Family Tree Course Description

Duration and cost of the Course

There are 5 two-hour lessons.
The cost of the course, including the course notes and the program, is $55.00

Prerequisites

You must have completed the courses:

Introduction to Computers and
either Computing Skills or Word Processing.

The Family Tree program, "Personal Ancestral File"

There are many computer programs available for recording Family History information and it isn't possible for us to provide a separate course for each of them.
Instead, we have chosen a program that is recognised as an industry standard and that is available for students to install on their own computers if they wish.
That program is "Personal Ancestral File 5.2" (PAF5).

This course deals only briefly on the broader study of Genealogy. Its main focus is on helping you learn how to use a computer program to store genealogical information and how to print out charts of that information.

A second course is being developed that will focus on "Genealogy and the Internet." The emphasis will be on locating genealogical information from a variety of sources on the internet and verifying the information that is found. This includes sending for certificates and copies of pages in Registers of Births, etc.
The second course is expected to be available in Term Three.
These two courses may be taken in any order.

You will receive –

a set of course notes containing instructions for using the genealogy program, Personal Ancestral File and exercises practising the skills described in each section.
Forms for recording names and dates of members of your family. These forms are the ones used by the NZ Society of Genealogists.
Copies of the magazine of the NZ Society of Genealogists.
the installation files of the family tree program Personal Ancestral File 5.2
the installation file of a comprehensive on-screen user's guide accessible when you are using PAF5.

You will learn about –

setting up a new family tree on your computer
entering the details of individuals and families
adding notes, sources and multimedia
searching the information for particular individuals
editing the information to change the order or details of children, parent or spouse
deleting erroneous entries
creating and printing charts, including "printing to file"
making a backup copy of your files