CLASS: COMPARING AND COMBINING
ALL
THOSE OLD PAF FILES
©2007 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
Return
to Don's
Class
Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group . This page was last
updated 7 Feb 2007.
WELCOME
AND INTRODUCTION TO CLASS
- Welcome
- Instructors
are Donald R. and Diane M. Snow, 801-225-7123 in Provo, Utah
and 435-673-1932 in St. George, Utah (snowd@math.byu.edu,
dms34@juno.com)
- These notes with
active Internet links are posted on the
Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group website http://uvtagg.org
under Class Outlines, Don's Listings.
- These notes
are written for PAF (Personal Ancestral File), but the ideas
are useful for other genealogy programs, too.
CLEANING
UP YOUR MASTER FILE
SEPARATING PAF FILES OR GEDCOMS INTO ISLANDS OF DATA
- May be very helpful to separate your old
databases into islands (trees) of
data
- For old PAF 2.31, 3, 4, or 5 files, you
can first form GEDCOM's of them
- The old PAF 2.31,
3, 4 programs are in folders on the PAF 5.2 CD's from the LDS
Church Distribution Centers and can be installed on a Windows XP
computer.
- For PAF 2.31 data use the GIE program in PAF 2.31 to form a GEDCOM of the data.
- Ways to separate the
old
files into
islands
- USING PAF 5.2
ITSELF
- Open
the file in
PAF
- Click on Export, then
Partial, then select All
Persons Related and export a GEDCOM of that island
-- give it a helpful name to know later what's in it
- Now click
on Delete and delete that entire island from the database.
- Repeat
this by selecting All Persons Related to someone else left
in the database and form
another GEDCOM with an appropriate
name and delete that group.
- Keep
repeating this until there is no one left in the original PAF database
- You
now have a decomposition of the entire file into GEDCOM's of its islands.
- USING
PAF INSIGHT
- Open the
PAF file in PAF Insight
- Click
on Edit RINs and Trees
- Delete
everyone other than in the main
tree -- then save the database (main tree only now) with an appropriate
name
- Go back to the main file and repeat
by deleting everyone other than in Pedigree 2 and save that with an appropriate name
- Continue
until each island has
been saved off
- You now have a
decomposition of the
entire file into PAF files of its islands.
- USING GENVIEWER
- GENViewer is a commercial program ($20),
but free
for FHC's -- http://mudcreeksoftware.com/
- Very
helpful program to find errors
in data, e.g. you can set columns to show any pieces of data
in the database and sort on any column to find problems -- very helpful
- Is
a viewer, not an editor, except it will separate a GEDCOM into all its
islands
- Can view PAF files, GEDCOM's, Legacy, Family Tree Maker, and other genealogy program files
- Can
download and try out the full version free for 15 days
- To split up a file it only works with GEDCOM's, so make a GEDCOM of your file and open that in GENViewer
- Click on the Islands tab and choose Export into
Islands to make a decompositon of the entire file into its islands
- Has two ways of naming the
islands automatically -- you can choose which you want
- After splitting your files into islands you now have smaller files that
are each linked internally and can be compared more easily with your Master Database
- Clean up these islands of data, if they look like you will want that data in your Master File.
COMBINE
USING PAF
- Make good backups before you start any merging.
- Note the highest RIN
in the Master
Database
(File/Properties, then Record Count gives highest RIN) and
import
one of the GEDCOM's by Import/Don't Reuse RIN's
-- not
reusing
old deleted RIN's makes it so that all the imported names are
higher RIN's than in Master File and you can tell at
a glance
in Match/Merge which name is from the Master Database and
which is
from the imported one
- Click
on Match/Merge and
examine possible matches -- put checks by the parts you want to keep from
the imported names and merge them together
- Merging
any of the imported records with records in your master
database will link the entire imported island into your Master
Database since the imported island was all connected
- If
there are no merges with records in your master
file, it will form a new separate island in the master file.
- If
you don't want to keep the rest of the imported file in your Master
Database, go to the Export/Partial screen, and select All Related to
someone in the imported island, and export that part, and
then delte it from your Master Database.
- Perhaps make a
Working File of all the parts you didn't merge in so you'll have
the data in case you find they are related and want the data later.
COMBINE
USING PAF INSIGHT
- PAF Insight is a commerical program ($25), but free for FHC's -- from http://ohanasoftware.com/
- PAF Insight only works on PAF 5 databases, so make PAF 5 files of each of the old island GEDCOM's
- Run
PAF Insight on your master file and use the Compare and Sync
option with each of the old island PAF files.
- Be
sure
you mark which data you want to bring in while running PAF
Insight -- this is
complicated and you need to be careful
- On
each old island, after
the
merges, there may be more names in the island that you want to
add, since the entire island was linked, so click on Add to get
the rest.
- You
may have to go through and clean up locations again since the imported
island may have brought in slightly different place spellings, etc.
COMBINE
USING GENMERGE
- GENMerge is a commercial program ($30) from http://www.genmerge.com/ -- can try it free for 10 days
- It allows merging in several GEDCOM's at once
- It only works on GEDCOM's so you need to make GEDCOM's of your Master Database and all the islands
- GENMerge analyzes
each
GEDCOM, including the Master GEDCOM file, and gives you a very helpful report for each file of loops, duplicates, etc.,
so you can fix
it before merging
- GENMerge
generates new versions of the GEDCOM's and keeps all the old files so
you can always go back
- Run
GENMerge to
merge all the files, keeping the data you want
- When done, examine the
report GENMerge produces to be sure you got what you
wanted
FINISHING
UP AND CONCLUSIONS
- Cleanup the final master
file as at the start -- see notes
on
Cleaning Up Your Database on the
Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group website http://uvtagg.org
under Class Outlines, Don's Listings.
- Check
for new
Unknown Spouses or duplicate links that are in the master file now,
e.g. a
duplicate marriage for the couple
- GENViewer
can find duplicate marriages by setting the condition to find "Married
- Same Name"
- GENViewer can find
unkonwn spouse
links by setting the condition to find "Married - No Spouse
AND # Descendants = 0"
- You
might want to
put all the old data that you didn't bring into the Master file into a PAF file
labelled something like "Old Snow Data-2007-02-07", so you have the data in case you want it later.
- Including
the date in the name of your files, e.g.
"Snow-2007-02-07", and changing the date each time you work on it and
back it up, means that you won't wipe out your earlier
versions
until you are sure you don't need them
- Writing the date
with numbers in this order 2007-02-07 makes the files alphabetize in chronological order, so the newest is
always last.
- Remember that any way you check and combine all those old files takes major time and effort, but is worth it to get all your good data into one Master updated file.
ASSIGNMENT
- Clean up your master
database to get it
ready to receive imports from old
files.
- Run PAF Insight or
GENViewer on your master
database to see how many islands of data are in it.
- Separate out your old files into islands and open
them in separate PAF files to see if you want to merge
some into your
master file.
- Clean up a small island file and import it into your Master Database and do the
Match/Merging.
Return to Don's
Class
Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group .