Personal Historian 2 The Companion Guide or How to Write Your Personal History and Live to Tell About It by Michael T. Booth RootsMagic, Inc. PO Box 495 Springville, Utah 84663 USA Copyright © 2004-2016 by RootsMagic, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from RootsMagic, Inc. International Standard Book Number: 978-1-932932-16-4 Printed in the United States of America Trademarks Personal Historian, LifeCapsule, and RootsMagic are trademarks of RootsMagic, Inc. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. About the Author Michael T. Booth is vice-president of RootsMagic, Inc., and the author of the Personal Historian software. He is an accomplished trainer, having given hands-on entertaining presentations to thousands of individuals. With over 35 years of computer programming experience, he is also a developer of the popular RootsMagic genealogy software. Michael lives in South Ogden, Utah with his wife, Sandy and their six children. Dedication I dedicate this book to my dad, Gordon- whose words and ideas are woven throughout every page; to my mom, June- who still teaches me the importance of both family and history; and to my wife, Sandy- who is my co-author and cohort in our own stories and adventures. Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................... 1 Why you need Personal Historian....................................... 1 What is Personal Historian? ................................................ 2 Personal Historian’s History ................................................ 2 About this Book ................................................................ 4 Why you can’t write your personal history ........................... 5 Why are you doing this? .................................................... 5 The obstacles ..................................................................... 7 “I don’t know where to start” ............................................. 8 “I don’t have the time” ....................................................... 9 “I can’t remember enough details” ................................... 10 “I’m not a good writer” .................................................... 11 Getting started ................................................................ 13 The Welcome Screen ...................................................... 14 Creating a new file ........................................................... 15 Importing Data ................................................................ 21 Importing Genealogy ....................................................... 21 Importing LifeCapsules & Timelines .............................. 27 Importing Other Text Data ............................................. 32 The Main Screen ............................................................. 37 Main Menu ..................................................................... 38 Toolbar ............................................................................ 38 Status Bar ........................................................................ 39 Story Details .................................................................... 39 Time Slider ...................................................................... 39 Story List ......................................................................... 41 Search Box ....................................................................... 45 Filtering Stories ............................................................... 47 Working with Files .......................................................... 53 Open an Existing File .......................................................54 Searching for a File ...........................................................54 Moving or Renaming a File ..............................................55 Deleting a File ..................................................................55 Copying a File ..................................................................56 Checking and Repairing a File .........................................57 File Options ......................................................................58 Managing Your Stories .................................................... 63 Story Status ......................................................................64 Adding a New Story .........................................................65 Editing an Existing Story .................................................65 Picking a Random Story ...................................................65 Adding a Journal Entry ....................................................67 Deleting a Story ................................................................67 Using Categories .............................................................. 69 Adding a New Category ...................................................70 Editing a Category ...........................................................72 Deleting a Category ..........................................................72 Changing the Order of Categories ...................................74 Changing a Story’s Category ............................................74 Recording People ............................................................. 75 Relationships ....................................................................76 Dates of Involvement .......................................................77 Adding a New Person .......................................................78 Editing a Person ...............................................................79 Deleting a Person .............................................................79 Adding a Person to a Story ...............................................80 Tracking Places ................................................................ 81 Geocoding Your List of Places .........................................82 Adding a New Place ........................................................ 84 Editing a Place ................................................................. 85 Deleting a Place ............................................................... 85 Changing a Story’s Place ................................................. 86 The Editor Screen ............................................................ 87 Editor Menu .................................................................... 88 Editor Toolbar ................................................................. 88 Editor Status Bar ............................................................. 89 Story Information ............................................................ 89 The Organizer ................................................................. 91 Organizer Toolbar ........................................................... 92 Organizer Items ............................................................... 93 Moving Organizer Items ................................................. 95 Selecting Multiple Items at Once .................................... 96 Copy Items to the Composer .......................................... 96 The Memory Solution ...................................................... 99 Brainstorming .................................................................. 99 Step 1: Visualize ............................................................ 100 Step 2: Summarize ......................................................... 101 Step 3: Organize ............................................................ 102 Step 4: Repeat ................................................................ 105 The “O” Word ............................................................... 106 The Composer ................................................................ 109 Composer Toolbar ......................................................... 110 Applying Styles .............................................................. 110 Fonts & Formatting ...................................................... 111 Adding Pictures ............................................................. 112 Importing a Document .................................................. 115 Spell Check & Thesaurus .............................................. 116 Readability Check .......................................................... 119 Dictating and Reading Back Your Story ........................ 121 Fullscreen Editing .......................................................... 123 How to Write Good ....................................................... 125 Let Your Voice Shine Through ...................................... 125 Make it Readable ............................................................ 126 Write to Your Audience ................................................. 128 Write with Strength ....................................................... 129 Finding the Right Word ................................................ 131 Shaking Things Up ........................................................ 132 The Difference ............................................................... 132 Do I Have Your Attention? ............................................ 135 Show, Don’t Tell ............................................................ 136 Add Context ..................................................................