Notes from the October 12, 1995 meeting of the Rochester Genealogical Society, Computer Interest Group:

The meeting was attended by 34 members. Perhaps the new location at Webster Public Library affected the usual turn-out of 50 or so. Stanley Hazen led the meeting, and indicated that personal commitments will only allow him to continue through November or December meetings. He outlined the program for this meeting, a presentation on recent upgrades to the Personal Ancestral File Program (PAF).

News From Around Town:

Dick Halsey told all members that the old membership expired at the end of August. Members are reminded to add $5.00 to the $15.00 RGS dues to support the CIG and avoid deletion from the newsletter mailing list.

Debbie Barnes noted the availability of a current list of disks in the MS-DOS library. Harry Long noted that he is continuing to maintain the MAC disk library.

Ken Veneron was unable to attend, but at the RGS meeting he reported the imminent closing of the Kreag Road Family History Center for about 6 months. Their microfilm library and some readers and computers will be temporarily moved to the Westfall Road Family History Center. Expect some inconveniences when you go.

Dick Halsey has not monitored Bulletin Boards recently, he has been busy on the Internet. (Some bad news; Flower City Central-Dave Johnson, will be closing down the Bulletin Board on December 1st.-unable to meet the time commitments)

Ed Gaulin reported that the next RGS meeting, October 19^th will be moved the United Church of Christ, Titus at Cooper, for one month only, returning to Asbury Church for November.

Future meetings of the CIG will be held at Brighton High School, Room 262, (except for February, where the meeting will be in another room, 314). The room is the south side of the building, where we should park. The room is a lecture style, which should help presentations. The room is also the location of meetings of the FROG POND computer interest group.

A location map will be added to the November meeting announcement.

Stan Hazen may be out of the area by next summer and needs time to take care of personal matters. He asked for ideas and volunteers to keep the organization going. Ed Gaulin noted that he has a long list of changes to consider soon.

Volunteers for a Program Committee included Debbie Barnes, Mark Bewicke, Bob Hesselberth and Gloria Church. Next month's program was not resolved.

The need for an executive committee was briefly discussed. Larry Naukam recommended that specific groups be formed for getting meeting notices on-line, etc.

Ed Gaulin suggested contacting Dave Johnson for an update on Bulletin Boards - J. Hall will do this.

Jim Hall reported on the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) Conference at Seattle. There will be flyers for the next CIG meeting. The program for 1996 is nearly resolved. The FGS Conference Team will be meeting soon to review the Seattle Conference and update the planning for the August 1996 FGS conference in Rochester.

Mark Bewicke noted that the Tiny Tafel project was not actively particsipated in by the CIG members, so he is withdrawing the support.

Ed Gaulin reported that the speaker for the October RGS meeting was unable to attend, but the hand-outs about the Pittsfield National Archives will be available at the next RGS meeting; thanks to some RGS members who visited the Archives and picked-up the copies.

MAIN PROGRAM - Review of PAF 2.31

Mark Bewicke led a presentation of PAF 2.31 and many of its new features.

Jim Hall reported that the Seattle Conference featured a forum on PAF, including a discussion on handling PAF notes. It was shown that HOTNOTES or PAFNOTES are two excellent utilities to correct / polish notes already in a PAF file. Both files are available from our CIG disk library.

Ed Gaulin and Tim Carroll assembled the hardware and software to project the computer screens for a very good presentation.

Mark walked through the PAF program, noting that it is an excellent and inexpensive way to get into genealogical computing. He described GEDCOM and the usefulness of this file for exchanging data. He continued by describing the use of notes to record sources and documentation.

Larry Naukam noted that GEDCOM is sometimes not reliable in transferring data exactly. Mark described a situation where the data was badly corrupted. He gave some examples such as difficulties in recording divorces, adoptions, the differences between legal family lines vs. blood lines was briefly noted. Some other programs do not handle the data similarly. The features of GEDCOM must be considered when trying to swap data between programs. Sometimes an intermediary program will give smooth transfer from one program to another.

Mark indicated that there is a new version of GEDCOM, ver 5.3 that has a variable structure. Some programs use this version, but the cost is substantially higher.

A discussion of adoptions resulted in some concern by attendees. The family historian must decide if the type of genealogy is by legal or blood line. (Marion Claus checked the Joan Lowrey book, "PAF 2.31 Guide", and found a possible solution on Page 126 - enter the person twice, keeping separate the birth and adoptive lines).

Mark gave additional examples of how to define timelines from various events, possibly using RDF (Research Data Filer). He cautioned that family historians should be sure that any data transmitted to others must be documented. If data is undocumented, exclude from publication, or identify clearly as not documented.

Ed Gaulin noted that if an adopted ancestor is the start of the pedigree, there should be specific notes to identify this fact.

There was a discussion of what a new version of PAF might contain; to handle things like adoptions. At Seattle, there were comments about a new version, but nothing specific. It may be Windows based, like Roots 3 to 4, mixed Mac and MS-DOS, etc. Harry Long noted the advantages of the MAC version of PAF. There were comments about Windows 95, but no one has tried to run PAF under Windows. Bob Hesselberth has encountered some problems with Ancestral Quest and GEDCOM; may need PAF first. Most LDS Family History Centers have a MS-DOS computer for using PAF to record data and subsequently submit for inclusion into the Ancestral File.

Mark noted a problem with using PAF/GEDCOM/Family Tree Journal, misnumbering extended length names.

Ed Gaulin gave some tips: 1. Ed adds a "#" sign to give a special tag for a direct line. 2. a "+" sign is used for multiple marriages. 3. Include (in brackets) any special title in the title block. 4. Use the Pedigree screen to show a blood line.

A well deserved round of applause was given to Mark.

Note: The above meeting notes were keyboarded by Gloria Church, thereby saving the Editor about two hours of hunt and peck. Thanks, Gloria. Also, Tim Carroll continues to prepare the mailing labels, updating the database as needed, with changes provided by Dick Halsey.

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