Family Historian for Windows now Available in the U.S. at Target

Family Historian is a very popular genealogy program in England. I have written about it several times in the past, including at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/12/family_historia.html and other articles at http://www.google.com/cse?cx=003715150024579880844%3Aulyzue1ivzu&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Family+Historian%22&sa=Search. I also record an audio interview, or podcast, with the program's developer, Simon Orde. You can listen to that at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/05/podcast_an_inte.html.

Family Historian is now being sold in the U.S. In fact, you can run out and purchase a copy at Target, the nationwide chain of department stores. Here is the announcement:

November 14, 2008 - West Hartford, Connecticut - Family Historian 3, the highest rated family tree software in the U.K. is now available in the United States and Canada. This top rated software is initially being distributed in the nearly 1,500 Target stores nation-wide.

"Enteractive is thrilled to be bringing what is simply the best genealogy software product in the world to the U.S. and Canadian consumer," Howard Luxenberg, president of Enteractive, stated.

Due to its easy to use features and product quality, Family Historian 3 has won major awards and recognition from the top reviewers including Windows XP Magazine, Family Tree Magazine, Which? Computing, Univadis and others.

Family Historian 3 was named “Winner” and "Editor's Choice" by Windows XP Magazine in its August 2007 review of Family Historian, Family Tree Maker, Roots Magic, and Legacy genealogy software. The editors said that Family Historian 3 was "Packed with features, but the charts alone put this package in a class of its own." In this comparison of the top products, Family Historian was declared the "All-round winner."

Personal Computer World gave Family Historian 3 an overall rating of 5 Stars (out of a possible 5) and said "The range of features and sheer ease of use makes Family Historian an excellent tool for any genealogist" in its May 2006 review.

Family Tree Magazine (www.familytreemagazine.com) said "The best genealogy package just got better" in its review in July 2006.

Which? Computing (www.which.co.uk) rated Family Historian as the "Best Buy" and gave it the highest overall rating in its July 2008 comparison of the top 10 genealogy applications.

Univadis (www.univadis.co.uk) rated Family Historian 3 a "Strongly recommended" product and said "The programme is brilliant and dead easy to use and is ideal for beginners and experts alike."

Australian Family Tree Connections said "With the release of version 3 Family Historian has become one of the best, if not the very best, in its class."

In an indication of the powerful features and ease of use of Family Historian 3, the producers and researchers of the very popular BBC TV genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?" use Family Historian 3 as their family tree application of choice.

Product Features

According to Luxenberg, "This is a quality product that manages to combine ease of use with a remarkably rich set of features." The following are just a few of the important product features of Family Historian 3:

• 100% compatible with GEDCOM 5.5, the standard for shared genealogical data
• Lets you easily create beautiful family trees, CDs/DVDs & websites
• Family trees can include data, photographs, even video files
• Diagrams are interactive, so you can work visually
• Unique "All relatives" diagram shows all descendants and all ancestors (and their spouses)
• Bonus features: Six month subscription to WorldVitalRecords.com and CD Book "Getting Started in Genealogy Online"

Enteractive Distribution also announces a new web site to provide useful information to consumers and genealogists. This new web site http://familyhistorian3.ning.com provides modern consumer features such as a product blog, updated news about the product, discussion forum, store locator, FAQ, product support groups, and easy to use customer support features.

Family Historian 3 runs on Windows Vista, XP Home and XP Professional, 2000, ME and 98.

Comments

[Dino (All Dino, All the Time)]

Dick,

Thanks for this news.

I don't feel that the computing magazines that have reviewed genealogy software have done very thorough jobs of putting the programs through their paces. As we all know, it's much more than crackle and fizz that makes gen software really functional. It's the drudgery of source citations that is usually overlooked in these reviews. But it is the source citations that separate solid genealogy from science fiction.

[W. David Samuelsen]

Price range????

I checked their websites, nothing!

[W. David Samuelsen]

Couldn't find answer so here's the question - Does it has the LDS feature?

None? forget it?

[KathyJN]

You can download a 30-day trial from their site - http://www.family-historian.co.uk/index.htm - although I don't know if the U.K. version is different from the old being sold at Target. The cost to unlock the trial version is $56.

[Beulah Astle]

Is it compatible to the LDS PAF? If not, I won't buy it.

[Adrian B]

"Is it compatible to the LDS PAF?" I swapped from PAF (which I rather liked) to Family Historian and never looked back. One reason for my swap was the inability of PAF to do dates of the 2 formats "FROM A TO B" and "BETWEEN C AND D". It only does one - I've forgotten which.
To convert my data, I exported it from PAF as a GEDCOM, then opened it in FH. FH can - depending on the options you choose - highlight errors, reject them, whatever. I got it, e.g., to remove _MARNM, the PAF tag for married name since it serves no useful purpose - at least, not for UK practice.
Another oddity is CALN - call number. CALN is a legitimate GEDCOM tag but PAF has it in the wrong place, putting it on a level with the Repository tag whereas it should be subsidiary to the Repository - it is, after all, the Call Number within the Repository.
Anyone with any PC experience might care to do a dry run with opening the GEDCOM in FH to detect the errors, then open a copy of the GEDCOM in a text editor and do a bit of hacking to fix the errors before opening the copy in FH. I also found it useful at the same time to convert all my addresses to appear on one line - they're more visible in FH like that.
I have no idea about converting back - since PAF won't deal with those 2 date range formats and I'd swiftly used both, I knew I could never go back.
I liked PAF - and the price was right! - but I like FH better. I did try 1 of the market leaders but got so frustrated with never knowing whether I could update data in the view I was using or not, that I hit the uninstall very quickly.

[Pat]

This one won't work with a MAC either. What is a good genealogy program that will work with a MAC? Thanks.

[Lynn]

I tried out this program several years ago. I didn't think it was all that great then, though I had heard many good reviews about it. It had too much of a learning curve for me, but then perhaps I didn't spend that much time playing with it. I like programs where you hop on & go. I would like to try it again - as a demo, but didn't find any demos, description features, screen shots, cost, etc - just some hard-to-read comparison charts to US branded genealogy programs and Target store locators on their website. I'm glad for Family Historian to get the recognition it apparently deserves. I want to know what took them over the edge to be #1 - there's lots of good programs out there and we all have our favorites.

[Randy Seaver]

I've started a series of blog posts on http://www.geneamusings.com that show screen shots and my own commentary about what I see. I'm concentrating on navigation, charts and reports for now.

You can download the software for a 30 day free trial from www.family-historian.co.uk and there is a tour of the software at http://www.family-historian.co.uk/tour/ for those interested.

It operates off a GEDCOM file - there are no proprietary formats, so the resulting file is pretty portable. Consequently, the program is very quick to load and save.

[Dick Eastman]

---> What is a good genealogy program that will work with a MAC?

Please take a look at my article entitled "Genealogy Programs for the Macintosh" at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/09/genealogy-progr.html

- Dick Eastman

[Jack]

How can anyone take this program serious when you buy it where you buy your socks! The website is useless...no price, no trial...no details except a bunch of hype.

[Debbie]

I've been using Family Historian for several years now and wouldn't be without it. It handles sources very well, and I find the narrative reports very flexible as they can be tailored to suit your needs. The support is excellent. There is a dedicated user group website which can be found here:

http://www.fhug.org.uk

There is also a Rootsweb mailing list where experienced users are always happy to answer queries, especially those concerning transferring data from other family history software:

http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Software/FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS.html

The program's designer, Simon Orde, is the list admin and sometimes answers questions on the list too.

[gary]

Following up the 15Nov08 comment of Adrian B., above, about frustration "with never knowing whether I could update data in the view I was using or not" in the program previously used, I would like to hear more about this. I am still examining various genealogy database programs, before settling definitely on one, but I was under the impression that there was no program currently available that allows one to correct/add/delete data wherever one is viewing it, such as in a report. Instead, it was my impression that each program requires one to go to some kind of input screen to do so. That is why I have been waiting for Louis Kessler's "Behold" software to get to the full-release stage. Can someone correct or revise my impression about what is possible now? And if Adrian reads this post, could you pls tell us more about your comment, including telling us which market-leader you gave up for Family Historian due to this issue? Also, did you look at Legacy or RootsMagic before choosing FH? Thanks.

[Adrian B]

Just saw your comment. Difficult for me to remember, this was several years ago but I shall try to expand. Firstly I THINK it was FTM that I played with for a short time. As I recollect, there were several views that I could enter to see data displayed. If I tried to access the data from some of those views, I couldn't, I had to swap to another view. Since it wasn't immediately obvious to me whether something was a data entry view or not, frustration built up quickly.
CAVEAT - this is my fallible memory, it might not have been FTM and I didn't spend long because, as an IT professional I'm used to working in a certain way and I really didn't have time to learn a 2nd. Especially if I could work the way I wanted.
"I was under the impression that there was no program currently available that allows one to correct/add/delete data wherever one is viewing it, such as in a report."
In relation to your comment - yes, even FH won't let you edit absolutely anywhere. If you're browsing a report, that's it, you're browsing. (Just checking Louis Kessler's stuff - he has one big challenge, especially if he wants to edit a book-type report.)
In FH, if you pull up a diagram view of a family and want to edit the facts behind a person - just double click that person on the diagram and up pops the data window for that person - you can edit away and have the new values immediately shown in the diagram. Or if you're really into IT and expect a right click to give you access to data properties of a person - it does. What you don't need to do is swap to a different style or type of diagram to gain access to data entry. The other main view is the record simple list and a double click on a person will again bring up the same data entry form.
Personally, I find I work 98% of my time in FH with a diagram open for the family I'm working on. (I like pictures) Double click the diagram's box for the person and I have the form I can use for data entry.
I have a distinct suspicion that my job influenced my choice in that I'm used to software where a double click on an object in a diagram (say) brings up the data entry for that object. So the expected way of working was already there in my head.
If you actually don't use a computer, you won't have any preconceived ideas of how things work - I did.
So yes, strictly you are right - you go to an input screen - but it just as simple as a point and click on the person you need to alter.
To be honest - the only way is to try and choose what suits you, and it's a personal choice.
(Lots of people make the personal choice to have a mouse with only one button because it's attached to a clean white computer. Personal choice. PS - my tongue is in my cheek at this point!)

[BIll Bienia]

The announcement indicates US and Canada, but there are no Target stores in Canada. Is there any indication of the method of distribution in Canada?

[Barbara A. Dethlefsen]

We purchased Family Historian last year online directly from a store in England that was listed on the FH website. The staff was extremely nice and helpful, and when the manual was damaged in transit they sent a new one without asking any questions. We first tried the 30-day free trial and liked the program. I'm glad it's available in the US now, because we paid more due to the lower value of the dollar at the time. I think Jack's remark about not taking the program seriously because you can purchase it "where you buy your socks" was snobbish. You can purchase computer programs in all sorts of stores, including Costco where you buy your groceries. The quality of the product is not reduced because of where it is sold.