Family Historian User Group

I am a new user and searched a bit under export and import but didn't find what I wanted. I have a printed family genealogy book, complete with trees and notes. I would like to populate FH with the basic tree information...how can I most easily do this without having to manually enter each bit of information?
I assume that the first step is to scan the book, and then successfully OCR the scanned material. From that starting point, is there an intelligent software that can help me get the thousands of names, dates, locations into FH? Several examples are given below. The OCR isn't perfect as u can see, but its a very good starting point.
Is this a fruitless quest and the the only help to completely manual entry is to intelligently cut and paste the OCR information into FH? EMH

Example 1. Original was text
They had three children, viz:
ib. William7 Patrick Hamilton, b. Dec. 24th, 1836, d.
Oct. 1st, 1871, married Lucy Tarry, niece of George Tarry,
who married his aunt, Mary E. Hamilton. They had four
children, viz:
ic. Mary” V'. Hamilton, , d. 1896 ;
2c. Edward* Tarry Hamilton, ;
3c. Wm.s Patrick Hamilton, ; the two sons living
in Boydton Va. ;
4c. Lucy" Tarry Hamilton, m. W. A. Bryson.
2b. Mary7 Eaton Hamilton, b. May 18th, 1842, d. Jany.
13th, 1875, married first Bransford , second
McGee. She had one child.
ic. Mary* Alma McGee, b. Jany. 20th, 1876, d. June
14th, same year

Example 2 original was tree
Before and after OCR looks like a genealogy tree, but after copying for insertion here looks like below

c
14. James, Duke of Hamilton and
Brandon (6th and 3rd ), m. Eliz¬
abeth Gunning, a famous beauty;
d. 1758; their son was
o
William*
Hamilton,
<1. 1840, Burnside,
N. C., came over
before 1815,
never married.
Isabella5 John5
Hamilton, Hamilton,
b. 1767, d. 1825, 5th of East Quarter,
m. Morrison, came to America,
live >l in Scotland, m. , 10 ch.
See Table D. Pennsylvania.
George5
Hamilton,
officer in R. N.
d. 1837.
15. James George, Duke of Ham ¬
ilton and Brandon ( 7th and
4th ), d. 1769 in bis 15th year;
his brother was
James5 Robert*
Hamilton, Hamilton,
m. Mary b. 1780,
Ridley, of lived in
N. C., d. in Texas,
Phila. 1836. d. 1845 in
1 N. r.
Euphenua5
Hamilton,
d. unm.
Alexander5
Hamilton,
b. 1786,
d. 1823,
PATRICK 5
HAMILTON, I
b. 1789,
d 1850, d
m. MARV E.
BASKERVILL
1812, came over
1807, 17 yrs. old.
See Table fc. C'
Jean5
Hamilton,
b
- 1775.
d. young.
15. Douglas, Duke of Hamilton and
Brandon (8th and 5th ) , d. 1799,
succeeded by his uncle unm., at
Wms'bB,
N. C.
14. Archibald, Duke of Hamilton
and Brandon (9th and 6th ), d.
1819; his son was
15. Alexander, Duke of Hamilton and
Brandon ( 10th and 7th ), d 1852;
his son was
16. William Alexander Archibald,
Duke of Hamilton and Brandon
(1 ith and 8th ), d. 1863.
Frcdk.6 Wm. Hamilton,
m. Anna Cole,
of Williamsboro, N. C.;
said to have had five
children.
Mary* Euphenua Hamilton,
m. McIntosh,
M. C. from Georgia.
17. Wm. Alex'r Louis Stephen Douglas,
Duke of Hamilton and Brandon
( 12th and 9th ), o. s. p. 1895, suc¬
ceeded by d- This identification is based on circumstantial
evidence (see t > xt, page 57 ), which seems to justify
Alfred Douglas, Duke of Hamilton and it. Otherwise this table is absolutely authentic.
Brandon (13th and 10th ), present in ¬
cumbent, descended from James, 4lh
Duke of Hamilton.

Example 3 original was tree
Before and after OCR looks like a genealogy tree, but after copying for insertion here looks like below

Chart A3-4-3-1
Conizene B. Stafford
m. Catherine Speir
Gerald M.Stafford
Aletha M. Heard m. Emily Murray
Julius P.Leisering
m. Earl Stafford
Julius P. Leisering
Virginia V.Jeter
BU Conizene H. Heard
Chart A3-4-3
Virginia E.Leisering
Thomas H. Heard
Alta B.Heard
m. Edna E. Adkins
Thomas H. Heard, Jr.
Charles E. Bailey
Ethel Bailey
Norton H. Bailey
m. Laura SeatoD Dorothy Lee Bailey
Della A. Jeter Claude A. Bailey Claude W. Bailey
m. Charles N. Bailey m. Marguerite Wilson
Chart A3-4-3
Malcolm Bailey
Virian V. Bailey
m. Norma Shaw
Virginia E. Bailey
Edwin H. Bailey
m. Genelle Howell Charles Pat Bailey

One way to do this would be to OCR it and create a CSV file from the OCR in the correct format and then use the CSV import plugin https://pluginstore.family-historian.co ... v-importer

Thanks Valkrider. Looks like it might be easier to cut & paste directly into FH in the first 2 examples but carefully formatted csv for importation might be easier for the spartan 3rd example. EMH

Welcome to the FHUG.

An important part of importing family history data is to verify the details are correct.
It does not matter whether it comes from some online family tree or an inherited book like yours.

So as the people are entered, it is wise to confirm their BMD details with online formal records.
The UK GRO Index records from 1837 are mostly available online for free.

With that in mind, it may be easier to enter the people and events directly into FH with the Source Citations.
I suspect trying to get the CSV data accurate and import that into FH will be no easier.
The 'Flexible CSV Importer' plugin is more suited to spreadsheet CSV data that is already accurately tabulated.

My personal belief would be that any import would need to be well structured in the case of the vast majority of entries. Otherwise, the data goes either nowhere or into incorrect places in an unacceptable number of cases - finding those missing or incorrect entries is then liable to take way more time than just entering it manually in the first place. How would you find missing data without reading every entry? It seems to me that reading every entry would defeat the whole purpose.

I see no evidence of well structured entries in those examples. The 3rd example in its copied format doesn't have a clear structure to me, either, so whether entering the bare-bones data into a CSV file would save any time, I'm not sure.

I've tried entering families from a Burke's and it's seriously hard work when reading and interpreting it - it's way too easy to assume that a family is for a son of the preceding marriage, when it's actually for a brother of the preceding marriage. That's just about possible with thought and the visual clues of the white-space and type-faces - those latter elements won't go into any OCR.

Thanks Tatewise and AdrianBruce.
My main objective may be different from many novice amateur genealogists. I have a very good start, 2 complete books on family genealogy, one for my mother's side and one for my fathers', so I have an incredible abundance of free reliable information that was published before the computer age, Dad's ca 1920 and Mom's ca 1960. My goal is to digitize this information using FH as the storage and relational DB, so that descendants including my generation can add their own branches, stories and photos. The issue is how to get the book's info into FH accurately, parsed, and with the least effort.

So, having 2 monolithic sources means source citations are not an issue.

I agree with AdrianBruce that typographical and relational errors will be abundant with 'eyes closed automation', and so OCR followed by data review immediately prior to cutting & pasting seems to be the best bet. A big job for a book of information, maybe 3-4 weeks. This brings up the question, are there individuals out there in the FH world who are interested providing this service for payment? EMH

Without seeing the books, it is difficult to be definitive, but in themselves, they are probably not authoritative sources.
The snippets you posted earlier don't seem to contain any authoritative source citations of public records.
So how do you know whether the information is historically accurate?
Just because it is on printed pages does not necessarily make it correct.

Even if you can get accurate OCR digital text, cutting & pasting is not going to be easy.
To see what I mean, try to copy & paste the facts you posted earlier into FH.
If the birth & death text is b. Dec. 24th, 1836, d. Oct. 1st, 1871 that can't be pasted into FH to create a Birth and Death event.
The best you can do is paste Dec. 24th, 1836 into the Born: date and Oct. 1st, 1871 into the Died: date of the Main tab of a Property Box created by hand with William Patrick Hamilton pasted into the Name: box.
You will have to manually enter the Sex: box to Male.
Interestingly, neither of those birth and death details have an associated place of birth or place of death, which if they had been thoroughly researched should have been discovered along with the dates.
Try doing something similar with marriage details and a spouse name.

Maybe I have got completely the wrong impression, but I feel that there is more research to be done than you realise, and that will involve far more effort than the copy & paste of OCR text. So even if somebody was prepared to offer a service that would capture the content of the books, it may not prove the information is accurate.

I apologize if my impression is mistaken, but you asked for advice.

BTW: You say you are a new user of FH Version 6 but that was replaced by FH Version 7 last December.
So how is it that you have installed Version 6 that should not currently be on sale?

Thanks Mike for your useful comments, and of course u are right that just b/c its printed doesn't make it factual. The information that I gave was just a part out of the books, and there is more detail embedded in the text for SOME family members, but it is far from complete, missing many of the details that u noted. My goal of digitizing these books is to give currently living family members the opportunity to add their branches in gory detail to a growing family DB. First I need to create the DB with enough details (the books) to engage their interest. Our family are all pretty uninterested in their relatives and ancestors, so it is a challenge to get them to be contributors of even their own stories. Hopefully someday a true scholar will emerge from the family and correct any errors or assign the right degree of uncertainty or alternate data as u have surmised will occur and improve and extend the DB ...sounds like u may be this sort of detailed investigator for your family line, they are fortunate beneficiaries. I am just trying to make a modest start to get the ball rolling.

Do u have any advice on how multiple family members can work on the same DB? Would storing the DB on my One Drive work if all relevant family contributors were given access with editing permission? Can two people modify the DB at the same time? If not One Drive that what do u suggest? Thanks for your help! EMH

PS I first used FH in any meaningful way in 2019 and can't remember when I purchased it, so thats why my version is dated.

At least it seems you understand the challenges.

Some experiments along the lines I suggested will give you a better understanding of what is involved in transcribing the books into the FH database. As I said, using OCR and copy & paste may not be significantly beneficial. Scanning each page through OCR, double-checking its accuracy, and pasting the data piecemeal into FH will take time. It may be just as quick to simply copy type directly from the book into FH. Perhaps a comparative exercise is a way to go. OCR and copy & paste one page from the book into FH. Then repeat the exercise copying the same page directly from the book. Which is quicker?

It isn't easy to share the same FH Project amongst simultaneous researchers; not even via cloud storage such as OneDrive.
FH is only designed for one user to be working on a Project at the same time. Most Windows programs are like that.
If you can arrange some form of a rota system, so each researcher knows when it is their turn, then OneDrive could work.

Thank you! EMH