A few weeks ago, a friend who is still using Personal Ancestral 5 (PAF 5) asked me about what software I would recommend if he wanted something newer. He has been compiling his data since the 1990s through a few versions of PAF (he started with 4.0), and I recommended trying Ancestral Quest, seeing as how PAF was based on AQ. A few days ago, I saw a thread over on the Ancestral Quest groups.io forum about somebody needing or wanting to switch from PAF 5 to Ancestral Quest as well as discussion about switching to AQ. It makes a lot of sense for many people who have been using PAF for the past 20+ years to switch to AQ, because PAF 4 and PAF 5 were built on Ancestral Quest code (literally) and its an easy transition. That doesn’t meant it’s the best genealogy software – that’s extremely subjective based on the person, but it’s worth trying out for some.
Note that PAF 4 (released 25 years ago) was the first version of PAF to support a graphical user interface with Windows – PAF 3.0M was the last DOS release and it was released in 1999. Gaylon Findlay, President of Incline Software, gave the LDS Church the Ancestral Quest 3.0 code to build PAF 4, and later PAF 5, on. AQ 3.0 was released in 1999, the same year that PAF 4.0 was released, so PAF 4.0, at the time was built on a “modern” platform and supported GEDCOM 5.5 (PAF 3.0 supported GEDCOM 5.5 when it was released in 1997).
If you want to follow the Groups.io thread, check it out here (you don’t need a login):
So what about switching to AQ from PAF? For starters, there’s not a steep learning curve for many people, and the PAF 5 database can be read and worked with (and saved in PAF 5’s .paf database format) using AQ (and they can be used side-by-side).
You can download the free version of AQ and try it out here: https://www.ancquest.com/dlagree.htm
Some of the pros of switching to AQ from PAF:
- Incline Software bills AQ as the only software to be fully compatible with PAF, and I’m “inclined” to agree. PAF 4 and PAF 5 were built on AQ code.
- There is a Mac (macOS) version of Ancestral Quest and Ancestral Quest basics – running PAF under Mac requires you to use virtualization software (such as Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion) along with an additional Windows install/license, and it must be Windows 11 for Arm if you are using a newer “Apple Silicon” Mac (aka the Macs with the M1, M2, M3, and M4 CPUs).
- There is a “free” version of AQ – Ancestral Quest Basics (you can get it here) and you can see the comparison with the paid version of Ancestral Quest here (see note below)
- Ancestral Quest is in active development. The last update to Ancestral Quest 16 is Ancestral Quest 16.0.12 (October 12, 2023. I’m not sure when Ancestral Quest 17 will be out, but I assume it will maintain compatibility with PAF 5.
- Some PAF 5 utilities can be utilized alongside AQ because of the PAF 5 compatibility.
- AQ 16 will give you access to online tips, including FamilySearch, Find My Past, MyHeritage, Ancestry.com, FAmilySearch, WorldVitalRecords, and other online sites. You can also synchronize with FamilySearch Family Tree (which might not be the best thing to do – see this article – Reasons not to sync your tree with online services I posted a few days ago).
- When installing Ancestral Quest 16, you actually have the option of integrating it within the PAF 5 menu/tool bar, allowing you to launch AQ for within PAF 5 to work on the PAF 5 .paf database you are currently working on (see images below)
Integration of Ancestral Quest with PAF, and AQ working with PAF files directly (click on the image to see a larger view)
Ancestral Quest Basics has a few limitations versus the paid version, concerning PAF data:
- Both versions can open and work with a PAF file. I am not sure how far back that goes – I know Ancestral Quest 12.1 could work directly with PAF 5 .paf data files, but it had to convert PAF 3/4 .paf data files to the PAF 5 format before working with them. I assume the same is true of newer AQ versions.
- Both versions can convert a PAF file to an AQ file.
- The AQ Basics/free version cannot convert an AQ file to a PAF file (the paid version can).
- Most screens and reports are very similar to PAF screens and reports, and that holds true to today. I know some former PAF users like the look of Family Historian (which os based around GEDCOM files as their database, so there is a lot of compatibility with PAF).
When opening a PAF 5 database within Ancestral Quest (AQ 14, but presumably through 16), there are limitations if you want to stay with the PAF 5 database format and not convert it to the AQ format:
- You are limited the option of using Quick Entry (Simple); the Quick Entry (Advanced) feature is not available.
- Bookmarks are not available
- In the Edit menu, these are disabled: Quick Entry Place List, Replace Names/Dates/Places
- In the Tools menu, the following are disabled: Color Coding, Tags, Convert Names to Mixed Case, Convert Place Abbreviations, Change Log, Database Check/Repair (use PAF for this)
There are advantages to using AQ with a PAF 5 database (maintaining the PAF file format).
- Ancestral File™ Numbers can be entered and edited (can only be added within PAF during import, and not edited).
- There are a lot of things with Sources that you can do within AQ that you can’t with PAF
- There are more options for Notes, you can add To Do/Research Items, you can work with DNA
- There are some bonuses to working with books
- There are some bonuses to work with printing.
If you’d like to see the full comparison between PAF 5, Ancestral Quest Basics, and Ancestral Quest, see this .PDF file:
Here are some relevant links for those considering switching from PAF to AQ (and you can go back and forth, and note that some of these links refer to AQ 14, but still appear to work just fine for AQ 16):
- Getting Started with PAF in Ancestral Quest
- Database file formats in AQ (including working with PAF databases)
- PAF Users welcome to Ancestral Quest
And by the way, the support for PAF with AQ goes wayyyy back:
| Compatible versions – AQ | PAF |
| Ancestral Quest 1.0 – AQ 2.2 | PAF 2.1 – PAF 231 |
| Ancestral Quest 3.0 | PAF 3.0 and PAF 4.0 |
| Ancestral Quest 10 – 11 | PAF 3.0, PAF 4.0, and PAF 5.x |
| Ancestral Quest 12.0 – 16 | PAF 5.x |
I know there are still a lot of PAF users here in 2024. I even use PAF 5 (PAF 5.2.18.0) to generate GEDCOM files for an online family/history website that runs on The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding (tngsitebuilding.com). I work on it with a few other genealogists who are using PAF 5, and it’s easy to exchange data with them and with the website and it runs very fast with thousands of people in it (and many hundreds of family, not all of whom are related to one another). I’m actually running it with Windows 11 (for ARM) virtualized under Parallels Desktop (I could use VMWare Fusion) on an Apple MacBook Air with an M2 CPU and it runs great – just as fast as it ever did on a standalone PC.
It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles that newer genealogy software does, but for what I’m doing, it works great. We are not in a situation where we are going to be connecting to FamilySearch or Ancestry or MyHeritage or another online service – we are limiting the data in our tree to a few select sources for the most part (we do add in extra information from outside sources into notes). I know that sounds a little weird, but I’ll write up a blog entry about it in the future – it makes sense for what we want to accomplish.
I may write a few more articles like this, discussing switching from PAF to other “modern” genealogical programs, but AQ is the easiest for the reasons listed above.
I didn’t intend to write a manifesto on switching from PAF to AQ or using PAF with AQ, but here are some AQ videos put out by the Incline folks to help:
Using PAF 5 with AQ:
Convert to AQ from PAF: