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1990-12-10
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DESCEND - An Expanded Descendant Chart for PAF
by John C. Barron
510 E. Braker Lane
Austin, TX 78753
22 Nov 1990
Abstract
This program reads Personal Ancestral File (PAF) 2.x data
files and produces an expanded descendant chart. The chart can
have up to 16 generations, any person can have up to 5 marriages,
and any couple can have up to 20 children. An individual entry
consists of a descendant with birth, death, and (optionally)
notes followed by a spouse with birth, marriage, death, and
notes. This pattern is then repeated for their children. An
index is generated after the chart. The chart can be routed to
three output sources: printer, screen, or disk file. For di-
rectly printed charts, the printer instructions are EPSON stand-
ard and include compressed mode (17 cpi) and eight lines per inch
vertically. If your printer does not accept these commands then
use the disk output mode and edit the resulting file with a word
processor before printing.
Introduction
The Personal Ancestral File Genealogy System produced and
sold by the Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) is an extremely
good, inexpensive way for genealogists to organize their data.
For storage and searches it is hard to beat, but its output is
very generic and is often not optimal for certain uses.
Along with the usual pedigree charts and family group
sheets, PAF produces a descendant chart. It is limited in nature
and outputs just the generation number, name, date of birth, and
RIN of the descendants. You can route it to screen, disk, or
printer but you have no control over the contents.
Development History
The program was begun in Mar 1988, but little progress was
made until the end of the year when Bourland Corp. released Turbo
Pascal 5.0 and its interactive debugger. By the use of this
powerful product, I was able to solve some very tricky problems
and complete the project. The following table lists the released
versions of the program and the principle modifications of each.
Vs. Modification Date
1.0 Completed using Turbo DeBug. 20 Jan 1989
1.1 Added search window. 11 Feb 1989
1.2 Fixed dual date problem. 10 Mar 1989
1.3 Used paf unit for path. 18 Mar 1989
1.4 Limit no. generations. 4 Aug 1989
1.5 Increase no. persons input. 13 Sep 1989
1.6 Fix LF on null note problem. 7 Oct 1989
1.7 Fix note line length overflow. 24 Nov 1989
1.8 Use christening & burial if 18 Jan 1990
birth or death dates missing.
1.9 Set maximum marriages to 5000. 23 Feb 1990
2.0 Revised marriage array, added 10 Oct 1990
PAF name/address to output,
added command line path input,
more bullet proof input,
revised mar array,
indicate spouse with sp-,
added option for printing notes,
add name & rin of selected person,
added chart title option,
checked index memory usage.
2.1 Fixed bug with MaxSpo, fixed 22 Nov 1990
problem when person had blank surname,
fixed problem with it not running in
current directory.
Usage
The program can be started in two ways from the DOS prompt:
1) by entering the name (DESCEND), or 2) by entering the name and
a path to the directory where the PAF files are located. The
following examples illustrate the methods:
D:\>DESCEND
D:\>DESCEND D:\PAF\
If a valid path to the PAF files is given, DESCEND goes
directly into operation. If no path is given and if no PAF.CFG
file is present (more on this later), an introductory screen
describing the program is shown followed by another screen re-
questing the path. If the PAF data files are in the current
directory, DESCEND begins running. If you are confused about
directories and paths to them, then it would be advisable to read
your DOS manual, especially the chapter about tree-structured
directories.
If no path to PAF files is given on startup, DESCEND prompts
the user for this information with the path screen. At this
point, and at almost any other input option, the user can halt
the program. If the user chooses, however, a path can be given
and the program will continue to cycle in this screen until a
valid path is input or until the user decides to quit.
Once a valid path to PAF files is given, DESCEND prompts the
user for some additional information. At this point you can
still (Q)uit, or you can (C)hange the path once more, or you can
(S)ave the path in the PAF.CFG file for later usage, or you can
(U)se the path. If you save it, it automatically uses it too.
The file PAF.CFG is written on the current directory when you
save it and is also used the next time DESCEND is started. It is
simply an ASCII file containing the path to PAF files.
Using the path gets you started with the rest of the pro-
gram. The next step prompts the user to enter the number of
generations desired. The maximum number of generations that
DESCEND can process is 16. Entering 2 generations would produce
a chart similar to a family group sheet. Entering a zero for the
number of generations will abort the program and stop the run.
If the number of generations desired is exceeded during the
process of producing a chart, DESCEND ignores them and prints a
message indicating that more information is available.
At this point, you are ready to tell the program which
persons to include in the descendant chart. You can enter up to
10 individuals for a run, all of whom will be included in the
order given and separated by a message indicating the beginning
each new line. At the prompt, you can either enter a RIN if you
know it, search for a particular person, or, as usual, quit.
If you enter a RIN number, DESCEND accesses the PAF files
and displays the person, along with parents and spouse. The user
is then asked to verify the selection and a message asks if this
is the correct person. The user can answer (Y)es, (N)o continue
search, or (Q)uit search. Quitting returns to the enter RIN
prompt as does selecting no. Choosing yes selects the displayed
individual as part of the descendant chart run. The name of this
selected person replaces the enter RIN prompt line and the proc-
ess is repeated.
Most of the time RINs are not remembered and you will need
to choose the search selection at the enter RIN prompt. You can
search for as many as three names to attempt to find a person.
If fewer than three names are input, you must still press the
enter key for each of the name fields on the screen. If the
search finds no such combination of names, it will inform you and
return to the current enter RIN prompt. If the search finds an
individual with the entered combination of names, it will display
the person along with parents and spouse. Once more it will ask
if this is the correct person. If you select no, the program
will continue to search for additional persons of the entered
name combination. Quitting, of course, returns you to the cur-
rent enter RIN prompt and choosing yes selects the displayed
person for the descendant chart.
You can continue the selection of RINs for inclusion in the
chart until reaching the limit of 10 or stop at any amount fewer.
This limit is imposed at this time as a safety feature to try to
prevent the overflow of index entries which are presently kept in
memory as a linked list. If a memory overflow occurs, the index
cannot be completed and the program will halt and ask the user
whether to continue. At the end of the run the memory used by
the index is reported. Hopefully, future releases of DESCEND can
be designed to include a larger number of selections.
After selecting the persons to be included in the chart,
DESCEND prompts the user for the desired output destination. The
selections are (S)creen, (P)rint, (F)ile, or (Q)uit. Quitting
stops the run without further action. Selecting screen output
directs the chart to the terminal. This may be the best selec-
tion for checking a new run to make sure it is what is wanted.
You can stop the screen output at any page break by the control-
break key combination.
Print output selection, of course, sends the chart to the
printer attached to the LPT1 print device. Printer control codes
are EPSON (c) standard for dot matrix output. No other printers
are, at present, supported. Printer controls will be the object
of future releases of the program. It is anticipated that more
printers (especially laser printers) will be supported directly
and that the user can also enter whatever codes are needed for
others. The PAF.CFG file may be used to retain these codes.
Printed output is condensed pitch (17 characters per inch hori-
zontally) and 8 lines per inch vertically.
If your printer does not work properly with the print selec-
tion, then you should use the file selection to send the output
to a disk file. The resulting file is named DESCEND.TXT and is
written to the current directory. The names of the individuals
in the chart are listed and scroll by to merely show the user
that something is taking place. Birth and death dates, notes,
etc., do not appear on the screen, but are actually in the file.
You should rename this file if you wish to keep it permanently;
otherwise it will be overwritten the next time you choose this
selection. You can edit this file with a word processor and make
whatever changes are desired. Care should be taken, however, not
to make changes that affect the page numbers or else the index
will no longer be correct. You should be able to print this file
either with your word processor or with the PRINT command from
the DOS prompt. This is done as follows:
>PRINT DESCEND.TXT
You can personalize the output by using the next option
which asks if the user desires a title for the chart. If you
select yes, then an input area is opened which will allow you to
enter a 55-character chart title which will be printed at the top
of each page. If no special title is requested, then the name
and version of the program is used in its place. I recommend
that you use a chart title listing the first person in the chart.
The next option for the chart concerns the listing of RINs
and MRINs in the output. The user is asked if these reference
numbers are desired. If the chart is to be sent to others, these
numbers make no sense to them and should be left off. On the
other hand if the chart is for your own use as a reference for
additional work, you can nearly always find good use for the RIN
and MRIN numbers. The MRINs are shown in parentheses after the
RIN of a spouse entry.
The last option for the chart asks the user if notes from
the PAF files are desired. If yes is selected then the PAF notes
are included along with birth, marriage, and death entries. Only
regular notes created by PAF are included; those created by a
word processor and linked to a PAF entry are not included.
Perhaps inclusion of these notes can be implemented by a future
update of DESCEND.
Discussion
Future updates to DESCEND include more printer support as
described above. I also want to make better use of colors and
will do so if I ever decide to get a color graphics terminal. I
would appreciate any suggestions from users and will try to meet
them.
Well, that's about it. The program is pretty simple and
hopefully user friendly. I have been pleased and surprised by
the reception of it by PAF users in many parts of the country.
Users of the NGC echo have been especially helpful in giving me
suggestions for improvements as well as pointing out bugs and
shortcomings. Thank you all and keep the comments coming.
I hereby release the program into the public domain for the
free use of anyone. You may distribute it in any manner except
for sale either by itself or as a package.
