Thank you Bob and Bill. I have copied your letters and am learning. I did not know about the * and Windows. I just made a floppy gedcom of a small 22 individual file without a problem. I also used that file to do a Restore. I have been using PAF since maybe PAF2. I know I used PAF3 so I should be more knowledgeable. The problem I have now is that I seem to have lost some of the editing of places I did on PAFINSIGHT. I have now Restored from a flash drive of Nov. 19 which I made before I went to visit my son's family for a week at Thanksgiving. I have not done much since. I restored it on an old file from early August. It seems to be OK except for a few of the corrected spelling changes I made since Thanksgiving. I backup to my husband's computer, and send backups by email to my son in another state. I also use three flash drives. Occasionally I do a floppy, and I have some old Cd's. Yes, I was exploring under Preferences, to see if something had changed. I have never filled in the Folders section, because I can't seem to understand what to put there although you all have tried to explain it to me. Under templates "Individuals" is checked, but I don't know why. Is it better to check "Marriages". I'm afraid I rarely understand what I'm being told under "Help". I still have my PAF4 manual which is sometimes helpful. Is it wise to have one PAF file for a particular family that one works on, and restores on, but another for the same family that is completely static? I'd really panic if I didn't know I had this list to help me out. Again a big Thank you. LaVerne

----- Original Message ----- From: "LaVerne" <[email protected]> <snip> > > Is it wise to have one PAF file for a particular family that one works > on, and restores on, but another for the same family that is completely > static? > > I'd really panic if I didn't know I had this list to help me out. Again a > big Thank you. > > LaVerne > Based on the questions you have asked, I think it is best for people in your situation to have one file, period. By that I mean that if you are doing your own genealogy, you should have one file starting with yourself, then adding your ancestors (and/or descendents if desired). If you are also doing the work for your husband or someone else you *may* want to have a separate file for that line. You certainly *could* have other files for unique lines but the more files you have the more difficult it becomes to keep everything straight. I would NOT have another file that is kept static because that simply means it is out of date and incorrect, and many people accidentally add or delete from the wrong file and screw themselves up royally, ending up with some current data in one file and some in the other. Remember the KIS principle. Have your single working file, then use the backup function to make backups and simply save them. If you give the backups unique names by appending the date you can step back in time if you ever need to restore. But in general, unless you have a need to work with your file on a different computer such as at a FHC, or you mess up your working file, you should not need to be restoring *at all*. Your work flow should be like this. 1. Open your PAF file (will open to your file automatically if you simply close PAF at the end of each session, without closing the file itself first) 2. Do whatever work you want. The work is saved as you go, whenever you click save on an edit screen. 3. When you are ready to finish up, select File_Backup and make the backup file, naming as suggested above. You may need to modify the location where the backup file gets saved if you are using multiple kinds of media such as a flash drive and a floppy. 4. Close PAF The next time go through the same steps. Note that you do not need to restore anything, and there is no need to export or import gedcoms for routine work. Gary Templeman