As an amateur genealogist, I have captured my genealogy research into nine family history books. The process of changing your research into a written family history is what I call “chronicling”. Chronicling has two categories: using on-line/software tools and using a word processor to craft a story before choosing a publication method.
This is the second part of a two-part post about chronicling your family history. In the previous post, I shared some of the many on-line/software tools that can help you format and publish your family’s story. In this post, I’ll discuss how you can use a word processor and take advantage of other publishing methods.
Your Family Story as a Novel
The second category of chronicling is using a word processor to craft a story and then choosing a publication method. This is my preferred approach, but I must preface it with a lesson I learned many years ago.
Do not try doing it all.
In 2011, I reached a point in my research when I was ready to write. I planned to weave together all four branches of my family to create a magnum opus of my parents’ heritage. What was I thinking?! That was not practical and had me tied up in knots.
I eventually started by focusing on my four great-grandfathers and wrote their stories accordingly. That effort spawned more projects, such as an article about my 2nd degree great-grandmother and a history of a great-granduncle. Especially for the second category, consider picking one person, one event, one branch, or one branch with a focus on one person.
Tips for Crafting Your Family Story
Crafting a family story is a multi-faceted project and can include as much or as little as the writer chooses. It can have different structures or can use various literary styles and formats. It can focus on just ancestors or can include descendants. The possibilities are almost limitless. For this article, I will just describe the features of my family stories.
To start, I like the hourglass structure; I focus on an individual and then describe his ancestors, him, and a couple of generations of descendants. Unless I know they will only share the document with family members, I avoid writing about living generations to protect their privacy. I do include a list of surnames, however, that brings the story close to the present. Next, I put the story, especially regarding the ancestors, in an historical setting.
Then I include memorials collected from family members and sprinkle in some family lore (maybe a recipe or two), especially important documents, and as many photographs and other visual mementos. Along the way, I analyze the data, for example, family size, prominent occupations, education levels, longevity, causes of death, and burial sites. I look for themes in the data. Finally, I always recognize those family members who have contributed to or otherwise helped me compose the story.
Family history books from the author’s collection.
The literary style of my family stories has changed over the years. Fast forwarding, in my last couple of stories, I used double columns and a 12-point Times New Roman font with left alignment. I found this style easier to read, as it is one frequently used in newspapers and books and was more receptive to the insertion of photographs.
Also, I abandoned using footnotes for citations and references (critical to the credibility of the research underlying the story) and relegated them to endnotes as they took up too much space in the text and detracted from the narrative. I still use footnotes, however, but only sparingly and for parenthetical information that would be overlooked in an endnote.
Choosing a Publication Option
Choosing a publication option is the last step in the chronicling process. The option you pick will depend in part on how many copies you need and whether you intend to sell the book for profit, give copies as gifts, or make copies available for purchase only to relatives. Always keep your budget in mind as you consider the options of photo books, DIY, print-on-demand, publisher-for-hire, and eBooks.
Photo Books
Photo books are a fun way to capture your family’s story and are available from a variety of services, such as MyCanvas (featured on Ancestry), Shutterfly, Blurb, and Mixbook. They usually have five essential elements: photos (of course!), genealogical data, stories, documents, and maps. The services walk you through the process, and the finished products are usually very attractive. Photo books, however, can be expensive.
Google search results for “photo books genealogy”
Make It a DIY Project
Do It Yourself (DIY) projects can be as simple and inexpensive as printing out your story, putting a cover on it, and stapling it together. An alternative to this approach is using a binder and putting the pages of your story in plastic covers. This looks nice and helps to preserve the work product; however, having tried it for one of my stories as an experiment, I can attest that it is a time-consuming process. My preferred approach is using a copy center, like Kinkos or Staples.
I have used all three of the most common forms of binding:
- Saddle-stitching (like a magazine)
- Spiral or coil binding
- Perfect binding (glued spines)
Examples of book binding techniques.
The most cost-effective and practical one is coil binding, and it works on documents of various sizes, including my longest story, which ran over 200 pages. Perfect binding works on small to medium-sized documents, but the glue eventually can give out if the document is frequently opened and closed. Saddle printing looks the most professional, but it can be expensive if you are making multiple copies.
For the stories depicted here, I used coil binding for the Court and Schlosser stories, perfect binding for the Hiles story, and saddle stitching for the Volmer story.
Print-On-Demand Services
Print-on-demand (POD) refers to self-publishing sites like Lulu, Blurb, Bookemon, and StoriestoTell, which lets you create a book on your computer and upload it as a PDF file for printing.
Closely related to the POD option are the Publishers for Hire to which you supply the file for your book, order a minimum number of copies, and the company prints them. The appeal of these types of books is that they have a professional appearance and may be considered a more suitable keepsake than the DIY products.
EBook Options
The eBook option involves on-line companies that are associated with reading devices such as iPad, Kindle, and Nook, and have requirements regarding proprietary file formats. There is, however, an easy, albeit not a professional-looking, eBook option. Simply turn your document into a PDF file, which usually can be opened on any electronic device, such as a computer or a tablet. You may need to tweak the layout to make sure page breaks and photographs fall in the right places. Sending PDF files to relatives, either in emails or on thumb drives by regular mail, has the distinct advantage of being an inexpensive way to share a family story.
While there are many other ways of telling your family’s story, such as articles, newsletters, websites, blogs, and even cookbooks of family recipes, the suggestions in this article reflect my experience of being the storyteller of my family. The medium you choose and the amount of information you convey are functions of your imagination, creativity, determination, skills, and resources.
Editor’s Notes
Prices for the various publication options described here depend on many factors such as size and number of copies as well as discounts or specials a particular company may be offering at the time. So we didn’t add any costs.
