Beginning PAF

Glade Anderson

Note – “click” = click with left mouse button

“right click” = click with right mouse button

“double click” = click-click

1 – With the cursor point on the “PAF” icon located on the “Desk Top” give two clicks. The “Personal Ancestral File” will open.

2 – If the “Welcome to Ancestral File” screen appears click on the word “New” and the “Create New Family file” screen appears. If it is the main “Ancestral File” screen, click on the word “File” located in the upper left corner of the screen which will bring down the file menu with the several choices listed, then click on the word “New” and the “Create New Family File” screen appears.

3 – In the “Save In” address bar, click on the down arrow and choose the location you want to save the file. (It is suggested you choose “My Documents” as the location.)

4 – Write the name of the file you have chosen in the “File Name” line and then click on the word “Save” and the “Preferences” screen appears.

5 – There are several choices listed across the top of the “Preference Screen”. Make sure the box “Prepared By” is chosen. Fill in the blanks with your information. To assist in building future PAF files click the icon “Save as Default”. This information will be held in your PAF program and automatically display when creating future PAF files. Click “OK” and you are ready to start your “Personal Ancestral File.”

6 – There are three screen views (“Family”, “Pedigree”, “Individual”) to choose from. Click on “Family”. Here you can see the blocks representing the parents, children and parents of the person in the primary position. The large block located top left is the “Primary” position, the large block beneath that is the “Spouse” and the small block between the two is the “Marriage”. On the right are the blocks representing the parents of the primary individual. The large block across the bottom of the screen is for the “Children”.

7 – With the cursor on the primary position double click and the “Edit Individual” screen appears. Here names, dates, places and other individual information are recorded. (Note) – The format for recording the different entries are as follows. Names are written with a forward slash between the given and sir names, without a space. ie. “Glade W/Anderson”, “Dorothy Ann/Horrocks”. Always use maiden names for women. Dates are to be written in this manner; Day Month Year – “2 May 1931” with the month always represented by the first 3 letters of that month and all four digits of the year. Places are to be written – City, County, State, United States, such as “Vernal, Uintah, Utah, United States”. Unless, it is a foreign country then it is written –

City, County, Country such as, “Bolton, Lancashire, England”.

Note - Never abbreviate the name of a place.

When you are through entering the information for this record click on the word “Save” which is found at the top right of your screen which returns you to “Family View”. The primary block now shows the information you have just entered for that individual.

8 – With the cursor in the box representing the spouse, “double click”, and the “Add Spouse” screen appears. The information for the spouse is then entered using the same format as before. When you are through entering the Spouse information click “Save” and the “Edit Marriage” screen appears.

9 – Enter the marriage information using the standard format for names and dates and click “Save”. You have now returned to the “Family View” and are ready to enter the children information.

10 – The large block under the parent blocks is for the children. Place the cursor in this block and double click. “Select Individual” screen appears. Click “New Individual” and enter the data in the “Edit Individual” screen and click “Save”. Follow this procedure to enter all the children belonging to this family.

11 – After the children are all entered you can include the parents of the primary person. (Special note) – a click on the small double arrow, which is between the primary person box and the spouse box, will switch the parents box so the spouse now becomes the primary person. By doing this the parents of each spouse can be shown in the family view depending upon which is in the primary position.

12 – Follow the same procedure for entering parent information. The only difference here is this – After entering the “Father” data and clicking on “Save” the next box will be the “Edit Marriage” box for the parents. The marriage information can be entered before the mother is included.

The main thing to remember is – Some one will be willing to help when needed.

Enjoy and have fun!!