Re: PAF-5-USERS Digest, Vol 6, Issue 30 I have been off line and unavailable for about 5-6 months and wonder in the past two days all this talk of PAF, Brothers Keeper and FTM, etc. I guess I've missed something. Is PAF-5 not going to be supported? Will it still be workable? Sorry to be so in the dark. Also, a question. I have all these back-ups in my back-up folder and on my PAF flash drive. If I am confident that my data and program is correct, when can I delete 'some' of these back-ups. Or is it imperative that I keep them all? Each time I backed up, was because I made or added changes in people or sources, etc. So each back up is different. I hope... Carol

Carol, I expect PAF to be supported for a few years to come. (After all, FamilySearch is still providing support for the DOS version of PAF.) And PAF will continue to work as it always has. But it will not do anything new. The good news is that when you some day decide you really need genealogy software that does new things, some of the best new programs can import your PAF files directly without needing to go through gedcom. (i.e. Instead of opening the file with PAF, you open it with AncestralQuest, RootsMagic, or Legacy.) If your PAF file has no problems, you can probably get rid of the oldest backups. They likely don't have anything that the newer backups don't have. Maybe firstly run Check/Repair 3 or 4 times, or until PAF finds no further errors. (If you restore a backup, I suggest you restore it to a different folder so that it doesn't overwrite your current data file, in case you want to compare them.) These are just a few thoughts. Others in this group may have other insights. Bill Buchanan On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Lorac <radford2@bellsouth.net> wrote: > Re: PAF-5-USERS Digest, Vol 6, Issue 30 > > I have been off line and unavailable for about 5-6 months and wonder in the > past two days all this talk of PAF, Brothers Keeper and FTM, etc. I guess > I've missed something. Is PAF-5 not going to be supported? Will it still > be workable? Sorry to be so in the dark. > > Also, a question. I have all these back-ups in my back-up folder and on my > PAF flash drive. If I am confident that my data and program > > is correct, when can I delete 'some' of these back-ups. Or is it imperative > that I keep them all? Each time I backed up, was because I made or added > changes in people or sources, etc. So each back up is different. I > hope... > > Carol > > > > > > >

On 02/20/2011 07:33 PM, Lorac wrote: > Re: PAF-5-USERS Digest, Vol 6, Issue 30 > > I have been off line and unavailable for about 5-6 months and wonder in the > past two days all this talk of PAF, Brothers Keeper and FTM, etc. I guess > I've missed something. Is PAF-5 not going to be supported? Will it still > be workable? Sorry to be so in the dark. > > Also, a question. I have all these back-ups in my back-up folder and on my > PAF flash drive. If I am confident that my data and program > > is correct, when can I delete 'some' of these back-ups. Or is it imperative > that I keep them all? Each time I backed up, was because I made or added > changes in people or sources, etc. So each back up is different. I hope... > > Carol PAF 5 is not changing. There is nothing that will stop the copy you have from working. But in a future version of familysearch.org it will no longer be available for download. So if you want to have a copy available to install on some new PC someday down the road you should save a copy of the install file. The only thing that might prevent you from using PAF in the future is if some future version of Windows causes it to misbehave. But that is probably unlikely. ---------- As for backups -- the only thing you would need a very old copy of your back up for is if you discovered that some part of your current data was corrupted, and as you search your recent backups you find that they are all corrupted in the same way. In that case you would be wanting to search back until you find the last version that isn't corrupted. But then you have the problem of rebuilding all the changes you have made since that time. There isn't a simple solution for that kind of situation. If you found that data for 5 families got messed up a year and a half ago, would you go back to your saved back-up from 1.5 years ago and then try to update that saved data with all the changes you have made in the last 1.5 years? Or would you be more inclined to take what you've got and just fix the damaged data? What if you found that certain aspects of 2000 individual records got messed up 2 years ago. Would you want to rebuild from the last good backup? Or would you prefer to patch up the current data? Anytime you revert to a very old backup you are faced with the challenge of redoing all the changes and additions you made since that back-up date. These are some of the factors a person might consider when they are deciding how long they should keep their backups.

Lorac wrote: > Re: PAF-5-USERS Digest, Vol 6, Issue 30 > > I have been off line and unavailable for about 5-6 months and wonder in the > past two days all this talk of PAF, Brothers Keeper and FTM, etc. I guess > I've missed something. Is PAF-5 not going to be supported? Will it still > be workable? Sorry to be so in the dark. > PAF hasn't been updated in about 5 years; they first announced its imminent demise back in the 1990s. They moved all their time/effort/attention out of the commercial market into what became newFamilySearch, their on-line database. So long as your personal computer will run PAF5x, no need to change just because SLC isn't "supporting" it. > Also, a question. I have all these back-ups in my back-up folder and on my > PAF flash drive. If I am confident that my data and program > is correct, when can I delete 'some' of these back-ups. Or is it imperative > that I keep them all? Each time I backed up, was because I made or added > changes in people or sources, etc. So each back up is different. I hope... Hypothetically, you could delete every 2nd one. However, Hypos don't live long at my house. Back a decade or so ago, I was entering the content of a genealogy book (at the request of the author) into PAF 2.31. I backed up daily, and once more at the end of each chapter. In Chapter 8 --the longest in the book, the system kept giving me a bad pointer around 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through. When I finally gave in and went to backups, I ended up having to go back 8 backups (the first one I had from Ch.7) to find one that wasn't alleged to be corrupted. So, if you were to trudge over to a friend's place and try to restore each of your backups (starting with the most recent), you could find out if they are good. If they're not, you may as well delete them; if they are, then you could, maybe, feel safe deleting the older ones. /I/ wouldn't, but once-burnt=twice shy. (g) Cheryl