Family Historian User Group

Good evening, I have been using AS v5.3 to populate FH v6.2.7 and have used the 'Generic information' (exact wording maybe different!) format when transferring the data entry into FH.

I haven't entered data into my small database for approximately 6 months and now have a wee backlog. The froth of the 'NEW' FH v7 and AS v7 launches has caused me more angst than joy. Whilst 'Rich Text', new templates, new mapping and web compatability may fill some users with joy, the added options just confuse me and I am not sure if I can remember the options that I have set at present in my v6.2.7 and v5.3 set up! Is there still a generic information entry format in the new software versions?

If I make further entries under my current regime, will I be able to benefit from possibly upgrading to the FH v7 and AS v7 in the future, once the gremlins have been found and removed? The 1920's to 1940's mapping looks interesting. I am no Luddite, but prefer genealogy research to computer studies every 5 minutes.

Mike Tate has the patience of a Saint, from what I have seen and read on this site. Thank you for your time and efforts.

Good health, Bill

Hi Bill

Ancestral Sources 7 will work perfectly well with FH6 and it won't show you any options to create rich text or source templates as they are only available in FH7. It should also generally retain your settings from previous versions of AS. There are a number of improvements in AS 7 and also some bug fixes. For example it now supports the entry of electoral register information and other records that are similar to census. Another change that many users have been asking for is that it has removed the concept of a 'UK census' and now has separate England/Wales/Scotland/Isle of Man census templates. However, if that's a problem for you you can reimport the old templates if you wish - I describe that process in my answer on this thread: 18406|AS7 - Restoring Previous Census Templates. I think that process is quite straightforward and doesn't require a PHD in Computer Science.

I've spent a great deal of time on this update including fixing bugs and ensuring that it supports earlier versions of FH as well as v7 so I really do want people to upgrade to it.

If you do upgrade to FH v7 then you can continue to use AS v7 with the old 'plain text' auto-text as in the past if you wish with the old-style 'generic sources', there's absolutely no requirement to change the way you do things.

Best wishes

Nick

Aye Nick,

Thank you very much for your rapid and comforting reply.

I might even give it a go for entering entries from the Scottish valuation rolls that are available from Scotland'sPeople. These entries are a single line entries and in some instances there are annual entries along with the 5 year interval entries, they give another valuable insight into peoples working past.

As for the templates for the individual countries census data, rather than the UK template, I think that will not be a problem. OK, it may look a bit different, but who cares, it's the genealogical info that is important and the ability to link it with others.

It's not the computing nouse that worries me, but the often overly complex logic used and the inability of my simplistic wiring to see "Why?" KISS makes far more sense and if I needed RichText I'd have used some publishing software. A bit like Government software, take something simple that works, pay a 'Consultant' millions of £ and 5 years later you have software that does nothing specified in the original brief, is horrendously clunky to use and difficult to maintain in a stable condition.

Thank you for your time and efforts to produce a useful bit of simple software and concise support.

Good health, Bill