My History in Family History

First of all, this post is best read if you’re familiar with the concepts in my recent Primer on Family History. If you’re not familiar with my love for the pastime, or are just wondering how I got into it in the first place, check out that post. I hope you’ll find it informative.

So now, let’s deal with my personal history in family history programs. Back in 1991, when I first became a Christian, I was encouraged (like all members of the Church of Jesus Christ) to begin researching my family history. (Wonder why? You must not have read the Book of Jeffrey entry. Seriously, check it out!) ;-) I don’t remember how long it was before I learned of Personal Ancestral File 2.1 (or “PAF,” for short), but I immediately knew it would be a wise investment. You see, Personal Ancestral File was an application developed by the Church, designed to help people track their family history. It was quite crude, by today’s standards, but it was a great program at the time.

When I arrived home from my mission, I learned that PAF had been upgraded a few times, in my absence; and I quickly purchased the new version, PAF 2.3.1. That would turn out to be the last version released for Mac OS; Apple’s tremendous failure under Gil Amelio’s presidency had taken its toll, and the Church put all its resources into rewriting PAF for DOS as a Microsoft Windows–compatible program. (PAF for Windows would eventually reach version 5, but still never matched the customizability and ease of use of the Mac version.)

After a few years of no updates to PAF for Mac OS, I decided to contact the Church with my concerns. The Ms Windows version was obviously getting lots of attention, despite already being compatible with newer computers; yet the Mac version languished completely, though Apple’s switch to Mac OS X left it marooned in the Classic environment and thus somewhat unusable. The problem was that the switchboard operator at the Church office building didn’t know who to transfer me to, and neither, it seems, did anyone else. After 10-15 minutes of being transferred around, I finally heard on the other end of the line: “President Hinckley’s office.”

Suffice to say, that was not my intention, but it was a way to get things done. I’m sure my call was one of many, but I eventually had a chance to speak to Church CIO Joel Dehlin, who assured me that the Church was working on a web-based (and thus, OS-agnostic) version—the system we now know as New FamilySearch. Unfortunately, New FamilySearch puts all of your data in the cloud, which is obviously not the best place to have as your only copy of something this important. For this reason, the Church still recommends that each member use a family history application on his or her own computer, whether that be PAF (which has now spent several years languishing on both platforms) or some other, third party product.

So after all this, we get to the point it question. Check it out in The Empty Soda Can!