Sections of the Class Notes

• Introduction
• Cleaning Up Your PAF Database -- Why
• How Data Should Be Entered 
• Correcting File Structure Errors
• Finding Data Errors
• Correcting Data Errors
• Tools to Find Correct Place Names
• Updating Temple Codes
• Conclusion
• Assignment

Return to Don's Class Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley PAF Users Group .  This page was last updated 9 Aug 2007.

• Instructors are Elder and Sister Donald R. and Diane M. Snow of the England London Mission, Hyde Park Family History Centre  (snowd@math.byu.edu, dms34@juno.com)
• These notes with active Internet links are posted on the Utah Valley PAF Users Group website http://uvpafug.org under Class Outlines, Don's Listings.
• These notes are written for PAF (Personal Ancestral File), but the ideas are useful for any genealogy program., .e.g. Ancestral Quest, RootsMagic, Legacy, Family Tree Maker
• Any database being worked with needs cleaning up periodically -- example of our Early LDS online database at http://earlylds.com -- 54,000 names of early LDS Church members - we have corrected 1000's of errors, but there are still many more

• Reasons you need complete, uniform, and accurate names, dates, and places
  • So you can upload your additional data to New FamilySearch when it is released "soon"
  • To make reports and lists complete and correct for library visits and/or genealogy field trips
  • To be able to find what you are looking for when filtering
  • To eliminate duplicates of same person in twice with different spellings or even the same spelling
  • For temple work
  • To be able to find already completed ordinances in TempleReady
  • To be able to send names to the temple with accurate data for the IGI/IIGI
  • So TempleReady recognizes countries and states spelled in English with no abbreviations and also some countries spelled in their language (The list in "TempleReady Reference Guide", pages B-6 1-3, available at any FHC, is now out-of-date.)
  • If you have same person in twice, you might inadvertently duplicate the temple work yourself.
  • With incorrect places TempleReady won't find ordinances already completed and they will be duplicated; also ordinance data will go into the wrong IGI region, e.g. WORLD MISC, and when people find the correct data later the temple work will probably be redone again.
• When you are ready to submit names to the temple, take a backup of your complete and corrected PAF database to a FHC and restore it on a TempleReady-for-Windows computer to do the name selection.  That way all corrections, additions, and temple data that you find in TRWin will be put directly into your PAF database while forming the submission.
  

HOW DATA SHOULD BE ENTERED

• NAMES -- names (in English and most languages) should be entered in PAF as spoken and the PAF Preferences can be set to put the slashes around the surname, e.g. [Given Names] /[Surname]/ [Title, e.g. Jr., Sr., III]
  • See Tools/Preferences in PAF 5 for options to automatically enter slashes // around surnames depending on the wy the surname occurs in that language -- In English you enter the name as [Given Names Surname Jr.] and it enters the slashes and knows that Jr. is a suffix and not part of the surname
  • Names and places should be entered in upper and lower case letters, e.g. Richard Daniel Smith, not Richard Daniel SMITH, nor RICHARD DANIEL SMITH
  • For ease of reading click Tools/Preferences/Names and check the box for Surnames in Caps, so they show in caps, but don't enter them that way so you have the choice of showing them in caps or not 
• PLACES -- places should be entered completely from smallest to largest jurisdiction, e.g. "City, County, State, Country", separated by comma-space (the spaces are for uniformity and easier reading)
  • PAF 5 will allow you to use more than 4 fields and some locations require more than 4 fields
  • Names and places should be complete and uniform
  • No abbreviations, except "USA" -- spell it out so no confusion; e.g., Does "CO" mean Colorado or County?  Does "CA" mean California or Central America?  Does DE mean Delaware or Germany (Deutschland)?
  • Include country to avoid problems -- e.g., Does "Georgia" mean the state or the country?  Use "Georgia, USA" to avoid confusion.
  • Places should normally be entered as at time of the event -- see PAF 5.2 Users Guide, p 45 by clicking on the PAF Help/Users Guide
    • Most people don't follow this rule completely, e.g. they write Woburn, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA, for a location in the 1600's even though there was no USA before 1789
    • Crucial thing is so someone can find the location and records -- can include information on county changes in the notes
  • Get exact places, where possible
    • If you don't have proof of the place yet, but you know there is some connection, put "of, [Town], [County], [State], [Country]", or "of, , [County], [State], [Country]"
      • Separate the "of" by a comma so the place alphabetizes near where it belongs instead of with the O's -- also TempleReady might not recognize it
    • Dates and places that are inside angle brackets, < ,  ,  ,>, have been computer estimated, as in the Ancestral File -- It helps to change them to "Abt xxxx" and "of, ..." until you find the exact data.
      
    • Until you find the exact date for birth and marriage it helps to distinguish people by putting "Abt [year]" in birth and marriage fields
      • For rules to estimate dates for birth and marriage (if you know they were married),  see A Member's Guide to Temple and FH Work (white booklet), pages 11-12
      • DON'T send use these "Abt" dates for temple work, unless you can't find the exact dates with reasonable effort
    • For temple work include all dates and information you can find for the person (birth, christening, marriage, death, and burial dates) since these are included and indexed in the IIGI, so someone searching the IIGI on any of these will find the completed ordinances.
• TEMPLE CODES
  • Temple codes are 4 or 5 characters -- old temple codes were two letters
  • See a list of temple codes, both old and new on  http://www.geocities.com/rgpassey/temple/abclist.htm
  • The pick list of temple codes in any temple field in PAF 5.2 is only up to about 2004.

• File structure errors -- computer science type errors -- You have no control over these and they creep in from various operations.
• Run File/Check-Repair/CHECK (Note:  It's Check-Repair/CHECK, NOT Check-Repair/CHECK-REPAIR at first) and look at the report to see if your database has any structure errors
• DON'T run the File/Check-Repair/CHECK-REPAIR option until you know there are no structure errors involving notes for any individual since there is a bug in PAF 5.2
  
  • If file structure errors exist, but none involve notes for any individual, then you are safe to run the CHECK-REPAIR option to try to repair it
  • If file structure errors exist, and any involve notes for individuals, don't run the CHECK-REPAIR option since there is a bug in PAF 5.2 and it may disconnect the notes from some individuals -- correct your database with other methods, e.g. PAF Insight ( http://www.ohanasoftware.com ) or try GEDCOM'ing everything out and into a new database
• PAF Insight will correct some file structure errors that PAF and vice versa -- PAF Insight doesn't have the notes problem
• Always check your file for structure errors before exporting any data or clearing names for temple or working on data errors

• KINDS OF ERRORS
  • Data errors -- duplicate names, sources, or repositories, typos, logical data errors, "loops", incomplete places, places not separated by commas, county not shown, abbreviations
  • Many location errors can be corrected without much research since they are misspellings, wrong jurisdictions, etc.
  • Errors in dates usually take more research to correct
  • A good long-range goal is to verify and get copies and enter sources for each piece of data in your file
  • For large databases there are additional complications -- see my notes Working With Large Databases on Don's Class Listings page on http://uvpafug.org
• FINDING AND CORRECTING DUPLICATES
  •  Several ways to find and correct duplications -- PAF's Tools/Match-Merge, PAF Insight -- http://www.ohanasoftware.com , GenMerge -- http://www.genmerge.com/ 
  • Merging is a "dangerous" operation and can't be undone without going to a backup -- always make a backup before any merging -- see my Basic PAF class notes on Don's Class Listings
  • Finding duplicates in a large database may be difficult since names may be spelled slightly differently and not alphabetize near each other at all
  • http://www.namethesaurus.com/ -- a website that shows surname and given name variant spellings, plus Soundex and Metaphone codes
  • Merging duplicate sources in PAF -- run Tools/Match-Merge Duplicate Sources and Citations
    • Sources and repositories have to be spelled exactly the same, before they will merge -- may have to edit them to be exactly the same before you can get them to merge
  • Other programs may help in merging sources, e.g. http://www.rootsmagic.com 
• FINDING LOGICAL DATA ERRORS
  • POSSIBLE PROBLEMS REPORT in PAF -- Print/Lists/Possible Problems/
    • Do a Preview of this list (Print/Lists/Possible Problems/Preview) and begin correcting errors, e.g. "Children in a family are in wrong birth order" or "Child was born before its mother", etc.
    • Can save Problems list as a text file so you can have it opened in WordPad while you are making corrections in PAF
      • Click Print/Lists/Possible Problems/Print-to-File (lower right side of screen), then Print -- save it as "problems.rtf" file (a rich text file),
      • Remake this list periodically, clear WordPad, and load the new list showing the changes you have already made
    • Can change some options of what PAF shows as errors -- click on Options button on Print Menu before you run Possible Problems list
  • LOOPS in the data, e.g. someone who is linked as their own ancestor
    • PAF 5.2 won't indicate loops, but a few other programs will
      • PAF Companion 5.2 (bundled with PAF 5.2 CD) -- do a Pedigree Chart preview and it will stop on RIN's that are in loops
      • GenMerge finds loops in preparing file for merging -- http://www.genmerge.com 
    • Can check Possible Problems report to see if a child was born when parents were not appropriate ages -- sometimes very difficult to find loops in your data
    • To cut a loop, unlink the child from the parents where the first "repeat" occurs
• FINDING PLACE NAME ERRORS
  • SETTING COLUMNS IN INDIVIDUAL VIEW to find problems
    • In Individual View you can set the columns to show data you want -- may see some obvious spelling errors or no county shown, etc. 
    • To select the columns to view in Individual View, right-click any column heading to open menu, then left-click Add or Modify Columns, and select the columns you want
      • Move items between the left and right panes by the arrows ">" and "<"
      • Move items up or down in the right pane to get the order you want the columns in; then click OK
    • Can control width of columns by dragging the column title separators right or left
    • Can also move entire columns by dragging and dropping their headings right or left
    • Can sort the data by RIN's or alphabetically by clicking in title bars of those two columns -- second click there reverses the sort order
    • Limitations of Individual View
      • Can't sort the data by any column except RIN's or alphabetically
      • Can't show marriage places nor dates
      • Other programs will show these, e.g. GENViewer (see below in Tools paragraph)
    • Use Individual View to see if names or places are entered in mixed case
      • Go to Tools/Preferences/Names and uncheck Show Surnames in Caps
      • If surnames or places still show as capitalized, except for temple codes, they were entered in caps -- To change all, see Changing to Mixed Case in paragraph below
  • PLACE SORTED LIST in PAF to find problems with places
    • To find problems in places, can generate a Places Sorted Alphabetically list
    • Preview the Places Sorted Alphabetically list by Print/Lists/Places Sorted Alphabetically/Preview
    • Can save this Places list as a text file by checking Print-to-File (lower right hand side of screen), then Print -- save it as "places.rtf" file (a rich text file) and it opens in WordPad
    • Use it to find corrections needed, do some corrections, remake the list, then clear WordPad and load the new list
    • If the Places Sorted Alphabetically list doesn't show the RIN's, go to Tools/Preferences/Names and tell PAF you want RIN's appended to names -- then remake the Places Sorted Alphabetically list
  • OTHER PROGRAMS TO FIND PLACE ERRORS (see details in later paragraphs in these notes)
    • PAF INSIGHT -- free for FHC's -- very helpful viewer and editor -- http://www.ohanasoftware.com 
      • Shows alphabetical listing of all locations in your PAF database and you can correct them to be uniform
      • Limitation is that PAF Insight doesn't find place errors -- you have to find them some other way 
    • U.S. CITIES GALORE2 -- free for FHC's --  http://www.uscitiesgalore.com/ -- viewer and editor, but only works on GEDCOM's
    • FAMILY ATLAS -- free for FHC's -- viewer, not an editor -- http://www.familyatlas.com 
    • MAP MY FAMILY TREE (used to be WORLD PLACE ADVISOR) ($40) -- http://www.progenygenealogy.com/ 
      • Finds location errors in your PAF, Legacy, FamilyTreeMaker, or other type file
      • Checks spelling, counties, provinces, ambiguities
      • Has 3 million towns and cities world-wide in its database and you can others
      • Viewer, not an editor, so it finds the location errors, but you use your genealogy program to fix them
    • GENVIEWER -- free version for FHC's -- http://www.mudcreeksoftware.com/ -- viewer, not an editor
      • Very helpful program to find errors in data, e.g. you can set columns to show any data and sort on any column to find problems
      • Runs on PAF files, GEDCOM's, Legacy, Family Tree Maker, and other genealogy programs
      • Can download and try out the full version free for 15 days
      • Also does Internet searches on selected data
      • See my notes on Working With Large Databases on Don's Class Listings page on http://uvpafug.org  for many uses to find data errors

• You can correct anything by hand, but there are easier ways to do many things.
• PAF PAL
  • Commercial program ($18), but FHC's can buy one copy and get permission to put it on all their computers
  • Contact the Steve Cannon family at http://www.cannonfam.org/pafpal/ or buy it from http://www.ohanasoftware.com
  • PAF 5.2 requires PAF Pal 5.1 (PAF 4 requires the older PAF Pal 2.3)
  • Has to be installed on the computer with PAF and then runs from inside PAF 5.2 by clicking on Tools/PAF Pal
  • Has many uses, including expanding or contracting names for states, Canadian provinces, British counties; add/delete "USA", remove "Submitted's" and/or all LDS data; change temple codes; change names or parts of names -- can do any of these by hand, but then you have to do each of the 50 states one at a time -- PAF Pal does them all at once
  • PAF Pal only recognizes and changes to or from standard postal abbreviations for U.S. states, e.g. MA, not Mass, nor even MA. (MA followed by a period) 
  • For British counties and Canadian provinces it uses the 4-letter codes that the FHL uses, not the standard Chapman country and county codes, and it does not work for counties in Scotland, Wales, Channel Islands, and Isle of Man since it thinks they are in England instead of being countries in the UK
• MIXED CASE -- names and places should be entered in mixed case with large and small letters
  • To change names to mixed case, first run PAF Pal to expand all state names and remove USA from all entries (details below in Auxiliary Tools)
  • Run Tools/Change Names and Places to Mixed Case -- reason for spelling out state names and removing USA before you change to mixed case is so that it doesn't change things like MA to Ma and USA to Usa, or you will have to correct those later
  • US Cities Galore (see below) will also change places to mixed case in a GEDCOM, but won't operate on a PAF database
  • After correcting names and places go back to Tools/Preferences/Names and turn Capitalize Surnames back on, so surnames are easy to read
• CORRECTIONS USING THE PICK ARROWS
  • If only a few RIN's need the same place correction, do the following
    • Find an individual and correct the problem place
    • Go to another field needing the same place, and click on the pick arrow (small inverted triangle) at the right end of the line -- shows the last 15 places you entered with the one you just corrected at the top
    • Select the correct place and press Enter to copy it into the place field
    • Repeat this for other fields needing that same place
  • This works well when there are only a few places needing that correction and you know which ones they are
• CORRECTIONS USING GLOBAL SEARCH AND REPLACE
  • If many RIN's need the same correction, or if you don't know how many or which ones need it, use Global Search and Replace
  • Be sure you have a current backup before using this option
  • Locate an individual needing the correction, highlight and right-click to copy the incorrect data into the clipboard
  • Go to Tools/Global Search and Replace, and paste the incorrect data into the Find field and also into the Replace With field, but then correct it in the Replace With field and click Replace -- will change all instances of the incorrect data of that type in any place field, whether you know the RIN's needing it or not
  • Check the "Case Sensitive" box and "Show Report" in Global Search and Replace to be able to see all the changes it made
  • Look over the corrections-done list and run Global Search and Replace again if they aren't what you want.
  • Be careful using this options since it is easy to make mistakes -- but you can always search for the mistakes and correct them
• CORRECTIONS USING PAF INSIGHT
  • Place Corrections feature is very helpful in PAF Insight to make all places uniform -- available from http://www.ohanasoftware.com 
  • PAF Insight shows you an alphabetical list of every place in your database, but does not find the place errors
  • When highlighting a place the window in upper right shows which individuals' events use that place
  • Can edit the place there in the list or can drag-and-drop places to others to correct
  • This changes all occurrences of that location in the entire database, so when it is saved it has the corrections in it
• CORRECTIONS USING US CITIES GALORE2 (Version 2, May 2005)
  • Commercial program ($30), but free for FHC's -- http://uscitiesgalore.com
  • Only runs on GEDCOM's (not PAF files) and checks U.S. information, i.e. cities in counties, counties in states
  • Can copy and paste any of the data from USCG into your PAF or other database
  • Has an internal place database of about 300,000 U.S. cities, counties, and states
  • Does some automatic checking and correcting for you
    • Checks spelling and counties, changes all caps to mixed case, and sets spacing correctly
    • But first use PAF Pal to remove USA before making the GEDCOM, since it doesn't know what to do with USA -- shows all non-U.S. locations and anything with USA on the end as errors -- plans for new version recognizing USA on the end
    • Suggests changes automatically -- shows columns of the way you had the places and what it thinks you might want
      
    • Doesn't make the changes in your GEDCOM until you save it -- save the GEDCOM with a new name so you don't wipe out the old GEDCOM in case you want to go back to it
    • Can then have it open the corrected GEDCOM and analyze that, so you can correct more locations
    • USCG expands state abbreviations and makes the spacing uniform
    • The location columns can be sorted alphabetically by clicking on the column headings -- makes finding and correcting problems very easy, but only works on GEDCOM's
    • Has a "global search and replace" function for the GEDCOM's "corrected locations" and this works even on non-U.S. places -- very helpful

• INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES -- http://www.google.com , http://www.yahoo.com/ , http://www.msn.com/ , http://www.dogpile.com 
  • Typing misspelled locations into many search engines asks if you meant the correct place, e.g. do a search for "Illinoin" and you get "Did you mean Illinois?"
  • Also helpful to find county, e.g. type in "Nauvoo Illinois county" (without the quotes) and you get Hancock County
  • Also Google maps -- type Sandbach England into maps.google.co.uk and you get Sandbach, Cheshire 
• FHLC -- FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY CATALOG
  • Use Search by Place, type in city, and if FHL has any records from there, you will see county and state
  • Online version at  http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp is updated daily
  • Also gives a brief history of U.S. county formation, and countries -- click on Related Places
• GETTY MUSEUM THESAURUS from Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, California -- very helpful web site to find info about places world-wide
  • http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/
  • To find this web site without having to remember this URL, do a Google search -- http://www.google.com -- for "Getty Thesaurus" and it comes up at or near the top
  • Getty Thesaurus gives all places, rivers, mountains, etc., containing that name world-wide
  • Shows a hierarchy of the places from smallest jurisdiction to largest; historical names of the location and geographical coordinates
  • Can copy and paste this data into your PAF notes, if you want
  • Black entries at bottom of note are old names of current locations
• FUZZY GAZETTEER -- http://tomcat-dmaweb1.jrc.it/fuzzyg/query/?q
  • Shows places with spellings near what you have
• NORTH AMERICA -- maps and gazetteers
  • U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY (GNIS) -- http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic  
    • Gives U.S. places, includes "inhabited places" (cities), rivers, mountains, etc.
  • COLUMBIA GAZETTEER OF NORTH AMERICA -- http://www.bartleby.com/69/ 
    • Text-form information about places -- can be copied and pasted into notes and sources
• BRITISH ISLES -- maps and gazetteers
  • SAMUEL LEWIS' TOPOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY (GAZETTEER) OF 1848 -- http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.asp?pubid=445
  • FREE PDF 1833 MAPS AND INDEXES OF U.K. PARISHES -- http://www.sgenealogy.com/products/atlase/maplist.htm
  • PARISH LOCATER FOR WINDOWS - download and install -- http://web.onetel.net.uk/~gdlawson/parfind.htm -- has 25,000 parishes, their counties, and when records began in that parish
  • PARLOC 2.6 - download and install -- http://parloc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/parlocdl.html -- has 15,000 parishes and counties, will draw map of surrounding parishes

• List of temple codes, both old and new, on http://www.geocities.com/rgpassey/temple/abclist.htm
• Three ways to determine which incorrect temple codes you have in your PAF database
  1. Use GENViewer with the columns set to show the ordinance temples and sort on these columns -- incorrect codes show up alphabetically between correct ones
  2. Make a GEDCOM of entire file and import it into a new temporary database -- listing file for the import will show the incorrect temple codes, but not in order and will repeat the incorrect ones each time they occur
  3. Make a custom report -- select all individuals with any ordinance done and have the report show RIN, Name, Sex, Baptism Temple, Endowment Temple, Sealing to Parents Temple, and Sealing to Spouse Temple
     • Sort the custom report on Baptism Temple, save it to a text file, and open it in Wordpad -- incorrect Baptism Temple codes show up alphabetically between the correct ones -- make the corrections by Global Search and Replace on Temple Codes
     • After correcting the codes in the Baptism Temple list, remake the custom report and sort it on the Endowment Temple to find more incorrect ones; correct these, and repeat this for the Sealing to Parents Temple -- each correction made carries over to the other fields
     • Note:  The custom report in PAF 5.2 will not sort correctly on the Sealing to Spouse Temple (bug in PAF 5.2), so you have to look over that list without it being alphabetized, but most of the incorrect temple codes will have already been found and corrected from the earlier sortings

• Cleaning up your database is a never-ending process and needs repeating regularly.
• There are many other procedures, e.g. how to find duplicates in large databases, how to change sources from Notes into real Sources -- see more ideas and procedures in my notes on Working With Large Databases on Don's Class Listings page on http://uvpafug.org 

1. Form a Places Sorted Alphabetically list from your PAF database and look through it to recognize some errors you have.
2. Use the Family History Library Catalog to find the county for some parish in the U.K. or town in the U.S. .
3. Use PAF Insight and/or US Cities Galore 2 (Go to a FHC.) on your database to see and correct some place errors.
4. Check the temple codes in your database and correct the ones needed.
   

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Return to Don's Class Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley PAF Users Group .