New to software - this is what I'd like to be able to do, any recommendations?

[Kate P]

Hi all,

I'm now around 9 months in to researching my family history and have so far been working on GR and Tribal pages for hosting. I'm not got a huge tree compared to some (c1,200 names), but what I'd really like to be able to do is start analysing it. So for example I'd like to be able to sort and search the data by lots of characteristics, eg age at death, place of birth (there's one lady born in the East Indies but I can't for the life of me remember her name and therefore finding her will be a nightmare otherwise ), by occupation, address etc. I'd also like to be able to set up a purely female tree - so sort and display by gender. And the ability to look at, create, save into sub trees/files, and print, different branches whilst mainting the main tree file.

I gather that FTM will do much of the latter stuff on branches etc, but are there programmes where I can search and sort the data as I'd like? I have seen a reference on the GR boards to a file which can convert gedcom to excel format - that appeals because I could then do lots of the sorting I'm interested in. Any views on whether that's actually feasible? And incidently, when people talk about getting FTM using Tesco points, how exactly does one go about that?! Any and all suggestions appreciated,

Kate x

[Anne in Carlisle]

Why not look at Family Historian? Click the link above to find out about it. You can download a fully working, read only, trial version to see if it comes up to your needs.

You can ask FH any question you like! It comes with a ready made list of queries. The User Group website had a lot more that people have devised. Or you can make your own query - using the given examples to give you a start.

Anne

[Guy]

The Master Genealogist may help but it may be too complex for you.
Wholly Genes
Cheers
Guy

[John-Nihon]

As per Anne, I use Family Historian ("FH") and have been very happy with it. :D

[Caroline]

As per Anne, I use Family Historian ("FH") and have been very happy with it. :D

I will second/third that. :D

[Kate P]

Thanks all,

It's a tricky decision really. I'm an experienced computer user, and analytical research is part of my daily job, so designing a query and then using search tools and commands to execute and satisfy it will not be new to me. But I am certainly new to family history research, so whilst TMG probably would not be difficult for me to use, I just don't know if I'll actually want all it's other features. I also want something that's very visually appealing and has an easy interface. I want functionality without having to configure it myself. I think the free trial versions are definately the way to go, and for the moment I'm leaning towards FH more strongly.

Kate x

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As an aside, I really hadn't anticipated when I started my research, just how important it would become to me. I thought getting a few generations back, with some key dates and facts would be enough. But it's not, and it's becoming much more about the stories and meanings behind these basic dry events that are intriguing to me. I have one family who seem to switch their religious affliliation with the birth of each child and who 'christen' one child three times (covering all their bases?!), families in one village for five generations, a lady who in her early twenties married a man more than 40 years her senior and had children with him, my philandering ggg-grandfather and the tale of finding his illegitimates, and an Irish ggg-grandfather who fled the Famine; all sorts of amazing stories. I come from an area where the Dissent movement of the 18th century really became embedded, where Methodism still forms a huge part of the religious core of the town and where some forms of the denomination actually began. A place where industrial and social change began and had eventual national influence and importance.

I want to be able to start documenting and organising not only the stories and creating a context-timeline, but also to actually look at the overarching data patterns. Additionally, one of my families is an extremely limited and geographically unique name and I'm wondering about the long term potential for a sort of One-Name study - the various online censuses etc suggest that there appear to be only around 400 individuals across 80ish families by 1901 this fascinates me I want to know more, maybe create a second tree here.

*This*, all of this, is my family history and I love it and I am so proud and passionate about it. If I won the Lottery I would very seriously consider setting this up as my 'personal' full time job! I sound like a naive nutter, don't I?! :o

[jtaubman]

Another vote for Family Historian, with V4 the new AND OR type function support in queries and being able to query directly by fact give you lots of power queries. There are a lot of "One Namers" using FH with huge trees. For me the other advantage is the fact the database is a GEDCOM file which means lots of other tools can be used direct on the file.

[dicole]

Hi Kate
I sound like a naive nutter, don't I?!
No Kate you sound like a perfectly normal family genie, bitten by the bug !!!

I too love the stories and events surrounding my family, and my husbands, and cousins are amazed that I can carry the details of around 2000 people around in my head, and know how they fit into the tree. But its easy, I love it.

And I will spend hours on fleshing out the smallest twig on the tree - recently I obtained from NSW State Records, a letter written to the Governor General from a twig on our tree - it explained that he was supposed to go on a trip across the Sahara, but for want of funds to buy camels, was talked into taking a posting to come to the Colony - and got himself into really big trouble while here.

I have been using Personal Ancestry File for a long time, but have looked at several other programs because I want to re-enter all my people who seemed to have ended up in two parallel databases, courtesy of a computer crash. Next week in the NSW Family History Conference and I hope to get some more information on Family Historian and other software then.

Di