Family Historian Reviewer's Comments
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Family Historian is one of the most difficult programs to use. Genealogical features are all here, but features to make your entries accurate and consistent are missing. There are many links to online search sites. Unprecedented support for photos and endless customization options allow you to create compelling charts. Family Historian has unique graphic capabilities, but you’ll be required to do much more work than in other programs and you’ll pay a higher price.
Family Historian Screenshots. Click to Enlarge
Feature Set:
Family Historian has many features and the most views. Unlike other programs, Family Historian requires you know accepted data formats. No automatic formatting: names, places or dates. If you enter your data incorrectly, the program will default to a date phrase or leave it as is. Consistency is important, particularly when you collaborate with other family members, and Family History leaves it all up to you.
You can easily add events and attributes to each individual. Individual events are tagged with a blue dot and relationship events are tagged with red. You may add more than one type of attribute under one listing such as multiple occupations over the course of an individual’s life.
You will find more views than in any other program, but you will have to select and generate them.
Family Historian has broken new ground with its support of photographs, allowing you to link multiple people to one photo and show just the face from a photo—no cropping required. It is possible to make some of the most appealing charts available using these tools.
Ease of Use:
This program is difficult to use and the manual is burdened with computer terms, unnecessary in today’s-user friendly environment. The layout is unlike any other genealogy program reviewed: the records screen overlays the main screen. You must generate the view you want—nothing is automatic.
Reporting & Publishing:
Generate all of the standard reports with nonstandard options to create exactly what you want. Family History offers 28 types that can be saved for printing or for publishing to the Web. The Web Page Wizard is the most useful tool for creating a web page of any of the programs reviewed. You can make a GEDCOM file available for download, link to other websites, and post numerous reports—all of which will be included on your Home Page Table of Contents. Use the CD Wizard to make a CD you can share with your family.
Help/Documentation:
Family Historian comes with a user manual and a Quick Start Tutorial. Don’t be fooled by the name: there are no quick starts here. The manual is as difficult to use as the program. For Tech Support you can Email: support@family-historian.co.uk or write: Calico Pie Limited 7Effingham Road London SE12 8NZ United Kingdom
Summary:
Persevere the building and upkeep of your family tree, and you will have unprecedented printing and publishing options. There are higher ranked products to make genealogical research much more enjoyable and accessible to other members of your family. At Family Historian, the possible end result is simply not worth the effort.
©2008 TopTenREVIEWS, Inc.
