ONLINE - Making the most of your computer

Using Family History Software

Online expert James Taylor takes a look at the most popular family history software packages and gives his top ten tips for getting the most out of them.

Most genealogy database programs offer the same fundamental functionality as each other, especially the mainstream products, where new versions are often used not only to introduce new features of their own but to catch up with the competition. Gradually, all mainstream software features converge and differences between products are then a matter of implementation.

Most mainstream software is 'lineage-linked', although a few outside the mainstream are 'event-driven', which some family historians prefer. The chief difference is whether you start by entering a person's name and building up your tree yourself, or by entering events (like births and marriages) and letting the software generate the tree. The result is broadly the same although event-driven software usually allows more detail to be incorporated.

This feature isn't the place for detailed step-by-step instructions on how to use the software. This is intended as an indication of genealogy software's general capabilities, although these are probably greater than may be apparent at first.

1. People and Places

When adding people, first and middle names usually go in the same field. Nicknames may have their own fields or you can enclose them in quotes as in Margaret 'Peggy'.

Surnames have their own field and may optionally be put in capitals. Family Tree Maker uses backstrokes for someone with no surname, e.g. Running Bear\ \. Prefixes like Colonel or Sir and suffixes like BSc or Bart usually have their own fields. Family Tree Maker handles obscure suffixes by differentiating them from surnames with backstrokes around the name, as inn Samuel Jasper \Adams \PhD.

Places should be entered in a consistent format - town (or city), county (or state), and country is usual. Don't use the American county field, it confuses mapping.

2. More People

If you don't yet know the names of a person's spouse(s), parents and children, you'll need to add them later. It's conventional to use maiden names and children's birth surnames throughout your records.

People already entered may need to be linked then in the relevant relationship. This also applies in the case of orphans subsequently adopted by a relative. Linking a spouse is usually done in the family screen although you can also be presented with a new screen for marriage details. Most software handles multiple marriages and some can handle same-sex partnerships, making appropriate changes to display and report terminology.

3. Events

Events include birth, marriage, death, baptism, graduation, armed service and, stretching usage a little, can also mean occupation, residence, hobbies, illness, physical description, religion - everything with a date or date span attached. Mainstream software comes with pre-defined event templates, each with relevant fields. You can also usually define your own. Legacy automatically sorts events by event name or date.

Check how the information you input will be used in output to get the formatting right (you might not want capital letters for occupations say). Event templates may have defined sentences for output to screen and printer. Often, you can edit these sentences to compensate for idiosyncrasies in grammar or format to make them less stilted and to flow better.

4. Notes

You can add your own notes, attaching them to persons. Freeform person notes are for anecdotes, family stories, or descriptions about a person and are your opportunity to personalise your narrative. Notes can be of variable length dependent on the program. You may be given formatting control - bold, italicize, underline - which can improve readability but may not translate to another program. Some software lets you mark notes as private, when they won't print out. Some software lets you add (length-limited) notes to individual events and sources.

Legacy can make notes under the separate headings of General, Research and Medical although these don't always carry over in GEDCOM files (see sharing information). Family Historian can link one or more notes to more than one record.

5. Media

In genealogy software, media can include digital image (picture), text, audio and video files, inserted into your genealogy program. They may have to be copied to the program's directories or folders first. You then assign your media to individual people. If your program lets you link to an existing file instead of importing it, it saves hard drive space.

Photographs - usually cropped to head and shoulders - appear in some reports and charts and perhaps on-screen. Family Historian can frame each face in a group photograph and link them to different individuals without having to crop them. As well as single items, Legacy has its Picture Gallery for collections.

6. Web Search

Some software offers automated linking to certain web search pages (if you have an Internet connection) for information on the currently selected person. Web pages offered can include Ancestry, Family Search, Roots UK, The Genealogist, and World Vital Records, although no software offers all of these. Legacy offers the widest range. Some websites require payment or registration. Family Tree Maker will carry out an initial search (of Ancestry) for all the people in your tree, indicating any possible by an icon against the person's name.

Increasingly, software is incorporating a mapping facility. Typically, this looks online for the places mentioned in your family tree and shows you where they are on a map. Maps available can include those from Microsoft and Google Maps. Mapping is not always reliable for non-US locations.

7. Sources

If you don't want to be considered a genealogical dilettante dabbler, you MUST cite your sources in sufficient detail, so that you or anyone else can find the same information again in the future.

A source can be a person or a document. A marriage certificate is a source, as is a census extract or a book. A single source can offer many pieces of information about different events and people, which are identified by different citations. A birth certificate is the source for several event citations, including birth date, birthplace (and hence parents' address then), father's occupation, names, and so on. In these circumstances and in the interests of tidier - and shorter - reports, some genealogists link to the source rather than separate citations.

8. Sharing Data

Ways of sharing your information can include web pages, CDs, GEDCOM files, and active collaboration. It's conventional to exclude living persons for public (non-family) sharing. Web pages and CDs usually take the form of an indexed listing of people, their vital data and any notes. Family Tree Maker only lets you upload your web pages to Ancestry's website where your data may be sold on without your authority or benefit.

GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunication) is a file export format used to give others a complete copy of your data that they can import into their own program. Active collaboration is when two or more genealogists can work on the same data at the same time, as in the mainstream collaborative program.

9. Reports

Reports are text or text and graphics files displayed or printed. They can vary from simple listings through comprehensive narrative reports to complete 'books' combing several reports and perhaps extra already-printed material and complete with preface, table of contents and index.

Some programs provide control over styles, fonts and layouts to produce 'heirloom-quality' output. Others are barely above draft quality (which may be acceptable for your purposes) or you may be able to output to a word processing file for further editing and enhancement. Some software gives you control over sentence construction for context. Family Tree Maker, once famed for its versatile book reports, now makes you upload them to its Ancestry web pages for commercial 'publishing' at your extra cost.

10. Charts

The 'standard' genealogy software chart is the Pedigree, showing an individual and his or her direct ancestors - parents, grandparents, great-grandparents - often being one of the navigation screens. Other charts can include the individual and their ancestors or descendants or both. The standard American format is 'waterfall' or 'cascade' (with the advantage of limiting chart width) but the 'drop-line' is more usual in Britain and is perhaps more easily understood at a glance. Software charts are often more suited to viewing than printing, when they can take up reams of paper. Family Tree Maker let you move boxes so that they don't print across two pages.

Reproduced from an article by James Taylor in Family History Monthly