Adobe Acrobat form of a Family Group Sheet

The problem will always exist that a family history enthusiast will want genealogical information from relatives who don't do much family history and consequently don't have an easy way to share that information. (It is too much of an overload to tell the less involved relative to download PAF, enter in their family information and then send it back as a GEDCOM file). I've participated in a few of those exchanges for relatives contacting all of the descendants of a person and making sure their information was up to date. How one person does it is she prints out everyone’s family group sheet (about 1000 of us) and takes it to the yearly family reunion so that whoever shows up (about 400 of us) can update their information. Sharing the information in this way seems to cost a lot in money and time and leaves opportunities for mistakes.

I think a better system would be to create an Adobe Acrobat form that could be emailed out to all of the descendants asking them to fill in their family group sheet information and email it back. I think it would be easier to coordinate all of the information in this way rather than calling everyone on the phone or meeting them at reunions. I'd bet that it would just take someone who knew about Adobe forms a few hours to create one. The best would be to create one where default values could be entered and that allow the relative to save changes they have made, but I don't know if those types of forms can be emailed.

Also, in the future it would be great if we could tell PAF to generate forms of Family Group sheets for all of the living descendants of an ancestor, and generated a csv file of the file name, head of house name, and contact information. The csv file would be great so that you could open it up in a spread sheet program to sort off all of the descendants who only have mailing addresses (not email), print out mailing labels, add columns for tracking if they have reported back, and easily import the information into your email clients address book. Additionally it would be great if PAF could interpret the information on that form.

Does anyone know how to make a blank Adobe form so that I could try it out?

Are you looking to make a fillable PDF form? I think you need the full copy of Adobe Acrobat for that.

I don't have a copy myself, but I might be able to get someone to make one for you.

I have a FGS and Pedigree chart pdf fill in the blank form. It is set up to send the data to me but someone is free to change the form if you want.

Let me know if you would like a copy of the forms.

Roger

I have attached a rudimentary copy of what I think you are talking about, and it only took me about 5 min. on Adobe Acrobat 8 (using the LiveCycle Designer). Acrobat did most of the work, I just had to fine tune a few things. So, I think this is a pretty easy solution (if you have the software), and with Acrobat 8, you can also compile all the forms for comparison pretty easily too. You will notice also on the top of the FGR, I added a submit by e-mail and print buttons. I think this would also help in it actually making it back to the sender. Just design the e-mail button to send to your address (I only have a sample e-mail linked right now), and the results can be sent as soon as it's finished.

I agree, this would probably be much better than handing out FGRs at a family reunion, especially since these can be saved to keep the information entered, so family members can't complain about having already filled it out.

That does exactly what I was hoping for and more. I didn't know that you could submit the information on the form without just returning the form - that's great.

Is it possible to save the information in the form like the one at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf?portlet=3 ? I think that would be helpful for people who would like to type in the information from memory first then come back later to add sources before submitting it via email.

Interesting, I didn't know there was even the ability to save form data in a PDF. I think it is up to the creator of the form and if they have the correct license for adding rights to a form.

A Legacy report can be generated for family group sheets that has blank lines for missing information. One of the options is to save in a PDF file. This can be done individually, by tagging selected individuals, focus group, or other sundry options.

Since you can email the data as XML is it possible to email the file as a GEDCOM?

Have the form send a GEDCOM? I do not think so, but have a program that takes the XML and converts it to a GEDCOM is perfectly possible and shouldn't be too hard. I've worked with the GEDCOM format and it is very straight-forward.

I've found out that to create a savable form requires "Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions" (see http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrfaq.html question 10) so if anyone has that extension this would be a simple project for you that would benefit the world.
I've fixed the fields from the other file.

You are a Godsend!!! I have been racking my brain to try and figure out how to get this form into Adobe!!! I stumbled upon this site. I am wanting to make a copy of all my history for my sister and was writing every form out by hand!!! This is going to be soooo much better!! Thank you!

That adobe fill-inable family group record is absolutely fantastic. Does anyone know if there is one for the churches pedigree chart as well?

I wonder if the Family Group Record Form and Pedigree Chart Form PDFs have been updated on FamilySearch.org to be filliable and saveable PDF forms. I'd prefer not to have to rely on someone else's tweaking to have that functionality. (I can't check right at the moment to see if they've been updated or not.)

I found a web site sometime back which might be useful. My experience is the same as yours... the only problem is that most people don't do the update or participate anyway.

I've had my site for years and I get little interest from direct relatives unless they are already interested in genealogy. It has produced some results from non-members.

http://lythgoes.net/genealogy/software.php

Good Luck!D

I love this form...I have been looking high and low for a filable format family group sheet. The only thing better would be if it were fillable AND Savable. Has anyone got a version that is fillable AND savable? - Also....Does anyone out there have a fillable...or fillable and saveable version of a pedegree chart? - Thanks for all the sharing!

I made these both using the freeware program pdfill 7.0; There is a big problem with Adobe that requires you to spend a ton of money just to save a single form. I looked into the lifecycles and laughed at the cost.

Now you can "save" PDF using acrobat to fill it in by using pdfill's PDF printer. It works exactly like the Microsoft xps document printer where you "print" a document into a file but unlike an xps doc it’s a PDF.

I have been reading allot of the History of the Church and it is still important to have a paper copy. Though I personally have both the paper copy I have started to put into my book of remembrance and a PDF copy.

With the free tools you can also take 2 PDF Files and merge them into one file.

I emailed copies of both documents to my family members and have asked them to fill them out, print them up, and mail them to me. Like a missionary the key is to follow up and with a little following up I’ve managed to get almost all of my living relatives to mail me a completely filled out group record.

I hope that this will help you with the convenience it has provided me.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! With both of these forms I can now get some of my work done a whole lot faster and can share it better without having to hand write everything. Thanks to you and to everyone else who has posted, they have been lots of help.

This is awesome! It is very valuable and time saving for me. I am curious about whether a fill in-able sheet for additional children is available or could be made. I wish I were savvy enough to do it myself, but thought I would ask if there was one out there first.

I am actually doing the 2006 version of the forms. They are the ones located in the new family history lesson manual.

I have just about finished the Family Group Record as it is and doing the second page as a stand alone for additional children check back in a week and I should have both that and the new pedigree charts, and research log up in fill in the blank form. I personally transcribe my chicken scratch from the log to the pdf so in case anyone were to ever pick up after me they can understand my handwriting otherwise they would have to have a urim and thummim


*** I have started a new thread under the Living Data topic for collaborating with living members where I have posted the original forms and the 2006 revised versions introduced in the new family history class please see there for the downloads of the new forms. ***

There is a topic under living data however this seem likes as good a place as any to also put these.

I finished my "project" and hopefully you will find these as usefull as I have in getting this great work accomplished

subrodragon wrote:I have started a new thread under the Living Data topic for collaborating with living members where I have posted the original forms and the 2006 revised versions introduced in the new family history class please see there for the downloads of the new forms.

There were duplicate posts in this thread from a couple different users. Remember that according to the Code of Conduct, we are only to post content in one thread. Since there seemed to be more complete posts in the Fill in the blank PDF versions of Church History Forms thread, I have consolidated the information there. That forum also seems more appropriate for this particular topic.

I think with some programming you can send a gedcom from the PDF. I worked on one some time ago and got it to the point it would work. It would create the gedcom and put some of the fields into the gedcom but I stopped before completing all of the fields. Because of the lack of interest I stopped working on it.

Yet Another Fill-able PDF Family Group Sheet. I needed one that included temple data. Feel free to use and distribute.

http://goo.gl/siSci