Keep a Personal Copy of the Data
We have always felt that it was necessary for us to keep a personal copy of the genealogical data of our direct ancestors so we don't lose it and no one else can change it. The data in FamilySearch can be changed by anyone who has a FamilySearch account so we still maintain a separate, personal family tree. For many years we recorded our family records on family group and pedigree sheets like those below.




In the 1980s the Family History Department began to record genealogical data on computers. In 1983 the Personal Ancestral File(PAF) software was introduced so patrons could record their data on a personal computer. PAF recorded the data in a lineage-linked database which combined the family group sheet and the pedigree chart. In 1985 the Church introduced the GEDCOM file format in PAF so the data could be accessed by other software.


We used the PAF software until we found other lineage-linked software that was better. For a few years we used Legacy. Legacy worked very well and has many great features, such as tagging records, creating lists, adding to-do tasks, and support for FamilySearch. In 2015 we decided to switch from Legacy to Ancestry.com because it was online.


Ancestry is a partner with familySearch and has many records that have been indexed and can be searched. We have created Waite-Blacker family tree on Ancestry.

We insure that each person entered in the Waite-Blacker tree contains as many of the following events as possible and that each is verified with at least one valid source.
We also enter other events to add more information to the life story of each member of the trees. These events include the following.