Parke Society Family Group Sheets
The Society's standard Family Group Sheet has been rendered in Adobe's PDF (Portable Document Format) to provide you with a way to use your computer to prepare your submissions to the Historian. The groupsheets below, which we have nicknamed "e-FGS," can be filled out on your computer, printed, then mailed to the Historian. Our goal is to also assist you in preparation of your material needed by the Society and assist the Historian with his preparation of additions to the PS research Binders. A "continuation" has also been developed for families with more than ten children. We are still in the process of fitting these forms into our way of updating your information, and any comments and ideas are most welcome!
70741.2122@compuserve.com
PDF Forms The Adobe Acrobat application includes a feature that allows one to add "fill-in" areas, or fields, onto a document that has been converted to PDF. Each of these fields can be given an identifying name, text characteristics, and a pop-up entry description or reminder. (The pop-up appears when a cursor is over the field.) Our FGS is a good candidate PDF Form as we need a consistent look to the contents of our PS research binders.
Limitation Warning A PDF form cannot be saved as completed from within PDF Reader (this is a Reader limitation). Thus each e-FGS must be completed during the time it is open in your computer. It may be printed at any stage of completion, which does largely facilitate our intended end-use.
Using the Forms There is a fill-in field for each of the entry lines on the form, and a large free-form field for entering your "Authority" information. Note that most fields have a brief "explanation" pop-up that appears when your cursor is over the field. Your cursor changes from a "hand" to an "I-beam" when it is within each field. A click will place the entry point within that field. Your Tab key will move your entry point to the next (in logical order) field, and Shift-Tab will back up to the previous field. Type in the information, but watch to make sure you are not exceeding the length of the field. For example, the References field will overfill before reaching its limit of 800 characters. Delete or abbreviate as needed so that all your text is visible in the field.
Note: If your information is more than a field can hold, our suggestion is to add the remaining information by hand after printing your FGS. We hope this suggestion is seldom needed, but as with many forms, there doesn't seem to be a perfect way to keep a consistent look and allow variable amounts of information. The forms are designed to be copied as a double-sided page for the binders, however they can be printed and mailed as two single-sided sheets. (The Historian will complete the final entries and copy them "duplex" on special paper as required for the Society's binders.) Following the printing of your filled-in Form, please pencil in your lineage key, if known.
Downloading the Forms Each of the files below is up to 348K in size. The first is intended to closely match the existing Society Group Sheet. The second is the new continuation and will only be needed for child 11 up to 21 within the Family. On downloading a form, it should open in Adobe's PDF Reader. This Reader is presently bundled with the Web Browser on your system. If not, a free PDF Reader may be downloaded from the Adobe Web site.
These files are new as of 2 October 2003 (References field is now multiline):
Your present Reader can open the above files.
Our e-FGS can also be opened with the 6.0 Reader available as of June 2003: 