FAQ's from the Warwickshire list

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SOME TIPS FOR the LDS PAF program:

a) Go into the Internet:
Go to; The FamilySearch Site
Click on; Order Family History Resources
Click on; Software Downloads - Free
Follow the instructions to download Personal Ancestral File 4.0.4

Be prepared to take some time, maybe ½ hour to download the program. 
It is a very large program but well worth it.

The objective is to download the program to a file (see below) on the
computer so that one can keep it for ever, as a backup. Do not expect to
put it on a Floppy Diskette since it is very large; about 5.75Mb.

Save it, likely to a ZIP drive or onto the C hard drive. However NOTE, if
the plan is to save it to C drive, one must 1st create a file/folder to do
so. I suggest before downloading, create a new file/folder using File,
Create a New Folder and call it PAF-Files. Later if needed, it is a good
place to store other instructions for working with PAF.
After it is saved to, ZIP or C:/PAF-Files, it will be named PafSetup.exe.
It is a compressed file and must be executed before using.

b) Then close down all other files and go into Start, Programs, Windows
Explorer to load the PAF4 program onto the C drive as a Genealogy program.

It will then automatically save the program in C:/Program Files/FamilySearch 
and will provide an Icon on the Desk Top, so it can be easily accessed when desired.

c) To setup Preferences
Following are my Preference which can be changed later if you desire.
Go to Tools and click on Preferences; 9 Tabs will appear so make the
following changes to the information under each tab.
General; by clicking, ensure a dot ( ) is in RIN, European and that a
checkmark ( ) is in Verify new names, Capitalize surnames, Treat Enter key
as Tab and Allow AFN edit.File; put a dot in Last used.
Info Box; put a dot in Dates and family information, in 2 places.
Prepared by; fill this out with what personal information you can.
Fonts; change 3 locations to Arial Normal 10 pt.
Multimedia; forget about this until you start to input pictures to your data.
Formats; put a dot in Initials, in 3, in DMY and in Space. Change the
Place Level Importance to, Smallest towards Largest Folders; 
in Backup type in, B:\, unless you have a ZIP drive, in which case
insert the drive letter. This sets up the ability to use drive B with a
floppy disk, for saving a backup every time you use the program.

Then click OK and you are ready to start entering your data for each person (RIN#)

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The Genuki pages for the UK in general and 
Warwickshire in particular carry a great deal of information and many 
useful links, including those to Cyndi's List. To add to his very 
helpful mailing, may I suggest that anyone wishing to research their 
UK ancestors go to SoG , visit the bookshop, and order 
a copy of Colin D. Rogers' 'The Family Tree Detective'. This is the 
most consistently-recommended book for the beginner on all lists, for 
the very good reason that it's comprehensive, highly-readable, and 
doesn't make any assumptions. It costs £9.95 (or did the last time I 
checked), and is worth every penny. The only book that carries more 
information costs 3 times the price. The SoG takes credit card 
payments, which is great for overseas buyers. They also stock umpteen 
smaller books covering more specific topics (e.g., was your ancestor 
a railwayman, a gipsy, a nonconformist, ad infinitum).

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The IGI is great as long as you can get back to around 1837. Civil 
registration began in this year, and IGI coverage for most counties 
tails off afterwards. The big problem for overseas listers is access 
to census information and Birth, Death and Marriage registers. It's 
my understanding (though I am, as usual, open to correction) that LDS 
centres have fiches of the BDM indexes.

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Only the 1851 and 1881 censuses are nationally indexed; the 1841 
census is partially indexed (but not, to the best of my knowledge, 
for Warwickshire) ditto the '61, '71, and '91. The '91 census for 
Birmingham and several other locations in Warwickshire has been 
indexed by a private individual who charges a very modest fee for 
surname searches (details on the Genuki Warwickshire index).

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If your ancestors were from Birmingham, Lichfield Record Office has 
marriage licences, will indexes, etc. up to about 1850 (Birmingham 
was part of the Lichfield diocese until the late 19thC, when it was 
transferred to Worcester, prior to becoming a diocese in its own 
right early this century).

You should write to:

The Archivist-in-Charge
Lichfield Record Office
Lichfield Library
The Friary
Lichfield
Staffordshire
WS13 6QG

There is no email address on their latest leaflet.

They charge £8.00 per half hour on orders where a search is 
necessary. This may not sound cheap, but compares very favourably 
with what professional researchers charge. You can also rest assured 
that you will not get ripped off (sadly, if predictably, it seems 
that quite a few cowboys are getting in on the act). You will be 
amazed (as was I) at what a professional archivist can dig out in an 
hour -- I requested a couple of marriage licences, got them, and also 
IGI references to the families involved, including one crucial one to 
my BRUFFs that I'd somehow managed to overlook in my own trawlings. 
Do write first, explaining precisely what information you are seeking 
-- as far as I know they do not make a charge for telling you what 
they can and cannot find out for you.

Birmingham Central Library also has a wealth of resources.

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Parts of present-day Birmingham were until early this 
century Worcestershire -- e.g. King's Norton, and their records are 
at the Worcester CRO.

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For location: If you have the placename or post code go to 
Multimap. You can adjust the scale with the pull down menu. 
The 10,000 scale gives street names. If you have the street name, go to 
Street Search. Enter the street name and 
town/city, click on search. Note the postcode and then go to multimap.

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Try to limit the posting to one question or lookup request, perhaps with a 
few closely related facets or sub-questions When there are many unrelated 
questions it is daunting because I know it will take a whole evening's work 
to try to address this. Once you've got the first question wrestled to the 
ground you can always ask another.

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Give some idea of what, if anything you have already done. Nothing more 
frustrating than to trawl through the 1881 CDs for an hour or two, only to 
have the reply say, thanks, but I already looked there.

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If you are replying to a posting, use lots of empathy and s. Someone 
said earlier in this thread that we all started out sometime. How true. 
Replies that start off "you stupid clot" are not productive. Better to say 
"you probably already thought of this, but just in case..."

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If you are posting, state clearly what it is you are trying to find out. 
You would be amazed at the number of times I have sat down to try to answer a 
posting and couldn't figure this out. As a corollary to this, state clearly 
and succinctly what it is that you know that is applicable to this question. 
I have responded to questions about X, only to have a reply "thanks, but Y 
and Z". Why didn't they tell us Y and Z in the first place? This takes some 
thought and skill, as my general sense is there is lots of extraneous matter 
in some postings.


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PLEASE TRY TO ---SNIP--- THE ORIGINAL MESSAGE 
it is not good netiquette to post huge amounts of unnecessary text on
replies - just enough to pass over the message

(Hey I can SHOUT on this page, and no-one can do anything about it <VBG>)

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If you want to see the pages I've posted to my website, including great things
like a list of pubs in 1874 (thanks to Brian), photographers in Warwickshire
and my family tree / interface with other notorious Warwick families
come to Pickard's Warwick Pages

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