple of weeks use, I am slowly getting to grips with it. But I hate the way the family tree is displayed and find it very difficult to find my way around.
Is there only the one format or can the tree style be changed to something similar to My Heritage?
Incidently, I have also built a tree on Family Search, not having realised that it was a totaly public tree and of course it keeps getting changed by any Tom, Dick or Harry. Often quite wrongly, with utter nonsense being added. A complete waste of time!

Welcome to the FHUG Mike.

As a newcomer I advise you study the topics in how_to:key_features_for_newcomers|> Key Features for Newcomers.

In this context see the ƒh Book: "Getting the Most From Family Historian" and in particular:
Chapter 3. Introduction to Diagrams and Chapters 8 to 11 that cover customisation.

See also how_to:index#manipulating_diagrams|> Manipulating Diagrams.

I wonder if you are mixing up the Focus Window (that is akin to the MyHeritage 'Family Tree Builder' Family Tree) with the various Tree Diagrams that FH offers (akin to MyHeritage Online Family Tree) that are dynamic and let you edit your database.

Unfortunately we are not mind-readers here so please explain what FH 'features' you have tried, and what MyHeritage 'features' you need.

If you simply want to display family trees in MyHeritage and their Family Tree Builder program then you can continue to do that without a subscription. Just export your FH database using the Export Gedcom File Plugin as explained in plugins:help:export_gedcom_file:export_gedcom_file|> Export Gedcom File Plugin and plugins:help:export_gedcom_file:myh_myheritage_family_tree|> Export Gedcom File ~ (MYH) MyHeritage Family Tree.

Hi Mike
Thanks for reply.
I mean, for example, the Ancester Diagram etc. I have no trouble with the Focus page.
Whereas My Heritage normaly shows up to about 300 people boxes per page and is therefor easy to navigate around and then follow upwards in a family branch by clicking on the appropriate tab.
FH is displaying all 8600 boxes in one page making it a nightmare to follow branches. Worse as the page does not 'drag'.
Cannot keep tree free on My Heritage, it's too big, only allows 2000 or so people in tree for free.

OK, that is just the default to display All generations.
Use Diagram > Options > General tab and adjust Generations Up: as necessary.

There are various ways to navigate.
To zoom use the + and - buttons in toolbar, or hold down Ctrl key and use mouse scroll wheel, etc, etc.
To drag use the hand Grabber in toolbar, or hold down space bar and use mouse scroll wheel or left button drag, or scroll bars.

All the above and more is covered in the ƒh Book: Chapter 3. Introduction to Diagrams as advised. Please read!

BTW: The MyHeritage help says with a free account "you can add up to 250 individuals", but I have exceeded that limit by uploading GEDCOM files to my free account. 558 individuals in total, in 5 trees, and 286 in largest tree. So you may be able to break the limits via GEDCOM unless the 2000 you quote is an undocumented limit.

In the diagram, right click on an empty space (i.e. not on a box or line), select Diagram Options, in the Diagram Options window that pops up change Generations Up from All to a smaller number (try 4 or 5 to start with).

The Save as Default box (lower left of that window) is ticked by default, you may want to unset that. Then click on Apply and OK.

You can click on the diagram buttons to open up individual branches up the tree. This is very basic stuff. As Mike recommends, check the Help, diagrams are VERY flexible.

Got it!
Very many thanks.
I have ordered the book as obviously there's a lot that is not immediately obvious.
Always seems easy when you know but the getting started is not so straight forward.

In the meantime you can download the free PDF ƒh Book: "Getting the Most From Family Historian 5" that has a lot the same as the V6 book. See how_to:family_historian_documentation|> Family Historian Documentation for free download details and comparison of V5 with V6 book.

Have now received the book and of course it all now makes sense.
Once you start to get the hang of it, it's actually better than My Heritage.
However, when the programme package is advertised for sale, I think there should be a note to say that the buyer may find the programme difficult to use without also buying the book.
The built in 'Help' on FH is not very much help to a Newbie.

Mike you are welcome to report that opinion to Calico Pie Support Centre via the FH Help > Technical Support.

It is also why I advise every newcomer to study how_to:key_features_for_newcomers|> Key Features for Newcomers where the first topic is Documentation & Tutorials and especially the ƒh Book: "Getting the Most From Family Historian".

mike gordon wrote:... However, when the programme package is advertised for sale, I think there should be a note to say that the buyer may find the programme difficult to use without also buying the book. ...

I suspect one would have to choose a slightly less negative form of words than that

Absolutely not intending any criticism of anyone, but in the interest of balance and anyone coming to see this thread later, I think it important to point out that others may find completely the opposite. I suspect that the difference between those who take to FH like a duck to water (myself, e.g.) and those who have to work at it, may be something to do with their analytical nature. I was hopeless at history at school (so why am I doing this as a hobby?) because I simply had to learn lists of facts. I was great at maths because all I ever learnt was the bare bones and I constructed everything in an exam from them. I loved FH from when I first opened it (well, mostly...) but when I trialled FTM (years ago) at the same time, I wept tears of frustration over it because although each view and button was powerful, I couldn't work out which to use without just memorising the stuff.

Your mileage will vary - that's what makes User Interface design so - err - interesting.

This is purely subjective, but I get the feeling that users who start out with FH are fine, whereas users who migrate from other products have more difficulties assimilating FH, perhaps because they come with preconceived concepts that are understandably difficult to ditch.

Purely because it's interesting personally....

I didn't start out with FH, I started out with the venerable PAF (the price was right, after all - free) - actually, I think it might have been obsolete even then. I took great care to learn PAF - printed out the help file (in the days when help files could be sensibly printed) and worked through it manually. Maybe that's how I got my understanding of the basic logic - a simple program that didn't hide stuff behind wizards and views, etc. Maybe if I'd started with FTM, I'd have had more problems converting to FH - a need to unlearn methods applicable to that software and insufficient appreciation of the data structure.

Dunno - personal styles of structuring knowledge have a huge influence on how we get on with fields of study. (As another aside, I offer my complete bamboozlement by Regular Expressions - partly because I can't get past my desire to be able to use the old ICL2900 Mainframe editor - brilliantly sophisticated functional commands with zero relevance to RE!)

Adrian, perhaps start a thread on Regular Expressions (or perhaps more pertinently Lua Patterns) and we can un-bamboozle you. See posting Regular Expressions and Lua Patterns (15660) that has already been started.