An interesting comment Joe - "It lasts well over 100 years" - and one that got me thinking about the "quality" of the different types of paper for printouts of PAF records and other genealogical needs. Paper certainly is one way of ensuring our records are available. For "how long" depends on our selection of papers to use. This site is an interesting one as it sets out a government viewpoint on how to select papers. While it is an Australian State site, the content would be appropriate to anywhere in the world: http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/publicsector/rk/rib/ribpaper.htm On that site, it refers to the National Archives of Australia's "Register of Products". This too is an interesting site and has some links to suppliers of archival record supplies: http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/preservation/aqt/approved.html There would be similar sites available for most countries detailing where archival quality paper can be purchased. The above sites may give you some guidance into what to look for in your country. The Zetta Florence Archival store has branches in the UK and New Zealand for example. So, besides "backing up" with printouts, we do need to be mindful of the "quality" of the paper we choose to use. Lance P. S. Check out Legacy Family Tree today! This full featured genealogy program can be downloaded FREE at http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Index.asp?mid=52583ii -----Original Message----- From: JosephCWright@cs.com [mailto:JosephCWright@cs.com] Sent: Tuesday, 19 April 2005 1:35 PM To: PAF-5-USERS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [PAF-5] Backup your data! Donna, My heartfelt condolences to you. It is a disaster to loose all of our hard work. I had a close call once, so I not only back-up, but I make paper print outs every so often of key information. You never know when a disk won't work or has a glitch, and you can bet it will be when you need to recover. Doing this saved me once. I could recover everything but my e-mails. But I had the print-outs and was saved from disaster. Paper is the hardiest of archival media currently in use. It lasts well over 100 years. Microfilm is expected to last 40 or so years, computer disks much less. I hope that with time you will be able to recover even more data. Take care. Joe Wright, Chicago ==== PAF-5-USERS Mailing List ==== PAF-5-USERS Mailing List http://www.ausbdm.org/p5uindex.php -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.16 - Release Date: 2005-04-18