To the person asking about backups -- first of all you likely cannot have too many. Personally I back up after every hour or two of data entry both to my hard drive and to an Iomega Zip disk. That way there is one backup file on the computer's hard drive and one off the computer should the hard drive fail. Before my database became too large for a single floppy disk, I backed up there as well. Backing up to a cd is fine, but for beginners, it is easier to use a floppy or zip disk because you can backup to them directly. You can choose a particular directory for your data and backups, or just let those on the hard drive go to the default directory that FO uses, which I believe is the "My Documents" folder. It is always good to keep a series of backups over a period of time in case the database somehow becomes corrupted and you need to go back a week, month, etc. For database health, once you have done a lot of editing it is good to "pack" the database. Doing this regularly helps in cutting down the likelihood your data will become corrupted. Always back up before merging or packing your database, so if something went wrong with one of those events, you could simply restore your last backup and get back to normal. In addition to using gedcoms to share FO data in other genealogy programs, I also create gedcoms as a "super" form of packing. When you create a gedcom, it renumbers the people in the database that were eliminated by merges or deleting individuals. Every month or two I make a gedcom of my database, delete the original one and import the gedcom. Do this with care, however, and DO NOT do it if you have user defined events and sentence structure because you will have to go back in and create them. It never hurts to keep a series of gedcom files along with your backups just in case something goes wrong. Occasionally we read of someone who cannot get their backup file to work, but they could use the gedcom file they made Keeping copies at work or on a friends computer can be further insurance in case of a fire or similar catastrophe. Margaret Scheffler