In previous posts about Family Historian 6, Seriously Delving into Family Historian 6 and Family Historian 6, Part 2, I imported GEDCOMS and set up a small practice family tree. Next, I tried out the tabs in the Property Box, importing one image and adding notes to it. I was really pleased that I was able to accomplish this without the need for the users’ manual and, along the way, discovered several features in Family Historian 6 that I really like.
Today, I decided to tackle linking faces to images in photos, which I already know I really, really like! I have many family photos with multiple people in them, including extended family on the Stufflebean branch of the family. My husband and brother-in-law don’t remember the names of all their cousins and cousins-by-marriage because there are so many of them.
With the ability to link faces in photos in Family Historian 6, I can edit photo image file names because I no longer will need to try to include them in the file name. The software program will provide the record of who all these cousins are.
Today, I have to admit, I looked at the users’ manual. However, the current PDF manual on the website is for Family Historian 5 and some of the screens have be updated a bit. However, I did remember first learning about the link-to-faces feature in the Quick Tour video on the website, so I pulled that up for another viewing. About 7 minutes into the video, the speaker talked about how to accomplish this task.
Instead of taking on a family photo with 35 people in it, I kept it simple and chose a photo of my grandmother, Hazel Coleman Adams, and her daughter, my Aunt Barbara. I used the same process I described in Family Historian 6, Part 2 and just chose the image to Insert from File. Simple and quick.
Image Linked to Hazel Adams
After the image is linked to one person, the screen will look like this, but ignore the cropped face attached to my grandmother because I did that after this process. You should just see the photo in the Property Box on the right.
Next, I clicked on the Media tab in the top left corner of the Focus Window:
Media Tab, Top Left
That opened a list and thumbnail box in the Focus Window showing all my media. Right now, that is a whopping three images.
Media List and Thumbnails
I double clicked to open the picture of Hazel and Barbara. Note that the image in this screen shot is just of Hazel. That’s because I already linked Hazel and Barbara to their faces, but didn’t take screen shots while I was doing it. The steps, obviously, are the same:
Bottom Left: Link to Face
In the bottom left corner you will find the option “Link to Face.” Click on “Link to Face” and a + sign will appear when you move the cursor up to the image. Draw a box around the image. You can resize it if the borders don’t match the image.
Link to Face
When the box is the way you want it, click OK and you will be done. I haven’t added a date or picture note to this one yet, but I will go back and finish those steps. That is all there is to it.
What if I am a family member browsing through media items and I want to know who each person is in the photo? I can either access the Media tab in the Property Box, which will show media attached to Hazel or I can use the Media tab in the Focus Window. Normally, I would use the Property Box tab if I had a lot of images, but since I only have three images attached in Media, it doesn’t make any difference.
List of People Linked, Top Left
How will I know who is who? Easy!
Click on a Face
When I click on a face in the picture, a box appears and, at the same time, the font color of that person’s name in the box above turns blue!
Wow! I don’t know what else to say. I have to reiterate that I am a totally non-techy kind of person. I know absolutely nothing about programming and if I want to do something that isn’t intuitive to my brain, if I don’t have a manual, it isn’t going to happen unless I shout, “Dave” and my hubby comes to show me.
I spent maybe five minutes watching the Quick Video and then the rest just happened.
I will have at least two more posts this week as I still need to try out the Mapping feature and the source citation system.
I don’t have a single negative thing to say about Family Historian 6. Now are you interested in trying out the free (full) version for a 30 day trial? If so, here it is.