Difficulty producing GEDCOM files in PAF5

[ardy49]

I have a Windows XP PC and have always used the Family Search Personal Ancestry File (version 5.2.18.0) which has proved to be adequate for my research – namely full names, BMD information, places, notes for background information and reports.

A family member has just purchased a new iMac and I wish to let him have the details of my family history research. I thought this was going to be a simple matter of exporting the PAF5 files to GEDCOM before letting him have the GEDCOM file(s) for importing in to whatever program he might wish to use, PAWriter being one of those in mind.

However, whilst the PC PAF5 ‘Export’ window shows the options to export to various versions of PAF, TemplReady or ‘Other GEDCOM 5.5’, choosing any one of these and clicking ‘Export’ takes me to another window, which advises:

‘To create a GEDCOM file, you must provide at least the following information: Your name and at least two lines of a complete postal address. Press OK to add this information or Cancel to quit’.

Clicking OK then reveals a Preferences window showing the ‘Prepared by’ tab with my name already entered. I complete my address, click OK, and it reverts to the previous window detailed above: ‘To create a GEDCOM file, you must provide at least ….’. I then start to go round in circles being unable to proceed further than either of the two windows.

Is there something I am doing wrong, or could it be a failure with the PAF5 program on my PC?

[Howard Metcalfe]

Sept 29, 2010 6:10:30 GMT -5 ardy49 said:

I have a Windows XP PC and have always used the Family Search Personal Ancestry File (version 5.2.18.0) which has proved to be adequate for my research – namely full names, BMD information, places, notes for background information and reports.

A family member has just purchased a new iMac and I wish to let him have the details of my family history research. I thought this was going to be a simple matter of exporting the PAF5 files to GEDCOM before letting him have the GEDCOM file(s) for importing in to whatever program he might wish to use, PAWriter being one of those in mind.

However, whilst the PC PAF5 ‘Export’ window shows the options to export to various versions of PAF, TemplReady or ‘Other GEDCOM 5.5’, choosing any one of these and clicking ‘Export’ takes me to another window, which advises:

‘To create a GEDCOM file, you must provide at least the following information: Your name and at least two lines of a complete postal address. Press OK to add this information or Cancel to quit’.

Clicking OK then reveals a Preferences window showing the ‘Prepared by’ tab with my name already entered. I complete my address, click OK, and it reverts to the previous window detailed above: ‘To create a GEDCOM file, you must provide at least ….’. I then start to go round in circles being unable to proceed further than either of the two windows.

Is there something I am doing wrong, or could it be a failure with the PAF5 program on my PC?

No, you're doing nothing "wrong" and your PAF is just fine. I ran PAF 5.2.18.0 under Windows XP SP3 in my Parallels virtual machine on my Intel iMac and replicated your problem. The loop will occur unless you put in an address that looks like 1234 My Street in the first address line and Anytown, Massachusetts in the second address line. You should also probably enter your first and last name in the name line. Then PAF is happy, but don't ask me why.

Also, you should choose Other GEDCOM 5.5 export, and choose the ANSEL character set option, ignoring the warning about maybe losing some characters. ANSEL is the only standard GEDCOM character set but in PAWriter and most other recent Mac and PC genealogy programs, the UTF-8 character set will import just fine and you won't get that warning.

Best regards,
Howard

[ardy49]

Thanks, Howard. Followed your instructions and it worked first time! The only thing I changed was putting a comma after the name of my town and adding the county. The PAF instructions needed to be just a bit more explicit.

We now look to try PAW2 on the Mac. Thanks again for getting us out of the hole.