Personal Ancestral File 5.2

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Personal Ancestral File 5.2

• The Church of Jesus Christ
• of Latter-day Saints
• Family History Center

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What is PAF?

• Personal Ancestral File (PAF) is a tool to help
  you record, manage, and share your genealogical
  information. With this program, you can create
  and store family information about thousands of
  people, then link families together.

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Why Choose PAF?

• Its easy
• Its updated regularly
• Its FREE and updates are FREE

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Where Can You Download PAF?

• www.familysearch.org

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How do I use PAF?
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Double click on the PAF icon to begin using PAF
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Create A New Database

• The first time you open PAF a Welcome screen
  appears.
• Click New.

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• Name your file. (A suggestion for naming your
  file is the surname of the root person.)
• Click Save.

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Preparers Information

• Fill out the Prepared by screen. (This is
  information about you and how someone can contact
  you should you want them to.)
• Click Ok.

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What Is A Database?

• A database is a group of records that can be
  accessed, altered, saved, and shared. When you
  use Personal Ancestral File, you are really using
  a database. Personal Ancestral File considers
  each individual, marriage, source, and other
  information to be a record in a database.

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Databases on Floppy Disks

• In general, it is best to save your database on
  the hard drive and then make a backup copy on a
  floppy disk.
• Sometimes, such as when you are using a computer
  in a Family History Center, you may need to work
  with your database on a floppy disk. Bring a
  backup copy with you.

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Add the Home Person

• This is the person (usually you) that the
  database is associated with.
• Double-click on the blue rectangle in the upper
  left hand side of the family view screen.

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This will give you the Add New Individual Screen
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Add the Home Person

• Enter information into each field.
• Use Tab to move to the next field.
• Click Save.

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Given Name

• Type all given names that the person had.

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Surname

• Type the last name as it was given at birth.
• Type a womans maiden name.
• Put // around the surname example, /Johnston/
• DO NOT TYPE SURNAMES IN CAPS, because PAF does
  it for you whenever you want all caps.

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Title (suffix)

• Jr., Sr. and other information that is spoken
  after the persons name.

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Sex

• Select Male, Female or Unknown.
• An example of using unknown is a child who died
  shortly after birth and a name and sex was never
  recorded.

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Birth, Christening, Death and Burial Dates

• PAF formats the date for you.
• Type as complete a date as you know.
• The standard formats are
• Day, month, year 23 Mar 1742
• Month, year Dec 1845
• Year 1799

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Nonstandard Dates

• When you type a nonstandard date, at least try to
  include a year.
• Examples
• Feast of St. Mary 1678
• Summer 1820
• Full moon 1834

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Multiple Dates

• Separate the days or years with a slash (/).
• For example
• 14/15 May 1854
• 28 Apr 1721/22
• Tip If you use a slash, be sure to put an
  explanation in the notes.

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Calculated Dates

• You may calculate a date, such as a birth date,
  when you know the date of an event and the
  person's age at the time of the event.
• For example, if the 1860 census lists a person
  as two years old, you may calculate the birth
  date to be 1858.
• Type it as Cal 1858

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Approximating Dates

• You may estimate dates for events based on other
  information.
• You may use family knowledge or tradition. For
  example, if a family tradition says that an
  ancestor was 16 when she married in 1876, you can
  estimate that she was born "about 1860."

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• You may use standard genealogical approximations.
  From a marriage date, you can estimate birth
  dates. You can estimate that a man was married
  at age 25 and a woman at age 21. You can also
  estimate that a first child was born one year
  after the parents' marriage and that subsequent
  children were born every two years.

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• When you type an approximated date, type one of
  the following words or abbreviations to indicate
  that the date is not exact
• About or Abt
• Before or Bef
• After or Aft
• Estimated or Est

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No Death Date

• You can type one of the following words in the
  Death date field
• Dead
• Deceased
• Child or Chi
• Infant or Inf
• Stillborn or Sti

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Birth, Christening, Death and Burial Places

• Type place names as completely as you can. List
  place names from the smallest to the largest
  geographical divisions, separating the divisions
  with commas.
• Examples Chicago, Cook, Illinois
• St. Dunstan, Canterbury, Kent, England

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• You should not use postal or any other
  abbreviations since these are often easily
  misinterpreted.
• Remember, you may have relatives in foreign
  countries who do not understand our
  abbreviations.
• Abbreviations may change in the future.

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Parish Other Ecclesiastical Divisions

• Information from church records may reflect the
  ecclesiastical (religious) jurisdiction rather
  than the governmental jurisdiction.
• If a christening occurred in a parish named St.
  Martin, you would type the parish name instead of
  a city name, as follows
• St. Martin, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

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Cemetery Hospital Names

• Some people keep track of the cemeteries where
  their ancestors are buried and the hospitals
  where they were born or died.
• Do not put this information in the death place
  field.
• Put this information in a new event field. This
  will be discussed in a later lesson.

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Nomadic or Tribal Peoples

• Map boundaries may not correspond to those
  accepted by nomadic or tribal peoples, such as
  Native Americans. In such cases, provide as
  complete a place-name as you can. Include an
  explanation in the notes.
• You can also include tribes, clans, ancestral
  homes, clan seats, and other similar information
  as "other events and attributes."

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Assumed Places

• You may assume places of residence based on a
  place where one member of a family was born,
  died, or lived at some time, or where the husband
  and wife were married. This place can be used as
  a probable place of residence for other family
  members.
• Tip Give an explanation of the assumption in
  your notes.

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Landmarks, Farm Names Rural Areas

• Sometimes, especially when dealing with rural
  areas, you may find a landmark, farm name, or
  other description instead of a town or city name.
  You can include this information in the
  place-name.
• For example
• Crawfish Creek (near Chattanooga), Marion,
  Tennessee, USA

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Incomplete Place Information

• Use an extra comma to indicate that a part of the
  place-name is missing, such as an unknown county
  name.
• Hendersonville, , North Carolina, USA
• , Duval, Florida, USA
• , , Pennsylvania, USA
• , , , England

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LDS Ordinances

• If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ
  of Latter-day Saints, let us know after class and
  we will explain how you should fill out these
  fields.

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Other

• We will learn how to fill out these fields in
  future lessons.

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Adding A Spouse

• Double-click on the place where the person's
  spouse should appear.
• Click Add New Individual and type the information
  about the spouse.

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• PAF will automatically enter the sex based on the
  sex of the spouse.
• If you do not know the wife's name, type Mrs. in
  the Given Name field and the husband's surname in
  the Surname field.
• Enter the information as before.
• Click Save.

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Adding a Marriage Record

• Double-click on the blue rectangle.
• Type in marriage date and place.
• Click divorced if marriage ended in a divorce.
• Click Save.

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Adding a Child

• Double-click anywhere in the white area where
  the child should appear.

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• Click Add new individual and type the information
  about the child. Or...
• If the child is in your database, click Select
  existing individual, and find the child's record.
• Click Save.

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Adding Additional Children

• Follow the same steps.
• When you are finished adding children, answer No
  to Do you want to add another Child.

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To Add Parents

• Double-click on the place where the father or
  mother should appear.
• Click on Add new individual and type the
  information about him or her. Or...
• Click Select existing individual and find his or
  her record.
• Click Save.

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Father
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Mother
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CONGRATULATIONS!!!

• You now have your first
• family group record.

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Saving Your Database

• All information is saved while you type it.
• Close your database by clicking the lower X in
  the upper right corner.
• Close PAF by clicking the upper X in the upper
  right corner.

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How To Open Your Database

• Whenever you open PAF 5.2 it will automatically
  open the database you were working on last.
• Or click on the Open File button and choose your
  file.

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A Few Time Savers

• Ditto Feature -- If you begin typing a name,
  date, or place that was used before, PAF displays
  it in the field. If it is correct, you can
  simply move to the next field, and it will
  automatically be added to the field. If it is
  not correct, finish typing the correct
  information.

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Windows Copy Paste

• To copy, highlight the text you want to copy,
  hold down Ctrl and press C.
• To paste, put the cursor where you want the text
  to appear, hold down Ctrl and press V.

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Getting Around PAF 5.0

• There are three ways of navigating through your
  database.

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1. Family View

• Shows an individual and his parents, spouse and
  children.

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2. Pedigree View

• Use this view when you want to see five
  generations of a persons ancestry.

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3. Individual List

• Lists all individuals in your database by RIN
  Number...

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...or

• Alphabetically if you click twice on the Full
  Name field.

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Primary Position

• This is the position of the individual on the
  Family View screen on the top left.
• Use the triangular arrow buttons next to each
  individual to move the person to the primary
  position.
• It is necessary to move an individual to the
  Primary Position to add parents, spouse and
  children. Lets try a few.

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Spouse In Primary Position

• To move a spouse to the Primary Position press
  the up/down arrow button above the spouse.

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Get Back to the Home Person

• To get back to the Home Person click on the Go To
  Home Person icon. (It looks like a mans face
  with a red up arrow.)

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Editing Records

• Double-click on the individual or marriage you
  wish to edit.
• Type the information.
• Click Save.

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Now You Know The Basics
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Go home and try it!!!
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But, But, But...

• What if I dont remember something, what if I
  need help!!!

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Call us during regular hours

• 610-356-8507

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TIMESAVERS

• GEDCOMS -- This will be taught in a later class.

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Hate to type???

• You are on the Internet surfing the web and find
  information you want in PAF.

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Use the minimize button to make the screen
smaller.The minimize button is the two small
squares in the upper right of the screen.
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Put your mouse over the blue area at the top of
the screen, hold down the left mouse button and
drag the screen where you want it to be.
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Then reshape your screens by grabbing any side,
holding down your left mouse button and dragging
it to where you want the side to be.
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Notice that weve filled the left half of the
screen. Now do the same with the other program,
filling the right side of the screen.
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You can highlight text by putting your cursor at
the beginning of the text, holding down the left
mouse button and dragging it to highlight the
entire text you want.Hold down Ctrl and press C
to copy the highlighted information.
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Then click on the other program where you want
the text to be and hold down Ctrl and press V to
paste the information.
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This helps make your typing faster and
easier.It also eliminate typographical errors
and number transposition.Notice that PAF
properly formatted your date.
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