by John Hanson

Introduction

"Oh no!", I hear you cry, "not another Windows family history program". But please bear with me and read on.

I was recently given the opportunity to try out this brand new program. One is always sceptical when such a program hits a market that already has a number of major contenders. However this one has one thing going for it, if nothing else, and that is the fact that it is British. Yes, that's right: a brand new British family history program.

The program has been written by Simon Orde of Calico Pie Ltd. Simon took a gamble and stopped work as a contractor over 15 months ago to concentrate on completing it, having been working on it in stages for the last couple of years. Family Historian will get its first public showing when it is launched at the Society of Genealogists' Family History Fair on the 4/5 May 2002.

To my mind there is a lot that, even at this early stage in its life, make this program stand out from the rest.

Radical change

What is so different about Family Historian? It has a number of innovative features, which I have tried to describe in this article. However, do bear in mind that it is extremely difficult to do so in the few short words and pictures that are available here. So why not come to the Society of Genealogists' Fair and have a look for yourself?

I should start, I suppose, by explaining that one radical difference from other programs is that Family Historian does not use a database as such but stores information as a GEDCOM (genealogy data communication) file. Because of this you can instantly open almost any GEDCOM file just by double clicking on it. Not only does it work with any GEDCOM file but it has also been written to the full GEDCOM 5.5 standard, which is something that seems to be untrue of a number of other programs, as those who have tried to transfer data between programs will testify. You can obtain a copy of the full GEDCOM standard from the following URL: homepages.rootsweb.com/~pmcbride/gedcom/55gctoc.htm.

Installation

I tested the program on my desktop machine, which has an AMD 950 Duron Thunderbird processor and 768 Mbytes of memory and runs Windows 98SE. However the program will run on any machine that runs Windows 95 or above. Installation was effortless, using the now common style of installation process; the program is installed into the "Program Files" directory of your C drive, unless you specify otherwise.

A new approach

Once you start the program you see the first immediate difference. For those used to seeing the type of display that shows three generations - parents, grandparents and children - it is a little strange to be presented with a Child window within the main program window simply titled "Individual records". (A Child window is a separate window within the main one that can be resized independently of the main window; you can have a number of them within the main window.)

I should say at this point that it is well worth taking the time to work your way through the tutorial. It will help you to understand the concepts and the way in which this program works. I know that the majority of us are keen to get in and start using a program but this is one of those programs where the time spent beforehand is well worth it.

You can select from a list of the GEDCOM files that you have opened most recently, or you can open another or create a new one from scratch. A word of warning here: remember that you are using the actual GEDCOM files here, so you should ensure that you have suitable backups first. Of course, you all make regular backups of your normal family history program files anyway, don't you?!

I thought I would test the program out by opening a couple of the GEDCOM files that I have on my machine. I started with my own family history file. This contains a total of nearly 20,000 people. Family Historian took only 13 seconds to open the file and display the list in the Individual Records window. Quite impressive, I thought, so I went on to see what it would do with John Bloore's Peerage database. This GEDCOM file is available on CD from S&N Genealogy Supplies and includes over 100,000 people with peerage links. The file is over 25 Mbytes in size but the program took just 22 seconds to load the file and then another minute to initialise the data. Very impressive indeed.

At the end of the loading stage you may be presented with a message that says that not all lines from the GEDCOM file could be loaded, either because you have said in the Preferences not to or because they do not conform to the GEDCOM standard. It asks if you wish to see the lines that have been omitted.

Individual records

Most of the examples shown here are from my own family file. Figure 1 is from the Individual Records window and includes an entry for my great-grandfather George Bird, born in 1867. The other columns that are displayed here are Record ID, dates (of birth and death, if known), the place of birth and the date the record was last updated. You have the option to re-sort the information on any of these columns.

Figure 1: "Individual Records" window showing various George Birds included in this GEDCOM file

You will notice that there is a small plus sign (+) to the left of the icon before each of these entries. This, when selected, will display all of the information that is recorded for that person (see Figure 2). Below the list of details about the person (eg birthplace) are those relating to the families that he/she is a member of, either as a child or parent. In Figure 2, I have opened up, by selecting the box at the beginning of the "Parents family" line, the details of George's parents. This shows the details of his father, Robert, exactly as they appeared for George. You can continue to expand and contract, by checking or unchecking the box, for as far as you wish. The response, even in the Peerage database, is instant.

Figure 2: Screen showing data included for George Bird (1867-1951), with "Parents family" box opened to show details of his parents and siblings

To edit the details for a person, in the Record view, all that is required is to highlight them and select the Properties icon from the toolbar. This will display the details shown in Figure 3. Well, not quite. What you actually see the first time is the information on the Main tab and only the top half. What I have displayed here is the Events tab for Robert, which shows all of the entries for him; I have highlighted the entry for the 1861 Census and also opened up the source information for the entry. It would be nice to be able to show each of the individual screens here, but space doesn't permit that. You can add any event that you wish and if it doesn't already exist then you can add a new event to cater for it.

Figure 3: Events tab of the "Individual property" screen for Robert Bird, with source information for the 1861 Census entry

Charting

Charting, or diagrams as Family Historian calls it, is one of the major strengths of the program. Four chart styles are available. Three of these are the conventional ancestors and descendants charts and the now common "hourglass" (combined ancestors and descendants) chart. The fourth type is a new one with Family Historian and that is the "All relatives" chart. This chart is similar to the hourglass chart but includes relatives of your ancestors and descendants. Figure 4 (over the page) shows part of the "All relatives" chart for my great-grandfather. Whilst the normal descendants chart would show his mother, Phoebe Foskew, it would not show her brother Samuel.

Figure 4: Part of the "All Relatives" chart for George Bird

The real strength of charting within the program, though, comes from its flexibility. You can redefine almost anything within it, and on the fly, from the number of generations to the font to use and you can specify up to four titles, all of which are free-floating and can be moved anywhere. You can decide whether to include pictures or not and, if so, where within the box. You can turn boxes on and off, redefine the line types to use and so on. But the real beauty is that on clicking "Apply", the chart is redrawn with all your changes in it. No more going back and redefining your criteria. There is even a list of predefined text schemes of what data to include in each box; you can add new ones if you wish.

You can go even further with the charting feature and use it to explore your database. You will notice in Figure 4 that there are circles, called expansion buttons, against those people on the chart where there are more ancestors or more descendants. If the box has a cross in it, like those on the bottom, then you can expand that branch of the tree: simply click on the button and the chart will instantly expand. If the box is plain, like the ones at the top, then clicking on it will hide the information from that point, up or down. You can zoom in and out effortlessly by using the "+" and "-" keys, recentre the chart, select the area to view, or even view the whole chart on a single screen.

As far as printing from a chart is concerned, I have found no problems at all. You can ask the program to show the page boundaries and there is even the option to tell the printer to avoid printing on page boundaries.

It is also possible, even in chart mode, to add a new person without having to go back to the Individuals list. Thus if you wish to add a new child to a family you simply find the parents, click on one of them and drag away from them. Up will pop a menu asking if you want to add a new child or link to an existing one. You can add a parent to a child who doesn't already have one, using the same technique. I could go on with what is possible using charting but I do not have the space, except to mention that you can have more than one chart open at once.

Multimedia

Like all modem family history programs, Family Historian has the ability to handle multimedia files. You can either import the file or create a link to it. It may sound very nice to import pictures directly into your file, but do bear in mind that your file will grow at an alarming rate and may be difficult to back up.

There are two main ways of accessing multimedia; which you choose will depend on what you wish to do. If you wish to access the details for a specific person then you can use the multimedia button on the toolbar and the multimedia window will open showing only those items that are linked to that person. Alternatively, from the Tools menu item, you can select "Work with multimedia objects", which will display the full list of all objects.

Figure 5 shows the details relating to a specific photograph. I have used this example as it highlights another thing that is, I believe, unique to this product. The top left-hand box shows the list of multimedia objects relating to Cameron Peabody (fictitious, I hasten to add). The details in the three boxes above the photograph show the information relating to it. The middle box on the left shows the people to whom the picture is linked. The bottom box on the left has the notes that relate to the link that is defined in the box above it. There's nothing overly new at this stage. You can link the same photograph to several people in most packages. Where Family Historian differs is that you can see from this screen exactly who it is related to. Using the tools provided you can highlight part of the picture - eg a person's head - and link it to them. This is what was used to provide the list of names in the central box. On top of that, not only is the link to the person's details in the database but, if you highlight the name, the image on the photograph that it is linked to will be highlighted. Also, if the cursor runs over part of the picture that has a link, a dotted box will appear. Click on the box and the name in the list on the left will change. So there's no longer any need to attach complex notes to pictures saying who is who: Family Historian will do it for you. You will have noticed in Figure 5, though, that the highlight is on the woman's dress; this is to show that you can link to objects as well as people.

Figure 5: Using Family Historian to add notes and link to a photograph

Queries

The program has one of the most comprehensive search facilities that I have seen. Not only can you search for any information in any part of the file but you can also define exactly which information you want in the resulting display and in which order. A number of predefined queries come with the program and you can save any new ones that you write. These are stored in the program's own directory and are therefore available in all databases that you open.

One of the added advantages of Family Historian is that the results of these queries can be copied and pasted straight into a product such as Microsoft Excel.

Conclusions

Bearing in mind that this is the first release of a brand-new program, it is packed with features that I wish were in some of the others. No, it does not have all of the bells and whistles at the minute, but then did any of the others when they were first released? There are things that it would be nice to have, but I am sure that these will be added in later releases. I, for one, will be using the program in the future and wish Simon every success with it.

Family Historian will be on sale from 4 May 2002 at a price of £49.95 but I understand that there may well be an introductory offer at the Society of Genealogists' Fair [4 and 5 May]. More details on the product are available at www.family-historian.co.uk.

Copyright (c) Family Tree Magazine (UK). Published May 2002 Vol 18 No 7. Reproduced with permission.

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