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jemalong
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Family Historian: V7

I can't get started

Post by jemalong »

I'm a few days into my 30-day trial of Family Historian and I very much like what I see, however I'm frustrated at not being able to make use of the program. Some background: I used TMG for years and then swapped to RootsMagic before becoming disappointed with RM8's unfinished features and frequent error reports. My tree has a few thousand people in it and transferred seamlessly from RM into Family Historian.

I don't need help in adding relatives to the tree. I need help in adding facts to people. I've read the built-in help, have watched videos (mostly pre-v.7, which is not ideal) but I still can't get my head around it. What I want to do is add details of an electoral roll from NSW, Australia to three people who are listed in that document. Can someone please point me to a step-by-step guide to the process? It doesn't have to be an electoral roll. It could be any document.

I've tried to follow the instructions in the help section "Introduction to Source-Driven Data Entry":
You open Family Historian and click the Source button . You choose one of the first 3 options on the menu (more on these later). If it's one of the first two, a new Source record is created. Either way, the Citation Window opens.

I see 2 options, not 3: "Create Source from Template" and "Create Generic Source Record".
After choosing the first option, "Create Source from Template", I don't see the Citation Window. I get "Select template for new Source record." All the source templates I see are marked "RootsMagic Import". One of the templates shown is "Census, Australia (microfilm, FHL copy)" which looks good, but I think I'm getting too far away from the FH help instructions, so I go back and choose the second option "Create Generic Source Record".

I'm told to "fill in a few details in the Citation Window". "Title" is OK, but what's "Generic Type"? I leave that and all the following fields blank. I click on "Data Entry Assistant" and get the message "You currently do not have any Data Assistants installed. Choose one or more to install now?" That seems like a good idea, but none them seem relevant to a NSW Census so I close and proceed to add the data manually.

I click on the Text tab of Prepared Citation and try to "Add text from Source." I can "Add to Source Record" or "Add to Prepared Citation". By this stage I'm not sure which is which, but perhaps adding to the Prepared Citation looks the better option. I choose "empty text" and enter the relevant details from the Census record. Once done I have to choose between "OK" and "Apply". I don't know what "apply" means, so choose "OK." Then I need to press the "Enable Automatic" button. I can't find that, but I press a button named "Automatic" which seems to work and shows "Enable Automatic Source Citations", which sounds right.

Before going further I see that there is no media attached, so I go back to the "Prepared Citation" window and load the census image. Clicking "Add Media" gives me the choice of adding to the Source Record or the Prepared Citation. I don't know what the difference is, but I've been working with the Prepared Citation window, so will go with that.

The help file says "You can now quickly add all the people and facts, and source citations will be automatically added, saving a lot of fiddling about"
I can't work out how to add the source to the other people. I can't see a button or anything to select them, so I'm stuck.

No doubt I've made some (many?) errors in the choices I made above, and I wish I could readily see what needs to be done at each stage. Is there a video with a detailed step-by-step demonstration of this process? This is the first task I have tried with Family Historian and my failure doesn't give me confidence, especially when I see FH reviewed at www.smarterhobby.com as "best option for beginners and for those not tech-savvy."
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: I can't get started

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Have you found our KnowledgeBase? Specifically Sources and Citations in Version 7 (for New Users) and articles linked from there may answer many of your questions.
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tatewise
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Re: I can't get started

Post by tatewise »

I would also suggest you cut your teeth on a more commonplace fact such as Birth, Marriage, Death or a regular Census.
The source document would then be a standard BMD Certificate or a Census return.
They are far better supported with Source Templates and Data Entry Assistants (DEA).

You have also encountered a feature of RootsMagic imports where its Source Templates are put in their own Collection.
Use Tools > Source Template Definitions... and the Collection droplist at the top lets you choose Essentials, Advanced, and RootsMagic. For your initial experiments start with Essentials and use either Civil Registration Certificate for a BMD Certificate or the Census Return template.

For an Australian Electoral Roll you may need to customise a Source Template and DEA for that purpose, and also decide what fact to use, either by adapting the standard Census or Residence fact, or by creating a custom fact.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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jemalong
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Re: I can't get started

Post by jemalong »

Thank you very much ColeValleyGirl and tatewise for your helpful suggestions, which are much appreciated. I'll explore the KnowledgeBase and experiment with a simpler document to use first up. If I run into problems I'll come back here to ask for help.
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DJY
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Re: I can't get started

Post by DJY »

For what it's worth, I've been on your exact same software journey: started with TMG and used that for about 7 years, took a 10-year hiatus in genealogy only to come back and find TMG was shut down. Switched to RM7 and hated RM8, so I switched to FH7.

I can't address all of your questions because I've been using FH7 for only a few months and ended up picking & choosing which source features I favored. Here are some of my observations and approaches, in case it's helpful:
  • I played around with the source templates but I hated them. They just never had what I wanted. (example: Newspaper item template doesn't have a place for the title of the article or the name of the subject. I can select "obituary" but there's no field for the person's name. I might as well use a generic source and enter what I want.) Exception: I use the gravestone template for findagrave records.
  • FH has a much more powerful source search function than RM (even better than TMG, if memory serves, and I thought that was better than RM). When I'm creating a generic source, I'm using that "generic type" field to list what kind of source it is: census, tax roll, book, etc. That's a search field in the source list, so by doing this, it allows me to look at a short list of sources when I'm trying to find one I want.
  • Whether you want to add your text to the "source" or to "citation" has to do with how you structure your sources. This goes back to the source-lumper vs. source-splitter debate on the RM boards. I've actually changed from being a source lumper to a source splitter in the transition from RM to FH because the search function on the source list is so much better that I didn't mind having a bazillion sources in a source-splitting strategy. Here's what I mean by that, using findagrave as an example. In RM, I had only one source for findagrave. I had a master-source section (i.e., the actual "source") that was generic findagrave stuff, and then I entered the person and their memorial ID # under source details. If I wanted to make notes (inscription, for instance), I entered that in the detail text. It stayed with that citation (that particular instance of findagrave, a citation I could copy & paste as needed) but it didn't stay with ALL of the findagrave entries that used that same master source. If I used this same approach in FH, I would have a source for findagrave, and the person/memorial ID would be entered under "citation-specific details" I would enter the inscription text using "add text from source"-->"add to citation". You may see many different selections under that because FH has created some text box templates (fill in the blank forms) to help people add common data sets like census records. For something like this, I'd select "empty text" because I just want a blank text box where I can type. Now that I've switched to a source splitter strategy, I no longer use a generic "findagrave" source. I would now have a very specific source that's called "Tombstone of John Doe". I would enter his name, cemetery, findagrave memorial ID (which I put under "plot" in the source template) and all of this is under the "source record" (like the master source section of RM). I would put the inscription under the source record ("add text from source" --> "add to source record"). This is analogous to adding text to the master source record in RM. The source record text would show up in every instance where that source is used, but if I put the text in the citation-specific text box, it would show up only in that one instance. If I wanted to reuse it, I would have to find that citation somewhere and copy and paste it to the new fact. In that sense, it's very much like RM. For something like the tombstone example, I never have any citation-specific details. Everything is in the source record (i.e., in the master source) because really, it's just a tombstone (or John Doe's will, etc.) and that's all there is. But I would use the citation area if I had a book, for instance, because I would want the specific page to be listed there (in the "where within" field) to show that p. 32 showed John Doe's will transcript and in some other family line, I would use that same source with a different citation detail to show that p. 97 gave Tracy Smith's will transcript.
  • It took me a little while to get used to adding sources to facts in FH because the sources sit in a separate pane (that yellow scroll) rather than sitting in the same row as the fact. I really didn't like that at first and thought it was clunky but now find I prefer it because it's very powerful for quickly adding sources to lots of different facts. Instead of clicking on each fact, you choose which fact you want from the pulldown menu in the source pane window thing. I can add my source to a census, and then pull down the facts (birth, residence, occupation, etc.) and quickly paste the source to those facts without leaving that source pane. It doesn't sound like much, but it's actually must faster. I still miss having an icon next to the fact that tells I have a source attached. I don't have any source indicator since I open my sources pane in a new window.
  • It's easy to be sloppy with generic sources so I've tried to set up a pattern. I use publication info for the native source (e.g., Stokes County, North Carolina Will Book 1, p. 32) and I use the custom ID for the FHL film # or ancestry database where I got the image. [BTW: If anyone reads this, do you know -- does that customer ID field export okay? I would hate to lose database & film #s. I've started duplicating it in the publication line to be on the safe side!] The short title is just for your own use so you can call it something easy to find in the list of sources. I've included a screenshot of the sources tab in the records window so you can see what I'm talking about. It's analogous to the "Master Source" field in RM, which could be distinct from the "Title" field in the source entry. It's the same here with "short title" and "title".
    Sometimes I forget to do this because the search engine on the source list is so powerful, or I'm not rigorous in the method. You can see the disaster area in my screenshot. Sometimes I write "will" then the state abbreviation and then the person. Sometimes it's state then will then person. Sometimes it's just the title. But you can see that I found them all by just typing "will of" as the search term. That's the power of the source search.
I have no idea if any of this is helpful but in thinking back to when I was a new user, this is what I struggled with and I thought saw hints of the same in your post. Good luck!
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allenawilson
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Family Historian: V7

Re: I can't get started

Post by allenawilson »

DJY,
I've read your post several times and it's all beginning to slowly sink in. I came from FTM and have really struggled with FH's source-citation approach. For example, I have a lot of marriages on a FamilySearch database called "Oklahoma, County Marriages, 1890-1995". I started out creating what I call a source using "Derivatives: Databases, Online". I added only the basic information leaving what I would call citation-specific information until I created a citation. I would then click on "cite an existing source" when adding a citation to a marriage fact. All is well and good, so far. I then went to the next marriage fact for a different couple, selected "cite an existing source", expecting to see that very basic source waiting for citation-specific information. Not so! The only "source" is the one I had just created. So now I have to create what in my mind is another source. I think part of my problem is understanding the terms "source" and "source record". But I understand in the FH world, I am creating many sources rather than many citations. I get it, it just takes a while for an old dog to learn new tricks.

And for me, the souces/citations that FH templates produce are by far the best in the genealogy software world. And I own most of the major software programs.

The bottom line is I enjoyed your very thorough and well-thought-out explanation, especially concerning adding source and citation-specific text and notes. Thanks again, Allen.
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jimlad68
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Re: I can't get started

Post by jimlad68 »

jemalong, my 2pennyworth on the old issue/problem in Genealogy of how to record Sources; for me it is to keep it simple but flexible.

Yes FH V7 has added a lot of features that some welcome but others, myself included, find confusing, especially if you previously used the more simplistic Generic Sources. For me the expression "too clever by half springs to mind". Having said that I am a keen user of Ancestral Sources, but that took some understanding and setting up, but once done saves me much time. I have no doubt that the new Source templates can be useful, but like AS, need some understanding and setting up.

When FHv7 was introduced there were many discussions re Sources. These old topics might help simplify an approach to Sources.
For me this was the crucial KnowledgeBase article
Customising V7 to use V6 (Simple) Style Sources
Note the comment "Newcomers to ƒh may also choose to work only with Generic Sources for simplicity or to ease exporting data to other products".

My personal thoughts on Templated v Generic Sources (19466) my comments 29 May 2021 15:50
Generic Sources (19422)
Change default opening Tab for Citation floating window (19000)

I think it is important to experiment with any new software to find the best methodology for your needs. Be prepared to redo some things, there are some very helpful and cleverer than me people here who may be able to help with conversions etc.

P.S. I came from TMG back in FHv5 (I saw the writing on the wall for TMG back then), I just wish I had understood more about "Method 1 Sources" (for me 1 Source for each piece of information for multiple Facts as in AS) while using TMG.
Jim Orrell - researching: see - but probably out of date https://gw.geneanet.org/jimlad68
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