The FamilySearch operation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be discontinuing support for its Personal Ancestral File (PAF) program from 15 July 2013.
If you are using PAF, and you might want to continue using it in future, you might like to download a copy of the latest version, and to store a copy of the installable program in a safe place, so you can reinstall it in case of hardware failure, or if your computer gets stolen.
I have found, for example, that I need PAF 4.0 in order to import GEDCOM files into the Legacy Family Tree program without errors.
For further information on how to download PAF before 15 July 2013, see here:
How to download Personal Ancestral File (PAF)
and here:
Affiliate Products | FamilySearch.org
Showing posts with label PAF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PAF. Show all posts
Friday, July 12, 2013
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
PAF to be retired
Beginning July 15, 2013, PAF will be retired and will no longer be available for download or support. For full details and for information on alternative products, please visit http://familysearch.org/PAF.
That is rather sad, especially the last bit. It would be a nice gesture if the PAF source code were to be released as open source, to allow others to develop in in new and more interesting ways.
What is also difficult is that there is nothing on the page to show where you can download the most recent versions of PAF before the cut-off date. I still use PAF 4.0 and will continue to use it, as an essential adjunct to Legacy.
The problem is that when Legacy imports data from Gedcom files, it messes up the record order, and the RINs are all wrong. My workaround has been to import the Gedcom files into PAF 4.0, which Legacy can import directly, and when it does so, the RINs are correct.
But if PAF 4.0 is no longer going to be available, perhaps Legacy will drop the ability to import files directly from it, and then I won't be able to upgrade to future versions of Legacy.
Perhaps it's time to start looking at RootsMagic, which many have spoken highly of.
Well that's nice, but I wonder if RootsMagic can replace PAF in the way I've used it. One of the things I've used it for is quick-'n-dirty research files, where I've typed stuff on people who may or may not be linked, imported state from various sources, some of them dubious, and then tried to make sense of them before putting verified data or at least data that I'm reasonably certain of, into my main Legacy file.
The thing is that in my main Legacy file I never merge records, because that would mess up the RINs. If I find a duplicate record, I change the name of the person to ZZblank, and reuse that for the next new person I enter.
In my PAF quick-'n-dirty research files, I merge records all the time. I wonder if any of the PAF replacements on offer can do that kind of stuff as quickly and easily as PAF could?
Of course PAF had limitations -- it could not search or filter on locations, for instance. But it would make it dead easy to enter a lot of records from the same location by automatic fill in. In Legacy one sometimes has to wait up to a minute during which it is "not responding" while it looks things up, which slows down data entry considerably.
Frequently asked questions
From PAF users
What does it mean that PAF is no longer supported?
FamilySearch will not assist users with features of PAF. FamilySearch will provide limited support for moving PAF data to a compatible third-party app.
Can I continue using PAF?
Yes. PAF will continue to work on all versions of Windows as of 2013, including Windows 8. Just be aware that it will no longer be supported or improved. We strongly recommend choosing an alternative product (see above).
Can I put my PAF data online in FamilySearch Family Tree?
Since PAF does not integrate with FamilySearch Family Tree directly, you will need to use an alternative product, as suggested here. These products will be able to import your PAF data directly, enabling you to connect to FamilySearch and copy your data to and from the web as desired.
Which third-party app should I use?
The answer to this is completely subject to your preference. Therefore, we suggest you check out each of the apps and compare for yourself. We have provided a simple set of links to information and downloads about the products with our recommended partners (see above).
Does FamilySearch endorse the use of third-party apps?
Yes. The Family History Department has made significant investments in conjunction with our partners in order to offer great solutions for everyone. Using third-party products in conjunction with FamilySearch online services is something we encourage and fully endorse.
Will Family Insight continue to work?
Yes. Just bear in mind that PAF itself is no longer supported. Please contact Ohana Software for more information and support.
Will Charting Companion for PAF (previously known as PAF Companion) continue to work?
Yes. Just bear in mind that PAF itself is no longer supported. Please contact Progeny Genealogy for more information and support.
Will FamilySearch make the source code of PAF available to software developers?
At this time, there are no plans to release the source code as open source or in any other structure. Continuing development of PAF, even outside of FamilySearch, would still put FamilySearch in a position to support it (by perception, if not obligation). Our support staff is targeted toward other goals and priorities after JULY 15, 2013.
That is rather sad, especially the last bit. It would be a nice gesture if the PAF source code were to be released as open source, to allow others to develop in in new and more interesting ways.
What is also difficult is that there is nothing on the page to show where you can download the most recent versions of PAF before the cut-off date. I still use PAF 4.0 and will continue to use it, as an essential adjunct to Legacy.
The problem is that when Legacy imports data from Gedcom files, it messes up the record order, and the RINs are all wrong. My workaround has been to import the Gedcom files into PAF 4.0, which Legacy can import directly, and when it does so, the RINs are correct.
But if PAF 4.0 is no longer going to be available, perhaps Legacy will drop the ability to import files directly from it, and then I won't be able to upgrade to future versions of Legacy.
Perhaps it's time to start looking at RootsMagic, which many have spoken highly of.
In a blog posting today, FamilySearch announced the retirement of it’s Personal Ancestral File (PAF) genealogy software...
The linked page recommends that PAF users upgrade to family history software from one of the FamilySearch parters. Of the three options listed, RootsMagic is the only software certified to utilize the full capabilities of FamilySearch Family Tree, including sharing data, ordinances, discussions, sources, and change history.
We understand that change isn’t easy, so we’ve worked hard at putting together some new tools and supports to make the transition as painless as possible for PAF users.
The thing is that in my main Legacy file I never merge records, because that would mess up the RINs. If I find a duplicate record, I change the name of the person to ZZblank, and reuse that for the next new person I enter.
In my PAF quick-'n-dirty research files, I merge records all the time. I wonder if any of the PAF replacements on offer can do that kind of stuff as quickly and easily as PAF could?
Of course PAF had limitations -- it could not search or filter on locations, for instance. But it would make it dead easy to enter a lot of records from the same location by automatic fill in. In Legacy one sometimes has to wait up to a minute during which it is "not responding" while it looks things up, which slows down data entry considerably.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Can Clooz replace the Research Data Filer to keep track of paper files?
For a long time now (about 20 years) I have been using the Research Data Filer program to keep track of paper files in my genealogical research.
As you might guess, a 20 year-old-computer program is getting close to retirement age, ready to hand over to a younger and more vigorous successor, and take a well-earned rest.
The trouble is that there is no successor anywhere in sight. There is no program that I know of that can do what the Research Data Filer (RDF) did (and for me, still does).
In 38 years of genealogical research one accumulares a lot of paper -- notes, letters, family trees sent by other people, notes from books and other published sources. How do you keep track of this stuff? How do you remember where you put that note or letter?
Using the ResearchData Filer (RDF) you give every document a number, and you file the documents in numerical order, like this:
There is no need to file them in any order but numerical, in the order in which they are filed (the KISS principle -- Keep It Simple, Stupid).
Then you use the Research Data Filer to write a description of each document, like this:
(Sorry that the reduced functionality of Blogger makes the screenshot small and hard to read - that's one of the reasons I've moved my other blogs to Wordpress)
If you look hard you can see that item 3, DOC 00003 is a printed book. No, I did not put the printed book in the file. What I put in the file was a piece of paper with biblographgical information about the book, and extracts of relevant information from it. When I want to see what I put in those notes again, and want to remember where I put them, RDF tells me that it is filed as Document 3, which I filed between Document 2 and Document 4. Simple, isn't it?
If I'm not sure which document has the relevant information, I can search the document descriptions. RDF has a "focus" capability. I can focus on all document descriptions that contain the word "death", for example, and then I can focus again on only those that contain the word "Beningfield"
But that's not all.
In addition to the "Document" file, RDF also has a "Data" file, which indexes the data within documents. Because we're doing genealogy, we're interested in people, and that's what it indexes.
That screen shows a "focus" search on Id 14952, which happens to be the RIN of Adam Cottam in my main fata file. It shows references to one document on this screen, but could also show references to him in many documents. The fields shown are Name, Sex, ID, Event, Event Date, Event Place, Relations, Ids of Relations, Comments, and of course the Document number. And one can sort the results of a "focus" by name, Id, date, place or relations, and print them out, or save them to another file.
There's more about RDF and how tt helps me to keep track of my paper files here.
RDF used to come with early editions of PAF, the Personal Ancestral File program distributed by the Church of Jesus Chrtist of Latter-Day Saints. PAF itself has been updated to a Windows version, but RDF hasn't. It is more difficult to use in Windows, because most Windows printers won't print output from DOS programs directly, and you have to resort to clumsy workarounds that take longer.
Also, RDF was designed in the days when most genealogists who used computers had computers with 360k floppy disks and no hard disks at all, so one of the important design considerations was to take up as little disk space as possible. My GENERAL.DAT file is about 1,2 Megabytes, which would be reaching the limits of a high-density floppy disk of the late 1980s.
Nowdays, with hard disk capacities being measured in terabytes rather than kilobytes, it would be nice to have an updated version that would give a little more room for additional information.
And there's the rub, because there isn't an updated version. RDF was designed in 1989 or earlier. But it still hasn't been surpassed. I know of no other program that can do what it does, as well as it does it. I can think of lots of ways in which it could be improved, but it still does what it does better than any other program out there.
I've looked at some other programs that I thought might be possible replacements. There were Genota and Genforms being developed by Dennis Allsopp in Australia, which didn't do quite the same thing, and there was Clooz. I bought Clooz 2.0 to test as a possible replacement, but found it too clunky and awkward to use, and entering information was too time-consuming.
Clooz 3 is now available -- an updating and streamlining of Clooz 2. But they are now working on Clooz 4.0, which will be a complete redesign and rewiting of Clooz 3 from the ground up, rather than a mere tweak. So I'm now hoping that, whatever else it includes, it will include the functionality and capability of RDF, enhanced, rather than diminished.
Yes, you could keep the information in RDF .DOC and .DAT files in a spreadsheet, but most spreadsheets still can't handle dates before 1900, nor can they handle partial or fuzzy dates like "ABT May 1832" or "AFT Sep 1856".
I wish I knew who wrote RDF. It was a work of genius, making the most of the capabilities of computers of its time. If it were updated to make use of today's computers, it would be very powerful indeed.
As you might guess, a 20 year-old-computer program is getting close to retirement age, ready to hand over to a younger and more vigorous successor, and take a well-earned rest.
The trouble is that there is no successor anywhere in sight. There is no program that I know of that can do what the Research Data Filer (RDF) did (and for me, still does).
In 38 years of genealogical research one accumulares a lot of paper -- notes, letters, family trees sent by other people, notes from books and other published sources. How do you keep track of this stuff? How do you remember where you put that note or letter?
Using the ResearchData Filer (RDF) you give every document a number, and you file the documents in numerical order, like this:
Then you use the Research Data Filer to write a description of each document, like this:
If you look hard you can see that item 3, DOC 00003 is a printed book. No, I did not put the printed book in the file. What I put in the file was a piece of paper with biblographgical information about the book, and extracts of relevant information from it. When I want to see what I put in those notes again, and want to remember where I put them, RDF tells me that it is filed as Document 3, which I filed between Document 2 and Document 4. Simple, isn't it?
If I'm not sure which document has the relevant information, I can search the document descriptions. RDF has a "focus" capability. I can focus on all document descriptions that contain the word "death", for example, and then I can focus again on only those that contain the word "Beningfield"
But that's not all.
In addition to the "Document" file, RDF also has a "Data" file, which indexes the data within documents. Because we're doing genealogy, we're interested in people, and that's what it indexes.
There's more about RDF and how tt helps me to keep track of my paper files here.
RDF used to come with early editions of PAF, the Personal Ancestral File program distributed by the Church of Jesus Chrtist of Latter-Day Saints. PAF itself has been updated to a Windows version, but RDF hasn't. It is more difficult to use in Windows, because most Windows printers won't print output from DOS programs directly, and you have to resort to clumsy workarounds that take longer.
Also, RDF was designed in the days when most genealogists who used computers had computers with 360k floppy disks and no hard disks at all, so one of the important design considerations was to take up as little disk space as possible. My GENERAL.DAT file is about 1,2 Megabytes, which would be reaching the limits of a high-density floppy disk of the late 1980s.
Nowdays, with hard disk capacities being measured in terabytes rather than kilobytes, it would be nice to have an updated version that would give a little more room for additional information.
And there's the rub, because there isn't an updated version. RDF was designed in 1989 or earlier. But it still hasn't been surpassed. I know of no other program that can do what it does, as well as it does it. I can think of lots of ways in which it could be improved, but it still does what it does better than any other program out there.
I've looked at some other programs that I thought might be possible replacements. There were Genota and Genforms being developed by Dennis Allsopp in Australia, which didn't do quite the same thing, and there was Clooz. I bought Clooz 2.0 to test as a possible replacement, but found it too clunky and awkward to use, and entering information was too time-consuming.
Clooz 3 is now available -- an updating and streamlining of Clooz 2. But they are now working on Clooz 4.0, which will be a complete redesign and rewiting of Clooz 3 from the ground up, rather than a mere tweak. So I'm now hoping that, whatever else it includes, it will include the functionality and capability of RDF, enhanced, rather than diminished.
Yes, you could keep the information in RDF .DOC and .DAT files in a spreadsheet, but most spreadsheets still can't handle dates before 1900, nor can they handle partial or fuzzy dates like "ABT May 1832" or "AFT Sep 1856".
I wish I knew who wrote RDF. It was a work of genius, making the most of the capabilities of computers of its time. If it were updated to make use of today's computers, it would be very powerful indeed.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Legacy Family Tree Genealogy Software
Ten years ago today I began using Legacy Family Tree Genealogy Software for my main genealogy database.
I think, if I recall correctly, that I started with version 2, and I'm now on Version 7.4, though the latest is Version 7.5.
I had tried Legacy out for a few months first to see how it worked, and to work out the best way of transferring my data. I then had about 8000 records; now I have 17212. I transferred everything to Legacy using GEDCOM, and I've been using it ever since.
Though Legacy is not perfect (no genealogy program is), Legacy meets most of my requirements.
I've usually (until very recently) kept a couple of versions behind the current one. I used Version 2 for a long time before switching to Version 3 (and by then Version 5 was already out). I bought the Deluxe version of Version 5, and used that for a long time, and never used version 6 at all.
Why was that?
The main reason was that each successive version of the program was a lot bigger than the previous one, and thus required a hardware upgrade as well. Many of the features that made it bigger were ones that I didn't need and would not be likely to use.
I liked to transfer my data between my laptop and desktop computers, originally by using a Zip disk, and later by means of a USB flash drive. The laptop I first used had 128Mb of RAM, and could cope with Legacy 2.x, but 3.x was too much for it.
In 2005 I bought a new laptop with 250 Mb of RAM, and then upgraded to Legacy 5. My son bought a new desktop computer, and gave me his old one, which had more memory, and so I got the deluxe version of Legacy 5.
By 2010, however, the laptop was struggling. Though I had not upgraded Legacy, other programs, like the Firefox web browser, upgraded automatically to bigger and more memory-hogging versions. If I wanted to switch from Legacy to Firefox to look up something on the web to add to my to-do list when I visited a library or archive, I could go and make a cup of coffee while it was swapping to disk, and when I came back it was still swapping to disk. The machine took 28 minutes to boot up, and 7 minutes to close down, the hard disk churning the whole time.
In February 2010 the laptop computer was stolen, and I bought a new one that had 2 Gigs of RAM. And later in the year the desktop computer was dying, and I bought a new one of those was well, with more memory. So at last I upgraded to Legacy 7.x, forgoing the deluxe features by doing so.
The first genealogy program I used was one called Roots/M by Commsoft, and it was limited by keeping all its data as well as the program in memory (on an Osborne CP/M machine that had 128K RAM). It was also limited by using single-sided 185K floppy disks.
When the Osborne died, I got an MS DOS machine, in 1987, and found a freeware/shareware program called Family History System (FHS). Actually there were a whole lot of genealogy programs available then, and I tried several of them. FHS seemed the best. Over the years I tried several more programs, some of which I reviewed for magazines, and I took to using several of them at once, because each had some features that the others lacked, usually in being able to produce various kinds of reports.
But I continued to use FHS for my first data entry, and then copied the database to the other programs using GEDCOM. For that purpose FHS had a very good feature that most of the other programs lacked -- it could copy a discrete set of records to GEDCOM. If I added 50 records, when there were 7000 records in the database, then I could copy records 7001-7050 to GEDCOM, and transfer them to the other programs without overwriting the data already there. And I still do that today.
FHS was distributed on the same basis as Legacy. There was a free version, which one could use as long as one wanted, and a deluxe version, with additional features that one could pay for. I'm still using the deluxe version of 1993.
I still use Family History System (FHS) as my program of first entry. When I want to transfer them to Legacy I export the new records to GEDCOM, import the .GED file into PAF 4.0, and then import the PAF 4.0 file to Legacy.
Why not import the GEDCOM file directly to Legacy?
Well I did that once, and found that it scrambled the RINs. But if I use PAF as an intermediate stage, the RINs remain in sync between FHS and Legacy.
So this shows up two shortcomings I see in Legacy.
FHS had its own shortcomings, one of which is that it has inadequate provision for recording sources, and also, though it has fields for births and deaths, it does not have fields for baptisms and burials, which, in the case of earlier records, are often the only dates available.
So for a long time I used PAF 2.3, which had a somewhat clunky, but flexible, method of recording sources. It also had an amazing range of add-on programs, which could manipulate the data in several useful ways, including printing the main facts on 3x5" and 4x6" index cards.
That is one of the strange things about software writers. Some of them went to great lengths to make a computer screen look like an index card, and littered the screen with pictures of filing cabinets and paper file folders, which was totally unnecessary, but never thought to enable a computer to easily maintain card file indexes, which is quite easy to do, and very useful. They added unnecessary features, and left out the useful ones. But the PAF add-ons met that need.
But PAF 2.x was not Y2K compatible. It announced an error every time one entered a date after 31 Dec 1999. So that was when I started looking for a replacement, which could keep source records. And back in 2002, Legacy fitted the bill, and still does.
There are still ways in which I think it could be improved.
Apart from the two points mentioned above, about GEDCOM export and import, it would be nice to have a biography field. Yes, there is a notes field, and a research notes field, and one can use the Notes field for a potted biography. But sometimes one wants the notes to contain details that will be condensed in the biography, which one might want to print or report on separately.
Another feature that would be nice would be to be able to print family group reports to an RTF file (at least one other program, Family Tree Legends, can do that). That is useful for sending family group reports to relatives, asking them to add to or correct the information that is already there. Yes, one can send them the family group reports by e-mail as a PDF file, but then they either have to print it out and send the result back by snail mail, or try to scan the result, and send them back as graphics files.
But after 10 years of using it, Legacy is still good, and I haven't exhausted its capabilities yet.
I think, if I recall correctly, that I started with version 2, and I'm now on Version 7.4, though the latest is Version 7.5.
I had tried Legacy out for a few months first to see how it worked, and to work out the best way of transferring my data. I then had about 8000 records; now I have 17212. I transferred everything to Legacy using GEDCOM, and I've been using it ever since.Though Legacy is not perfect (no genealogy program is), Legacy meets most of my requirements.
I've usually (until very recently) kept a couple of versions behind the current one. I used Version 2 for a long time before switching to Version 3 (and by then Version 5 was already out). I bought the Deluxe version of Version 5, and used that for a long time, and never used version 6 at all.
Why was that?
The main reason was that each successive version of the program was a lot bigger than the previous one, and thus required a hardware upgrade as well. Many of the features that made it bigger were ones that I didn't need and would not be likely to use.
I liked to transfer my data between my laptop and desktop computers, originally by using a Zip disk, and later by means of a USB flash drive. The laptop I first used had 128Mb of RAM, and could cope with Legacy 2.x, but 3.x was too much for it.
In 2005 I bought a new laptop with 250 Mb of RAM, and then upgraded to Legacy 5. My son bought a new desktop computer, and gave me his old one, which had more memory, and so I got the deluxe version of Legacy 5.
By 2010, however, the laptop was struggling. Though I had not upgraded Legacy, other programs, like the Firefox web browser, upgraded automatically to bigger and more memory-hogging versions. If I wanted to switch from Legacy to Firefox to look up something on the web to add to my to-do list when I visited a library or archive, I could go and make a cup of coffee while it was swapping to disk, and when I came back it was still swapping to disk. The machine took 28 minutes to boot up, and 7 minutes to close down, the hard disk churning the whole time.
In February 2010 the laptop computer was stolen, and I bought a new one that had 2 Gigs of RAM. And later in the year the desktop computer was dying, and I bought a new one of those was well, with more memory. So at last I upgraded to Legacy 7.x, forgoing the deluxe features by doing so.
The first genealogy program I used was one called Roots/M by Commsoft, and it was limited by keeping all its data as well as the program in memory (on an Osborne CP/M machine that had 128K RAM). It was also limited by using single-sided 185K floppy disks.
When the Osborne died, I got an MS DOS machine, in 1987, and found a freeware/shareware program called Family History System (FHS). Actually there were a whole lot of genealogy programs available then, and I tried several of them. FHS seemed the best. Over the years I tried several more programs, some of which I reviewed for magazines, and I took to using several of them at once, because each had some features that the others lacked, usually in being able to produce various kinds of reports.
But I continued to use FHS for my first data entry, and then copied the database to the other programs using GEDCOM. For that purpose FHS had a very good feature that most of the other programs lacked -- it could copy a discrete set of records to GEDCOM. If I added 50 records, when there were 7000 records in the database, then I could copy records 7001-7050 to GEDCOM, and transfer them to the other programs without overwriting the data already there. And I still do that today.
FHS was distributed on the same basis as Legacy. There was a free version, which one could use as long as one wanted, and a deluxe version, with additional features that one could pay for. I'm still using the deluxe version of 1993.
I still use Family History System (FHS) as my program of first entry. When I want to transfer them to Legacy I export the new records to GEDCOM, import the .GED file into PAF 4.0, and then import the PAF 4.0 file to Legacy.
Why not import the GEDCOM file directly to Legacy?
Well I did that once, and found that it scrambled the RINs. But if I use PAF as an intermediate stage, the RINs remain in sync between FHS and Legacy.
So this shows up two shortcomings I see in Legacy.
- Unlike FHS, it is difficult to export a specified range of RINs from Legacy.
- When it imports data from a GEDCOM file, Legacy sometimes scrambles the RINs.
FHS had its own shortcomings, one of which is that it has inadequate provision for recording sources, and also, though it has fields for births and deaths, it does not have fields for baptisms and burials, which, in the case of earlier records, are often the only dates available.
So for a long time I used PAF 2.3, which had a somewhat clunky, but flexible, method of recording sources. It also had an amazing range of add-on programs, which could manipulate the data in several useful ways, including printing the main facts on 3x5" and 4x6" index cards.
That is one of the strange things about software writers. Some of them went to great lengths to make a computer screen look like an index card, and littered the screen with pictures of filing cabinets and paper file folders, which was totally unnecessary, but never thought to enable a computer to easily maintain card file indexes, which is quite easy to do, and very useful. They added unnecessary features, and left out the useful ones. But the PAF add-ons met that need.
But PAF 2.x was not Y2K compatible. It announced an error every time one entered a date after 31 Dec 1999. So that was when I started looking for a replacement, which could keep source records. And back in 2002, Legacy fitted the bill, and still does.
There are still ways in which I think it could be improved.
Apart from the two points mentioned above, about GEDCOM export and import, it would be nice to have a biography field. Yes, there is a notes field, and a research notes field, and one can use the Notes field for a potted biography. But sometimes one wants the notes to contain details that will be condensed in the biography, which one might want to print or report on separately.
Another feature that would be nice would be to be able to print family group reports to an RTF file (at least one other program, Family Tree Legends, can do that). That is useful for sending family group reports to relatives, asking them to add to or correct the information that is already there. Yes, one can send them the family group reports by e-mail as a PDF file, but then they either have to print it out and send the result back by snail mail, or try to scan the result, and send them back as graphics files.
But after 10 years of using it, Legacy is still good, and I haven't exhausted its capabilities yet.
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