Family Historian User Group

I have been researching my family history and using Family Historian for about three months.  All has been well until tonight.  I have messed up I'm afraid and I can't see how to sort it.

I entered two previous marriages for a William Black and then discovered they were not related to my William Black.  I deleted them but seem to have left a mess.  William appears 3 times now, one with his 'original' wife and two with blanks where the deleted wives' information was.  The 8 'original' children have vanished from the Focus window but are shown on the 'records' page.  

Everyone with the surname Black has lost some of the information on the records page, for example the relationship to Root and Birthplace have gone.

I could re-enter the missing data on the Focus window but I fear I will end up with duplicates.

I am not sure if this is enough detail for you experienced people to know what I am talking about.  I do hope someone recognises what I have done and can help me.

I have Family Historian version 5, running on my Mac via Parallels. I closed everything and rebooted, but no change.

Anne


ID:6480

I suspect you have not correctly unlinked William from the incorrect Family groups, but simply deleted the spouses.

To remove the empty marriages, go to the repeats for William on the focus window and right click and unlink him.

I can't think of any method where you could remove the birth places, but if you have unlinked the children they would not longer be related to the root person, so add them back in to the correct family for William, making sure you use Add Child and then Existing record to pick them up and don't create new records.

If the 'false' marriages were the last data entered and removed you may be able to recover from your backups.
Do you have a backup of the GEDCOM from before the Marriages were entered?

To be on the safe side first use File > Backup/Restore > Full Backup to preserve your current database.
Then use File > Backup/Restore > Restore Backup to retrieve the backup from an appropriate earlier date.

If this is not clear then please post your questions in reply.

Thank you Jane and tatewise for your speedy replies.

At first I could not 'unlink' until I realised that although I am using a Windows program, it is still under the Mac environment which means right click does not work in the same way.  Once I unlinked, nearly everything was back to normal.  The only issue remaining was with William's 'original' wife - her birthdate and place had gone.  I re-entered that and all now seems to be fine, the children are all where they should be and the relationships are now correct.

However, tatewise, although in this case I did not need them, I am glad you asked me about backups.  On the Mac I have an automatic backup system BUT I realised I do not know for sure if it backs up the Windows part of the system.  So I will start to back up the family history data separately so I will know I am covered.

So lesson learned on two counts - back everything up properly and do not delete  without unlinking.

Thank you both very much.

Anne

Anne,
The backups I am referring to are those features provided within FH itself, not those on the Mac, which would still be a good idea.
Within FH see File > Backup/Restore > Backup Options > Help, review the options and follow the link to Backups for more explanation.
If the Backup on Exit option is ticked then FH should have been prompting for Backup every time it closes.
These are useful over and above the Mac backups.

I am sorry to keep asking for help but I seem to be in trouble again.

The previous problem was resolved.  Today I received a marriage certificate for my husband's great grandfather as I could not find any trace of who his parents were.  It turns out that his father was 'unknown' and his mother was Amelia Peach who is already in my tree.  I tried to link her following the example 'surname,first name'.  I entered Peach,Amelia.  It linked an Ann Peach who is another relative.  I immediately went to Undo and selected that.  I now once again have a real mess by the looks of things.

So, I went to the instructions from tatewise to retrieve a backup.  I Went to File, Backup/restore, then full backup.  I got the message 'the backup cannot be created within the project folder that is to be backed up'.  Not sure what I need to close.  

When I read the backup help section I think I have not been automatically backing up on closing but I do know for sure that I pressed Save last night when I finished (as I have done quite regularly).

I love this program but I am becoming a bit afraid of it.  I probably need some lessons.

Anne

Anne said:

I immediately went to Undo and selected that.

To Undo everything you must repeatedly use Edit > Undo until there are no more options left, and then Save. It is just like Undo in Word or Excel where you step back one change at a time.

Anne said:

I went to File, Backup/Restore, then Full Backup.

To restore you should use File > Backup/Restore > Restore Backup... then select a backup file as explained in File > Backup/Restore > Backup Options > Help > Backups > How to Restore From a Backup.
What you were requesting was a Full Backup (not Restore) and this requires a separate folder from your Project folder.
i.e. In Backup Options set Default Backup Folder to say C:Users{username}DocumentsFamily Historian ProjectsBackup.
When restoring a Full Backup FH will require you to create a new Project.
When happy with the restored data, then use Delete Project to remove the unwanted old Project and use Rename Project to give the new Project your preferred name.

Anne said:

I entered Peach,Amelia. It linked an Ann Peach ... I now once again have a real mess.

I presume you selected PEACH, Ann instead of PEACH, Amelia when linking the Spouse.
What is the nature of the mess?

Anne said:

I probably need some lessons.

May I suggest the following:
(1) Use File > Project Window > More Tasks > Samples > Reset Sample Project to create the Family Historian Sample Project. You can experiment with this Project without risk to your master database, and it can easily be reset by running the above command again.
(2) Use the FH Help > Family Historian Help &/or press the Help button where available, and read about the features provided.
(3) Use the FH Help > Book: 'Getting the Most From Family Historian 5' and work through the advice and tutorials.

Thank you again tatewise.  

By repeating Undo several times, it all came back to normal.  It had been repeating e.g father's name and children's names alternately down the screen and joining them with lines.  That was the mess I referred to.

Also I think it substituted Ann for Amelia as I realised that although I had researched Amelia quite a bit, I had not entered her into FH.  As there was no Amelia, Ann was the only A. Peach on the system at the time, so it offered me the nearest.  

I now understand the FH backups and although I have not been brave enough to do a test 'restore', I do know I am well covered.

I am also going through your 'training' suggestions, including working on the sample family and would recommend that to anyone new to the program.

Thanks again.
Anne

The FHUG Knowledge Base - Glossary of Terms for Backup and Recovery has been recently updated to clarify the FH V4 and FH V5 Backup/Restore options.