IGI Search with Ancestral Quest

IGI Individual Search Guide

using PAFWiz with PAF 5

Search the IGI with PAF through PAFWiz! You can update your PAF files while looking at the information from the familysearch.org website. You will need to have your PAF 5 program and PAFWiz program open. We recommend that you reduce these two programs in size so that when you log into the familysearch.org website you will be able to view the information and add to your own family files. As you go through this tutorial, we take you step by step through setting up and conducting your research using PAWiz with your PAF 5 family files. Once you become familiar with this process, the actual searches will be very quick. So let’s get started!

The General steps for this process are:

Get your screen set up to effectively use the programs side by side.
Use PAFWiz to locate an individual or marriage and initiate a search on the IGI.
Examine the results at the LDS website.
Use PAF 5 to update any information that you found.
Go back to step 2 and repeat till done.

As you get started, we recommend that you arrange your programs on your computer screen roughly like this:

Note: If you have a low screen resolution, you may have to overlap the programs to be able to read them clearly. In this guide, we are using a lower resolution of 800x600, so the screens are overlapped.

Step 1) Start PAF 5.

Step 2) (Optional) Once your PAF 5 program is open, we suggest that you reduce the size of this program on your screen. This will make room for PAFWiz and your browser on your screen. (Don’t reduce it to where you can’t read it easily.)

Step 3) Click on the “Tools” Menu, scroll down to “PAFWIZ” and click on it.

Step 4) This will bring up the main screen for PAFWiz where you will click “View Data”. ( NOTE: If the “Tip of the Day” is the first thing you see, just “close” it. You will then see this screen.)

Step 5) (Optional) We suggest you reduce the size of the PAFWiz program to have your screen look like this. Notice that item 1 is PAF 5 and item 2 is PAFWiz

Please note that the information you are seeing in the PAFWiz program is the SAME information located in your PAF program. PAFWiz is using the same information and files to view them. As we go through the rest of the steps, any new information you find, will be added to your own files in PAF.

You are now ready to search for information in the online IGI!

Step 6) At this point you need to determine which kind of event you will be searching for: an individual, a marriage or children from a marriage. As you look at your family files in PAFWiz, make your selection. You will find that locating a person in PAFWIZ is about the same as in PAF. Use the “Pedigree”, “Family” or the “Name List” views. For purposes of this tutorial, we will switch to the “Family” View by clicking on the “Family” tab at the top of the PAFWiz screen. Now locate the person you wish to search for. In the example below, we selected “Agnes Simpson.” (RIN 202)

7) Now view the individual by double-clicking the individual you wish to search for, bringing up the “View Individual” Screen. In the lower left hand corner below “LDS Ordinances” is the “IGI” button (2). Click it to initiate your search.

*Please note that depending on your preference settings, you might have the LDS Ordinance section on a Tab that says “LDS”. (1)

Step 8) You will come to the “Search on FamilySearch.org” screen.

NORMALLY AT THIS POINT, YOU JUST NEED TO CLICK THE “SEARCH IGI” (1) BUTTON TO START A SEARCH.

Since this is the first time at this screen, let’s take a closer look.

Notice that PAFWiz has pulled all the pertinent information in from your family files.

A) Name

B) Event, Year Range*, Year (*Note: Change this if you wish a broader search)

C) Place, Region, Country, & State (Note: If there is no place for this event, or if there are misspellings or non-standard abbreviations, PAFWiz may not be able to fill in the region. In this case, you must select a region.)

D) If the parents or spouse are in your family files, they are shown but they are ‘grayed-out’. You can use these names in locating the correct “individual” in the IGI by using the “Refine Search”. This will cause the IGI to return fewer records – only those which also match this data.

E) You can decide if you want to “Search for” an Individual, Marriage or Children. In this example, we will do an “Individual” search on Agnes Simpson born in Scotland around 1821.

Step 9) If you are not already connected to the Internet, click on “Connect to Internet” (2) to go online. Note that this button is currently “grayed-out” as we are already connected to the Internet in this lesson. If you are not connected to the Internet, you will be able to click this button.

Step 10) NOTE: If you have already signed onto the IGI during this Internet session, skip this step. You should only sign on once per Internet session. Once you are connected to the Internet, click “Sign On to IGI” (3). This will bring you to the “Sign-On” screen for the FamilySearch.org.

NOTE: You don’t have to sign on. If you haven’t “signed on”, you can still do searches. You won’t be able to view the LDS ordinance information unless you have signed on.

If you don’t have a sign on ID, you will need to contact your ward clerk for this information.

This guide presumes you have already received this information and you have already established an ID.

Step 11) (Optional) At this point you will be brought into the familysearch.org main screen. We suggest you position the familysearch.org screen on the left like this.

Step 12) Now click on the “Search IGI” button on PAFWiz (1) which will start your search in the IGI.

Step 13) This will activate the search on the IGI which will then show you the “Search Results page”. Compare the information in the IGI results page against the information in the PAFWiz search window. If it looks like you have found a matching person, you can now close the “Search for IGI” screen in PAFWiz.

Step 14) Click the “Close” button on the “View Individual” screen.

This will bring you back to the main view in the PAFWiz screen.

Step 15) Since you have found a match, it will be necessary to go into your PAF family file and add this new information. Make note of the RIN # (202 in this example) so that you can locate this individual in your PAF program. Click on the (1) Binoculars with the # sign in your PAF program, (2) enter in the RIN # and (3) click on the “OK” button. IF YOU DIDN’T GET A MATCH, CLICK HERE

This will bring in your PAF program and to the individual you are updating.

Step 14) Click the individual in the IGI results window that you selected in step 13. In this example, we will click on item #4 in the IGI results screen.

Step 17) Since there is information in the IGI record, you will want to edit the individual in PAF.

Step 18) Double-click the matching individual in PAF so you can update the file by opening up the “Edit Individual” screen.

Step 19) If the “Edit Individual” Screen is covering the ordinance information, put the cursor in the title bar “Edit Individual”. While holding the left mouse button down, move this screen to the right so that you can still see the results of the Ordinance Record. Now you can update any ordinance information by typing it or by copying and pasting from the Ordinance Record.

Step 20) Click on “Save” to save your changes. If you can’t see the “Save” button, put the cursor in the title bar “Edit Individual”, holding the left mouse button down and move this screen to the left so that you can see this button.

Congratulations! You have just completed your first IGI Individual update.

Step 21) To conduct a different search for other individuals, click on PAFWiz in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

Choose another individual and go back to step # 6.