PAF data entry

I am slowly getting to grips with PAF 5, and keep finding new
avenues to explore.

I understand that quite a lot is down to personal preference, but
I would be interested to hear the views of those who are more
experienced than I am, before I have gone too far down the wrong
path.

I can see that using a single source reference for each census
year makes sense, with the detail in the citation. What about,
say, Birth Certificates? Should they be under a single source,
or each one listed separately?

Jenny M Benson...

I don't use PAF (I use Legacy) but good database design (and a genealogy
program like PAF or Legacy is basically a database) dictates that you
don't put repeating data into separate fields.

In this case, "Birth Certificate" is repeating data and only the details
such as Certificate No and the name of the baby are unique. Thus, you
would have a single reference "Birth Certificate" and put the individual
details in the citation section.

Charles Ellson...

Not forgetting that in England and Wales each register entry has two
possible references depending on whether the GRO or local one is being
used; it is thus necessary to specify which style applies to a
particular entry (as both origins are likely to be involved in one set
of records) to avoid future confusion when others might be reading the
information.

Well, that's what I do, anyway!

The program help file says to use custom fields for address and
occupation, but this is difficult when they change during a
lifetime. Presumably they can also legitimately be put either in

Roger Mills \(aka Set Square\)...

Please yourself. But it did immediately follow - and was in the same context
of - a question about entering information from censuses. There ain't much
of that available for people who are currently alive!

citation comments or an individual's notes?

myths...

One can have multiple address/occupation fields, I believe.

I started usiing custom fields in PAF.

When I changed to Legacy, I also changed to putting the details in
Notes, for two reasons:

a) more chance of getting through GEDCOM when exchanging between
programs

b) I like to read everything at once when really looking at a person -
each person's notes become a complete essay..

(The danger is that it then all too easy to wipe out eveything one has
collected about a person

Also, one has to indicate brief details of souces for the different
information within the notes, even if the full sources are allocated
to the notes in general.)

Chris J Dixon...

I wasn't really thinking about the living, rather how to record
details of dwellings and occupations from the various sources,
which for many people change during their lives.