Family Roots™ - Save your PC (dos) data

Updated November 2012

If you haven't yet read the overview, please do so before continuing.

Things to do (in order):

Download the last version of the program (and manuals if you need them)

What to do if you get a Data image not found error (separate page)

Cleanup your data - Common Cleanup Issues (separate page)

Can't you do it for me? (separate page)

FR 4.4d was the last PC version & includes the built-in gedcom utility based on gedcom version 4 protocol (earlier protocols generally will not import into current day programs, even 4 is an issue for some of them). You can download the software and manuals. Caveat - you *must* follow the instructions. Because so few computers have disk drives anymore, and the ones that do have "timing" issues from once computer to the next, I'm no longer offering them on disk.

I'm also no longer snailmailing the manual on disk, so if you want to download that, see the instructions below.

On to the instructions on downloading the file, and what to do after you download it.

As time marched on, floppy drives became obsolete so installing from one is now moot. I'm going to assume that you know how to make a new folder on your computer, and that you know how to unzip things.

Make a folder on your C drive called FR4 - in other words, you will end up with c:\fr4 - then download this zipped file, and unzip it into c:\fr4. Do NOT have a checkmark in Use Folder Names, or it will install to the wrong directory. Next, make your desktop icon and you should be ready to go. (note: FR does have to be in the root directory of the c drive, and the configuration default is set to be c:\fr4).

Copy your data into c:\fr4\data. If you have more than one family, use the 8 character family name you used before.

Now, if you are upgrading from version 3, you need to find the file called readcon3.exe and run that. It will be very quick, but what it does is turn your confign.dat file and turn it into config4.dat which is the configuration file for version 4. To make things easier all around, put a copy of the resulting config4.dat into both the program folder and your data folder.

Start FR and check your data. If you get a data not found error, see the link above in the overview.

Once you have things working on your PC, be sure to read common cleanup issues, link above in the overview.

If getting your data working in the latest version seems beyond you, write me for information on a paid alternative.

The manual was originally written in WordPerfect. To make things easier all around, in 2010 I converted the manual and addendum to a pdf file. Zipped, they are a little under 3 megs and when unzipped, the manual is a 15 meg file. If you don't yet have Adobe Reader to view pdf files, you can get it here. Get the manuals here. You must know how to unzip files, I don't have time to teach you how to do that.