Hi John,
there are two connections from the board to a USB + and - connections. Are those for power to the MAX232 chip ?
Yes.
there are dotted lines between some pins on the connector. Are those actual connections or are we just using the 3 wires from the board to the DB9 for ground, tx and rx
On the rs232 schematic I don't see any dotted lines. What schematic are you looking at? You could take a gander at the max232 data sheet. it shows what pins are what.