Personal Historian Software Program Part 1—what is it?



Here is what their website says:  “Personal Historian is unique software that helps you write the story of your life and of other individuals. Overwhelmed with the thought of writing a personal history? It breaks this seemingly monumental task into small, manageable pieces and then reconstructs it into a complete, publishable document.”(1)
Here is what I say: love it, love it, love it!

I currently have 7 projects, in Personal Historian that I am working on.  I have one for myself, my husband, my grandparents and then for my collection of family history articles and notes from classes.

What do I love about this program?
It organizes my information:  All I have to do is add the information to the program, by either typing it or by cutting and pasting from other documents on my computer.  With Personal Historian I don’t have allot of folders, or one really long Word document.  Personal Historian will sort my information by category (subject); chronologically (by date) either when it was written or when it happened; or by status (if the entry is not started, in progress, waiting for information, or completed).  You also have the option of changing these settings as you desire.  

I choose the categories for my information:  Some of the categories I have chosen are:  church callings, church talks, employment, letters, medical, quotes, places I’ve lived, travel, friends, and family.  The possibilities of categories are unlimited and the program itself organizes these categories for me.

I choose the status:  This is a handy option if I am just brain-storming or want write about a memory at a later time.  I open the entry box and I can click a status choice: not started, in progress, waiting for information, or completed.  This helps me by sorting out what I am in the mood to do, or have the time to work on.  If I am just collecting information from other files, when I am done it is complete.  However, if I have a thought or a memory I want to add, I just add the title, and I can go back and work on it at a different time, but the thought is not lost.  I have found that as I am collecting items, I have so many memories jump into my mind, and this way I have an organized place to post those memories.

The organizer feature:  On each entry you have an organizer feature, or what I use as my notes or prompts.  It is simply a place for notes and prompts that you can organize as you would an outline.  This outline form is handy for writing—didn’t your English teacher teach you this?  In the “organizer” column I jot down a few sentences about the memory or items I want to cover.  Then, when I am ready to write, my notes are waiting for me.
Other features:  There are the usual features most word processing programs have:  font styles (bold, italics, underlining), margin alignment choices, add a photo, spell check, thesaurus, readability check (which includes a word count, paragraph count, characters count, averages of words, and readability indexes) and finally there are writing tips.   

The view:  The opening page of the software is so easy to view and read.  Across the top is a tool bar, and right below it is a time-line (and we all know how much I LOVE timelines), and right below the timeline are my entries organized however I chose (by category, chronologically either when it was written or when it happened, or by status: not started, in progress, waiting for information, or completed).  You also have the option of changing these settings as you desire.  To the left of each entry is my “status” icon so I know which entries need to finished or which ones are complete.  These icons are easy to identify.  In addition, the categories I add, I can choose my own icon which makes reading the opening page very simple.    
 
Considering how much information is contained on the opening page, it is not cluttered and it is fast and easy to read!

More about how I am using this program on the next post.

View the Personal Historian Features here: 
You can find details for Personal Historian here:

Sources:
(1) Personal Hisotrian

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