5 Ways to Make Family History Books (That are not BORING!)

Check out these five ideas for interesting and engaging family history books. Platform options and general suggestions for good family history books included.

Are you looking for ways to show off your family history research? Want to get your family interested in their ancestors? The video will talk about important things to think about when making a genealogy book as well as platforms for book creation - the good and the bad.

Thank you Doris James and Holly Heslop for sharing your terrific ideas!

0:00 Intro
0:38 Suggestions for good books
2:44 MyCanvas books
8:08 Word documents
9:47 Mini books
10:15 iStudio Publisher
11:14 Doris Soule James' privately published book
13:22 Holly Beesley Hesslop's book on Mixbook

🙋‍♀️ ABOUT ME:
Learning about your ancestors is fun! It’s detective work at its best. My professional genealogy business, Ancestry Consulting by Aimee, and my You Tube channel were born out of a desire to help others discover their family history. I have been working on my genealogy since a teenager and have been helping others as a professional genealogist for almost 10 years. Whether breaking through a genealogy brick wall, determining parents through DNA matches, beginning genealogy research, or discovering your family origins, I want to help you build your family tree! Happy hunting!

#familysearch #familyhistory #ancestry #genealogy #genealogybooks #familyhistorybooks

Check out these other genealogy YouTubers: Genealogy TV, Family History Fanatics, Geneavlogger, Ancestry (Barefoot Genealogist), Genealogy with Amy Johnson Crow, and of course, keep watching me, Aimee Cross - Genealogy Hints.

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, MMA-NYC, 1851 - public domain

YOUTUBE music: ice cream by Joey Pecoraro
"Something Elated" by Broke for Free.

[arlindanelson]

Aiiiimeeee, what have you done to my head today, lol? I am swimming in thoughts back and forth. These are beautiful books and very thought provoking. I have been struggling with how to do a book and unfortunately I don't have many stories because my seniors are no longer here to tell them. Any suggestions in that area would be helpful. I agree with you to make them interesting for those who have no interest in genealogy by adding images. I also love the tidbits of individuals. Thanks for sharing. I just don't know where to begin or how to present it now.

[Turtelik]

Some time ago my grandmother died and my mum inherited some family photos from her. We scanned them and decided to make a photo book (in one of the popular photo book companies) - it wasn't the most elaborate (no text or anything, just pictures) and gave it to all 5 of my grandparents' children (my aunts and uncles) - they loved it :)

[Meyersci]

These are wonderful options for books featuring the family trees! Just a word of caution: cursive writing is becoming a foreign language nowadays. I saw the loss of this skill over a career in teaching and know the frustration of trying to transcribe old German script into a readable form. If you want the new and future generations to read the book, you may want to transcribe old letters and records instead of just publishing scans of them.

[OldestLady]

My sister has wanted me to do a book on our family for years, I just didn't know where to start. The grand kids art work along with the stories, is brilliant! I definitely want to try that. Thank you so much for sharing these ideas!!

[violinviolin]

I am in the middle of creating a book with the plug in for Family Tree Maker but hope to embellish it with some of these excellent ideas. Thank you!

[debbieharris]

Thank you, Aimee! Never thought of making family history books!

[kehenry]

I appreciate this. I wanted to do a book and was struggling with putting it together. It was so overwhelming. I love the idea of putting it together in smaller pieces. Maybe multiple booklets. An earlier family member had written a 600 page book of which only a few are in print and only available on old book sellers for over $150. I wanted to make something more accessible to everyone while filling in the blanks.

[TheMsualumni]

Terrific video. I've been wanting to play around with My Canvas and you provided a good overview.

[fluffy_chim_chim]

I am just 13 but, this summer I am thinking to write a book😅 I don't know why?
I am just curious to write a book I am not gonna publish I will just write and keep it with myself ❤

[bethbrewer]

I've never seen a video anywhere on the Draper manuscripts. I've found fascinating family info in these documents. While I can't always verify, they do make for great stories. I'd love to see a how to video on the Draper manuscripts.

[katytee]

I am taking a university course on family history and i stumbled on this video. Thanks for sharing the different layouts you have used to represent people's family histories. I am so inspired and can't wait to do my own for an assignment :)

[dreamweaver]

Love the getting your grandchildren to draw especially for ones where you don''t have photos

[DavidWilliamsaz]

I like to do short stories high frequency. I like to share 1 paragraph stories or one Facebook or Instagram once a week. You can share an entire life story just in a different way. I also created on facebook group for my mom side and one for my Dad's

[pc]

Great examples. I'm working on a book myself, but instead of a straight genealogy book, I'm using my ancestors to tell history. I have a writing/publishing background so using standard publishing tools. Where I can't find photos, I'm doing my own artwork which has been an avocation. No little grandchildren to do the artwork but that was just delightful. And artwork, is, I think, essential. Love your videos.

[carolfackler]

Ideas for a family group sheet with multiple marriages for both parents and children. Our family tree is complicated. My only thought is to record the only ones that count? My 1/2 siter and brother and I have different fathers but neither were part of our lives (not 100% sure where they are, alive or dead) our step-father adopted two out of three of us. It all gets a little convoluted. I was born with one surname, then adopted, then married and divorced twice (back to adopted surname).

[AnthonyMiyazaki]

An interesting discussion of these options. Thank you. What are your thoughts on producing something as a PDF and then just using Amazon's self-publishing platform to print copies for family members?

[cogneurolove]

I love these! I put together scrapbook pages with the family photos that we have but was looking for a way to make the rest of the documents more attractive to family members.

[adorablecats]

This was great! Thanks so much for these great ideas. ❤

[Haylo]

Thank you for your video! Inspiring and now the ideas are flooding through 🎉

[ennasus]

Great examples! Thank you so much for showing!