The challenge of moving beyond PAF

Personal Ancestral File (PAF) is probably the most influential lineagelinked database program in the world. To quote BradJackman on LDSTech back in 2008," However, I think most genealogists will agree that PAF still holds amajor position in the field, and it's ease of use, simple GUI, and hugeuser base make it a force to be reckoned with, not some littlefreeware experiment to be swept under the rug." PAF has been considereda "freeware" program since about 2000 and was never very expensive evenbefore that time. Its combination of low or no cost and fairly goodutility have made it the program of choice for probably millions ofusers, although the actual statistics of use are likely not available.

Further development and upgrades to PAF were essentially abandoned byits sponsor The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints actingthrough FamilySearch and its predecessors, back in 2002. But as of thedate of this post, it is still available in version 5.2.18.0 as a freedownload from the FamilySearch.org website. In addition, classes on the program are still taught regularly throughout the vast network of Family History Centers(now also FamilySearch Centers) around the world. There are alsoseveral very active PAF User Groups around the world. For example, seethe Utah Valley PAF Users Group.

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The challenge of moving beyond PAF

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