If I can just update my own notes below with a few more observations on Family Historian (reflecting a bit more playing with it). Most of what I originally said is about right, except for some updates, as follows. 1. its underlying 'database' is a GEDCOM file (!!) - yes, a standard flat text file. Bizarre. Quite how they're going to add roles/witnesses into that structure, I have no idea. 2. TMG Tag types it can't understand in GEDCOM terms are thrown away - not sure how they can fix that, as it means their 'TMG direct transfer' process is still limited by the constraints of GEDCOM. And how they could implement decent sentence variables? 3. there are no canned Source formats etc, due to Item 1. Source definitions are essentially free-form - nothing like the unchangeable rigid formats forced on you by RootsMagic! 4. Charts and Reports actually work quite well, once you understand the construction method, which is opposite to TMG - we're used to choosing a report/chart, fiddling with the Options, checking the result, then going back to fiddle with the Options, try again, etc; then maybe save the format for re-use. In FH, you choose your report/chart, then fiddle with the options and the report/chart changes in front of you; then maybe save the final format for re-use. 5. Flags in TMG are carried over to FH - if a Flag is straight Y/N, that carries over as is; if you have a TMG flag name XXX with possible settings of (say) A, B, C, then FH creates 3 Flag types (let's call them XXX-A, XXX-B, XXX-C) and sets them as on/off based on your actual TMG usage. 6. Media Captions aren't thrown away, they're just saved in the wrong place - I reported as a bug. 7. I was originally looking at FH 5.0.7 - there is already a 5.0.11 which has changed the way Witness roles are saved in FH - rather than a meaningless role type number, they're now storing the Role name for later use - no idea how that is going to work though. Don Ferguson -----Original Message----- Subject: Re: [TMG-REFUGEES] Family Historian I have not done an exhaustive analysis of it, but here's some observations - Tags become Facts, Memos become Notes, Sources become Sources, Source citations become Text to Sources, Sureties get mapped into its own 4 categories of Assessment (reasonably sensibly). Sentences are based on its own very simplistic sentence structures - nothing like TMG sophistication. It has no concept of Sort Dates, and you even have to use F9 to get dated events into order sometimes. Tags types it doesn't know about seem to get dropped - I think if you pre-defined a Fact with a matching name, then things might import OK. If it does manage to import a tag that it has no sentence for, it just uses a dummy "He experienced XXX at data, place" sentence (rubbish in other words). Fact types can be added, but the standard ones can't be deleted (although can be hidden). It imported all my Sources effectively, but got a bit confused on Repositories. I'm still not clear on its approach to new Sources - can't find any canned list of source types/formats. As it can't handle Witnesses, their existence is noted as a Note to a Fact, with a Role number which is currently meaningless. Flags are an issue; by default has 2 (Living and Private) and you can define new ones, but they seem to only have on/off settings (not multiple ranges as per TMG). It has no concept of Place parts like TMG. Media is attached OK, but Captions are thrown away; there is no Primary image concept. Charts are quite good, and very fast; edits to a chart are saved back into the original person data (which may be good or bad); charts can be saved in lots of file formats. Reports are a worry - there seems no way to tailor them e.g, Individual Narrative reports include the whole family (hardly individual!). It has a bunch of defined 'Query reports' and you can add your own Custom Queries. Website creation is simple but effective - nothing like Second Site, of course, but better than certain other programs I could name. But no FTP functionality, so you can't actually create a website, as SS can.

I have added some comments interspersed in your message below, confined to GEDCOM and RootsMagic, with which I am familiar. I have not tried FH. Tom On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 11:24 PM, Don Ferguson via <tmg-refugees@rootsweb.com > wrote: > If I can just update my own notes below with a few more observations on > Family Historian (reflecting a bit more playing with it). > > Most of what I originally said is about right, except for some updates, as > follows. > 1. its underlying 'database' is a GEDCOM file (!!) - yes, a standard flat > text file. Bizarre. Quite how they're going to add roles/witnesses into > that structure, I have no idea. > That is surprising and may have an adverse effect on the performance of large databases. However, it probably reads it all into a database structure in memory and writes the (modified) database back out to GEDCOM so the hit may only be on opening and closing a very large database. RootsMagic already incorporates roles/witnesses (its shared events), sentence templates, source templates, etc. in its GEDCOM export/import via custom extensions to GEDCOM so I see no reason why Family Historian cannot do so, too. RootsMagic uses its extended GEDCOM in the background even for drag'n'drop transfers between databases, so I've been told. RootsMagic uses the SQLite database engine and file system which can be queried outside of RootsMagic. Every edit is immediately written to the database file when accepted on screen. I wonder what the frequency of file saving is with FH and would it be obtrusive if a large database was auto-saved periodically. FH Help says: "Family Historian was designed from the ground up, to be 100% GEDCOM-compatible, and 100% GEDCOM-complete. You do not have to convert Family Historian files to the GEDCOM format. They already are in the GEDCOM format." - What that means is anyone's guess, given that the GEDCOM specification is in places self-contradictory or ambiguous or vague and open to interpretation. > 2. TMG Tag types it can't understand in GEDCOM terms are thrown away - not > sure how they can fix that, as it means their 'TMG direct transfer' process > is still limited by the constraints of GEDCOM. And how they could implement > decent sentence variables? > See my response to #1. > 3. there are no canned Source formats etc, due to Item 1. Source > definitions are essentially free-form - nothing like the unchangeable rigid > formats forced on you by RootsMagic! > RootsMagic's 413 built-in Source Templates based on Mills and Lackey are uneditable but you are not obligated to use any of them. You can copy any one to a custom template and edit that to suit your purpose. It also has free-form, and that is the format I advocate storing a source in for a variety of reasons while, optionally, using a template to help craft the words and the order they are in to copy and paste into the free-form fields.