LDS Genealogy

In the previous lesson, we entered our own names into PAF, the free genealogy program created by the Mormons. Today, we’re going to fill in the remainder of your family.

If you’re married or have been married in the past, you’ll enter your spouse next. When you reopen PAF, or save after entering your own data, you’re returned to the Family Group Sheet, which gives basic information about each person in one family. It doesn’t give all the information you filled out earlier.

Below your name, you’ll see a space for marriage. Look below that and you’ll see a space to enter a spouse. Double-click that and a box just like the one you filled out for yourself pops up. Fill it in with everything you know. Use only the maiden name for women. Once you’ve finished, click save. A new box will pop up allowing you to enter in the marriage date and place. If you’re doing this for another ancestor and don’t know it, just click save and exit without filling in the space. If the marriage

If you have been married more than once, click your name to turn the box blue. Now go to the top of the screen. You’ll see a pale blue bar that begins with the words “file, edit, add.” There are more, but you want to click add. A drop down list will appear. Slide your cursor to the word spouse and click. You will be able to enter an additional spouse. Don’t forget to click divorced if this applies.

In the future, you’ll find the words “Other Marriages” listed in a box just above the right hand side of whichever person is located first in the family. Clicking this will take you to that person’s information and the spouse you selected, allowing you to work with the correct family group.

If your spouse has been married previously, click the up/down arrow to the right and just above his information box on the family group sheet. This moves him to the top. Now you can add a new spouse for him.

Children should be added to the correct set of legal parents. If a child is legally adopted, he is included in the adoptive family, not the birth family. A child who is legally another parents’ but who lives with someone else, such as a grandparent or friend, is listed with the legal parents. A note can be added that he was actually raised by someone else, to help explain his appearance in census records and other documents in a different family.

It’s time to add children. Bring the correct marriage to the screen—both mother and father together. Add children one at a time, oldest first. Do this by clicking the box marked children under the parents. You will be asked if you want to add a new person or an existing person. Since you’re just starting out, you want a new person. Later, you may discover a child in your family who married a relative and is therefore already in your genealogy. In this case, you would choose to add an existing person and it would bring up a list of everyone in your genealogy so you could select the correct person. Everyone will then be automatically linked correctly. Once you’ve selected new person, you’ll be shown the now family form to fill out.

Each time you finish, you’ll be asked if you want to add another child. Clicking yes takes you to a form to fill out. Once you’ve added all your children for this marriage, add any spouses they have, one at a time. Before each child’s name, you’ll see a clear arrow. Clicking it brings up a new family group sheet with that child as the primary person. There you can enter the information just as you did for your own spouse.

If you have children from more than one marriage, follow the same procedure for the other spouses. If your child’s parent was never married to you, enter the parent as a spouse but under marriage date, write “not married.” Adoption can be noted in the area where you choose optional information to include.

In the future, you will have ancestors whose information you haven’t completed located. You may know the father, but not the mother. Simply leave the spouse space empty and the system will label the missing parent unknown. Genealogies frequently have missing women or women whose maiden names are unknown. The form allows for all of this. However, it does only allow for traditional marriages—the opposite gender is automatically entered when you enter a spouse.

You now know how to use PAF well enough to get started. You will simply continue on as you have to this point, entering your parents into their proper space, and then their parents. Someday, you’ll even have that twenty-volume history you’ve been admiring.

Next you’ll learn how to interview your relatives to get past your generation.