It is very important to regularly backup your data. Family Historian
will automatically prompt you to backup the current project or GEDCOM
file, at the end of each session if you have made any changes to your
data during the session (unless you disable this in Preferences, in the
Backup tab). If when prompted, you choose to do a backup by
clicking on the button, Family
Historian will by default give you a choice of 3 different possible
backup types (see below). If you don't want to be given a choice,
because you always want to do the same kind of backup at the end of each
session, you can configure this in Preferences.
You can also backup at any time, using the backup commands on the submenu, which is accessible from the menu.
Although they are no substitution for backups, and should
not be treated as such, Family Historian will automatically take program
data snapshots for you, which also provide a degree of
protection against some possible problems. See Snapshot
Manager to learn more about snapshots.
Each Family Historian project is associated with a folder on your computer. This folder is likely to contain numerous files and subfolders. Family Historian provides the following 3 different types of backup:
| Small |
This is the smallest and quickest backup option. In this option, only the GEDCOM file itself is backed up. This is the only Backup type which can be used if you are editing a standalone GEDCOM file (i.e. not part of a Family Historian project). |
|---|---|
| Medium |
In this option, the most important project files are backed up, but not the entire project folder - only a subset of it. More specifically, the project file and the project data subfolder are backed up. The project data subfolder contains the GEDCOM file which Family Historian uses to store all your data records, and it also contains all media files which you opted to copy into the Project folder (see Note on Media below), and potentially other files too - such as some settings files and log files. The only exception is that the thumbnail cache file is never backed up. It doesn't need to be as it is re-generated automatically. So what isn't backed up on this option? Within every Family Historian project folder, there should be a single project file, a project data subfolder (usually with the same name as project, but with a '.fh_data' suffix), and optionally another subfolder called 'Public'. When you generate output from Family Historian (e.g. by saving a diagram as a picture file, or by generating a complete set of website files), Family Historian will let you put these output files wherever you want on your computer. But by default, it will usually offer to put them for you in the 'Public' subfolder, within the project. Also, if you have files of your own which you want to keep with your project, but which are not 'known' to Family Historian (perhaps these could be document files, or scanned images, which you have not yet processed, say) you can keep these too in the 'Public' subfolder if you wish. The 'Public' subfolder is not backed up if you choose the 'Medium' backup type. Also, if there are are any other files or subfolders in the top-level of the Project folder, apart from those already mentioned (not recommended but possible) these too will not be backed up in this case. Tip: If you want to view the contents of the public subfolder for a project, select the project in the list of projects in the Project Window, click the button, and choose from the dropdown menu that appears. |
| Full | The entire project folder is backed up (with the exception of the thumbnail cache file, which doesn't need to be backed up as it is re-generated automatically). This form of backup is the slowest and creates the largest backup file. It is also the most complete. With this option, all media files which have been copied into the project folder are backed up. Any media files which were not copied into the project folder are not backed up (see Note on Media below for more on this). |
Whenever you add a picture (or video or sound recording, or any other kind of media) into a Family Historian project, you are asked if you wish to copy the media file into the project folder. If you do so, the media file in your project folder will be included in the backup, if you choose either the 'Full' or 'Medium' backup type. If you opted not to copy the media file into the project, Family Historian will simply keep a link to the external file, but will not store the file itself. Consequently, in this case, the external media file will not be backed up - whichever backup type you choose. If you want it to be backed up, you will have to arrange to do that yourself, separately from Family Historian.
To find out which media files are kept within the project folder, and which are stored elsewhere, click on External File Links on the Tools menu. Any media files that are kept within the Project folder will be displayed in a cascading folder structure that has 'Project Data Folder' as its 'root'. Any media files that are kept elsewhere on your PC, will have a drive letter (e.g. 'C:') as the root instead.
If when you backup, you choose a folder that is on the same hard disk as your project, you run the risk that you will lose both your project and all your backups, if the hard disk fails. Do not imagine that this is unlikely. Hard disk failure is a common occurrence. Indeed, although some hard disks continue to function for a surprising long time, if you have a hard disk for long enough, it's bound to fail eventually. And you probably won't get any warning that it's about to happen. So, if you have two hard disks, consider using one for your projects, and another for your backups. What are the chances of both drives failing at the same time? Well actually higher than you might think. If there is a lightning strike anywhere near your house, it could destroy all your computer's hard disks in one go. So you might also wish to consider copying your backups onto CDs, DVDs or tapes periodically, or even backing up directly onto CD or DVD, if your CD or DVD software allows you to do that (some versions of Windows have support for this built in).
Many people backup their data to a Cloud drive, such as One Drive, Dropbox or Google Drive. These Cloud drives may themselves be backed up, giving you another layer of protection.
Think also about what you're protecting yourself from. Hard disk failure is one concern, but it's not the only one. A common problem is user error - as when you make a mistake and do something you didn't mean to do. It is very easy to delete a lot of data very quickly on a computer, if you do the wrong thing. Backups can protect you here too. Even a backup on the same hard disk as your project folder, is better than no backup at all. This kind of backup will at least help protect you from user error, even if it doesn't protect your from hard disk failure. Another possible concern is malware - a computer virus, such as a Ransomware attack. Keeping backups on physically separate media (such as an unplugged portable hard drive, or even on write-once CDs or DVDs) can help protect against this kind of threat. A surprisingly common problem is that backups simply get lost. The best protection against that is to be organised and methodical.
An important question you should ask yourself is - how precious is your data to you? If your genealogy research is your life's work and really precious, think about 'off-site' backups (backing it up to a Cloud drive, and/or giving a copy of backups to a trusted friend) in case you're burgled or the house burns down. You never need to lose data if you're careful.
All project backups of type 'Medium' or 'Full', and normally also 'Small' backups, are stored in a single file, in compressed format. This is convenient as it uses less space (because compressed), and can easily be moved or copied. However, you can't simply open a compressed backup file (sometimes called a 'zip' file - it has a .zip file extension) within Family Historian. Before you can access the data, the contents must first be restored from the backup file. To do this, use Family Historian's command on the menu.
The file format used by Family Historian for backup ('zip') files, is a standard, well-known format. Consequently you don't actually need Family Historian to access the data in these files - you can use any of the numerous programs that support this format. Support for this file format is even built into various versions of Windows, in its Windows Explorer accessories program. Nevertheless, even though you don't actually have to use Family Historian to restore backed up project files, you are usually recommended to do so.