Hello Albert You obviously belong to the 'other' Grulkes as well as the 'other' Schneiders. You seem to have the basis of a good story there. I hope to read it one day. Gedcoms are usually created out of 'File', 'Export' & then you have to work your way through the options. PAF5 has a miriad of options allowing you to split your data on family lines or, before a certain year or, by surname only & so on & so on. Family Tree Maker simply allows you to create a .ged of all your data. .ged files are compressed so that you send a smaller attachment. (the Bethania file contains 12,000 names & is approx 20 Megabyte. This compresses to 4 Mb as a .ged) They are generic files for genealogy software, ie a .ged created in one type of software can then be recreated in any other type of genealogy software. For backup purposes it is good to make a .ged of all your data & send it to somebody else to store on their computer. I have oodles of space on my hard drive and would be only to happy to receive .geds from yourself or other list members if they wish to lodge a backup .ged. If people have privacy concerns about sending their information to a stranger, I suggest they adopt a buddy system & lodge copies with each other. With all the viruses in the air & the ever present possibility of hard drives suffering a crash, it is a good idea to have a variety of backup systems. I suggest: 1. Always copy your file to a floppy disc after making changes. Floppies are cheap. When you fill up one, store it & start another. This is also a good way of keeping the history of your tree making. (Note: You must change the name each time by adding a subscript eg. Bethania.ftw, Bethania1.ftw, Bethania2.ftw etc.) 2. Regularly replace/update your primary file on your hard disc. Every couple of months or after adding large amounts of data, use 'File', 'Save as' to make a new copy on your hard drive. I use dates eg. Dec2001.paf as a file name. Then 'Save as' Feb2002.paf to start a new file to add new data. Keep the older files all in the same directory & if your current file is corrupted return to the latest copy & bring it up to date. 3. Send a copy to a friend. It can simply be your working file eg. Dec2001.paf or export it to Dec2001.ged if you have a large file & want to compress it to save download time. Enough of the lesson, but I would like to make one point about viruses. They are like the common cold. We don't know where they start, we are all susceptible to them & sometimes we innocently pass them on. Russell Greig Cleveland