Wednesday, March 12, 2008

PAF is only mostly-dead

Gordon Clarke read an official statement at the FamilySearch Developers Conference today announcing future migration paths available to users of the venerable PAF genealogy software. Once New FamilySearch (NFS) is fully available, PAF users will have several migration options available. Users can perform a one-time transfer of their data to NFS, which like PAF, will be free. Or users can purchase a commercial genealogy program, many of which are currently developing support for NFS. Also at the conference, it was announced that a group of developers has created an extension to the PAF database file format allowing continued use of PAF files with the new capabilities of NFS. Commercial programs equipped with this extension will be able to support existing PAF files while simultaneously providing the advantages and new features of NFS.

The announcement is essentially an end-of-life announcement for PAF and puts to rest rumors that PAF was dead already as well as rumors that FamilySearch would make one more release of PAF with New FamilySearch support.

The first annual FamilySearch Developers Conference continues today through 5:30pm at Brigham Young University (BYU). Tomorrow BYU hosts the Family History Technology Workshop followed by the Computerized Family History and Genealogy Conference on Friday and Saturday.

8 comments:

  1. NFS is delayed in our area... but the word on the street is that it doesn't have export capabilities (yet).... If PAF is dead when will export be offered.

    What's a good place to read up on what other genealogy program's NFS features do?

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  2. What if I don't want to leave PAF? I have used it for nearly 20 years back to version 2.0. I have tried others: Brother's Keeper, FTM, Legacy, Family Tree Legends and keep going back to PAF. Does this mean I won't be able to use the new Family Search?

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  3. I totally agree with anonymous about other genie software. Maybe we are just 'old dogs' that don't or won't learn 'new tricks.' What are we to do?

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  4. One can continue to use whatever software you want to use. All that changes is that one may not be able to interact online with the New Familysearch (I have seen it demo'ed recently).

    I am going to continue using Reunion on my Mac. Nothing changes.

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  5. There was an announcement few months ago from FamilySearch.....

    3 programs approved to be installed in Family History Library and centers at a later date:

    Ancestral Quest
    RootsMagic
    Legacy

    I have not seen any other announcements concerning any other programs.

    PAF is very closest match to Ancestral Quest, after all it was the programmers at AQ who wrote the PAF in first place.

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  6. Hi all. I recently learned about Ancestral Quest (I've been a PAF user from the beginning). Since I'm a FHC consultant in our area and we're awaiting the roll out of nFS, I've had the past few months to interact with nFS and was surprised to find Ancestral Quest VERY much like nFS with it's collaboration capabilities. I wouldn't be surprised to see a migration to AQ due to this.

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  7. Charting Companion for FamilySearch™ will also be converted from its predecessor, PAF Companion.

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  8. Thanks to all of you for your comments. I have a followup that addresses much of your concerns. See The Future of PAF.

    The Ancestry Insider

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