LDS Genealogy

Lesson 2

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When you first open PAF, the church’s genealogy program, you are given the option to do several things. If you already have genealogy on your computer, you can ask it to search for it. The program will bring it in and set it up for you.

Since we’re presuming you don’t have any, choose Create a New File. It will ask you to save, so choose where you want to keep your genealogy. I keep mine in Documents. If you like this location, navigate to the documents folder on your computer. Create a new folder and call it genealogy or family history. Everything you gather will go in this folder. When you finish naming the folder, it will want you to name this genealogy file. I suggest starting one for your mother and another one for your father. Otherwise, your genealogy will become far too complicated. Name those folders something like “John Smith Genealogy.”

Next, you’ll be asked if you want the enter key to take you to the next field. This is up to you, but I find it very useful. It means that when you finish entering the name, for instance, and hit enter to save it, you’ll be moved right along to the birth date field without having to take additional steps. You can change this later if you decide you made the wrong choice.

Next, you’re asked to enter your personal data. This will be printed on paper forms you create and will be used when you submit information to the church or other places. You can always choose to hide it when you print, so you may as well enter it, in order to save work later.

Next, click the general tab. You can choose here if you want your form to include LDS data. I include it, but before using it with non-LDS family, I remove that data. It is convenient to keep it all here if you don’t regularly work with people who will be offended by it. In general, the default choices work well, if you’re not sure what you want.

You don’t need to change anything else unless you want to. You can always go back and change later when you’re more experienced.

You’re finally ready to enter some data.

Continue to the next free genealogy lesson.