Christopher Ungate

ChristopherUngate

I have a .paf file from over 15 years ago. I would like to access it and begin work again on my family tree. How can I access it? I would at least like to get a paper copy of the data. Ideally I would like to be able to load the data for each family member electronically. Can I do this through family search? Do I need third party software? If so, do you have any recommendations?

darlog

Thank you @ChristopherUngate for this question and for using the Community. Yes, this will take a third party software to convert your PAF file into a GEDCOM to submit it to Familysearch. To select the third party program we suggest you go to familysearch.org and scroll to the bottem of the page to select "solutions gallery." Then open up "FamilySearch Solutions Gallery." Then select from the drop down menu "Family Tree Management."

From there you can read what each partner has to offer and especially one that will take the PAF progrm.

We hope that this will help you with this issue. If it doesn't answer your question please reply and we will try again.

AllanH01

A .paf file is a type of file that the program Personal Ancestor File used. As you probably already know support for PAF ended in 2013. However, there is limited assistance still available.

Some of our partners have software that can read the .paf file and convert it to their current format and make it readable. Go to Solutions Gallery and select Family Tree Management for partners that can read the .paf file. There are some of them that have free limited versions that will read the file.

If the data is on an old floppy disk here is another solution

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-recover-my-old-files-from-a-floppy-disk

Good Hunting.

Amy Archibald

Check out Ancestral Quest. It is the program from which PAF was created and is available in a free version. https://www.ancquest.com/paf/