Introduction
If you are new to Family Historian ƒh, and especially if new to genealogy, then familiarise yourself with these topics. They provide an insight into how to learn about ƒh and explain many features that newcomers often ask about, or wish they had known before committing so much data to their family tree.
There is advice in the ƒh program Help pages, the Family Historian website, and our FHUGThe Family Historian User Group is a group of user with wide-ranging experience, from newcomers to very experienced users, all of whom are very willing to shared their knowledge about the programme. Forums postings (see Forums Usage Tips for posting questions, replies, screenshots, etc). This FHUG Knowledge Base cross-refers to them where appropriate, rather than repeat their advice.
For an overview of all the FHUG topics on offer then visit our Knowledge Base Home.
Documentation & Tutorials
See Family Historian Documentation especially the book “Getting the Most From Family Historian 5” with many tutorials which is available as a pdf download and this is still relevant for a lot of features in V6. However there is a V6 book, only available in printed format, from Amazon.
Family Historian Sample Project
Use File > Project Window > More Tasks > Samples > Reset Sample Project to reset the sample Project which is the best place to experiment without risk to your family data, and that can be easily reset, at any time, by repeating the same command.
Project Structure & Location
See Understanding Projects and Backups for location, backup & synchronisation advice.
Migrants from other genealogy products should study the Importing to Family Historian section.
If unsure how many Projects you need for your family branches see the Structuring your project thread and One Project or Many by Jane Taubman.
Customisations & Preferences
ƒh can be highly customised and has many preference settings. Many are not stored in the ProjectA Project is a Windows folder, created by Family Historian, which contains all your Family Tree information recorded in Family Historian. Normally located in the Documents\Family Historian Projects folder. Structure but in the Family Historian Program Data Folder that should be included in your backup regime.Backup & Recovery
See Backup and Recovery especially the Backup and Restore Family Historian Settings plugin for customisations and Windows Registry settings that are not stored in the Project Structure.
Also the ƒh V6 command File > Backup/Restore > Revert to Snapshot can restore just the GEDCOM file.
Places & Addresses
Most data fields are obvious, but these two often cause confusion, so are explained in Places and Addresses.
The automatic geocoding of the Latitude/Longitude of Place names is described in the ƒh V6 book “Getting the Most From Family Historian” in Chapter 14 Places, Maps and Timelines. A similar feature is available in both V5 and V6 via the Map Life Facts Plugin.
Sources Methods 1 & 2
To substantiate your Events and AttributesEvents are things that happened to an Individual and Attributes are things that described them. most users cite Source Records using Method 1 ‘source splitters’ mode or Method 2 ‘source lumpers’ mode as explained in Sources and Citations – how to use them.
Ancestral Sources
The free Ancestral Sources utility makes entering census and other basic records much easier.
Records & Fields & Multimedia
Use Tools > Preferences >
Some data Fields are only visible on the All tab of a Property BoxThe Property Box is the primary window for data entry and for viewing details of stored records. It is used with records of all types. or in the Records Window, and accessed via a mouse right-click menu.
Most data is stored in the Project GEDCOMGEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software. It is a file format that most genealogical programs and online trees recognise. file, but linked MultimediaWhen you add a picture, video, sound recording, document file etc into a Family Historian project, a Media record is created to represent that media item within the project; the Media record includes a link to the actual Media file. files are stored within the Project Media folder, and can be summarised using Tools > (Work with) External File Links.
For further details see Formal Database Structure and Record Types and Record Id.
Diagram Root Couples
Diagrams created by newcomers often show fewer Ancestors than expected and usually the solution is to View Both Spouses’ Ancestors.
Internet Data Matches
See the Internet Data Matches advice for obtaining ‘hints’ from online databases, which is also explained in the V6 book “Getting the Most From Family Historian” in Chapter 13 Web Search, Web Hints & Web Clipping.
Plugins
Family Historian Plugins can add significant functionality without the ƒh program being upgraded.
This is the one and only feature NOT supported by the ƒh 30-Day Free Trial version.
