I can't get started
Posted: 28 Nov 2021 03:39
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."
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."