Family history book: how to make one, with a 40-page template

What goes in a family history book?

A family history book answers three questions for the reader: who are these people, how are they connected, and what were their lives like. A family tree answers the first two. Stories and photographs answer the third.

Most books are built from the same few parts.

• A cover and title page with the names of the family and the date of the book.
• A short introduction that says who wrote the book, why, and how to read it.
• A family tree that shows the people in the book and how they are related.
• A page or two for each person: name, dates, places, a photograph and a few lines about their life.
• Stories, told in the voice of the person who remembers them.
• Source notes that say where each fact came from.
• A closing page with thanks, a list of contributors and a place for corrections.

This guide leaves medical family history out. It is a separate task and not covered here.

Reference book or story book: which structure fits?

Choose one of two shapes before you collect anything. A reference book is organized by person or by line of descent. A story book is organized by theme or by period. Each has a clear use.

If you want the story book route and need material, questions to ask your grandparents gives sixty prompts, and how to write a memoir explains how to turn them into chapters.

How do you scope it so you actually finish?

A book that tries to cover everyone is hard to finish. Choose a boundary and write it on the first page.

• One family line, such as your mother’s father and his ancestors.
• Four generations back from you.
• One place, such as everyone who lived in one town.
• One theme, such as how the family came to the United States.

A smaller book that exists is worth more than a large one that does not. You can always publish a second volume.

Set a calendar too. The Library of Congress personal archiving advice is to organize the whole collection into broad groups first, then work on the groups one at a time.⁶ That means sorting before scanning and scanning before writing.

Where do you find records and photos?

Start at home. Relatives’ drawers hold birth, marriage and military papers, letters, postcards and photographs. Ask each relative what they have, and ask to scan or photograph it. The Library of Congress family history guide notes that sharing family items prompts storytelling.⁵

The census

For U.S. families, the census is a core record. The National Archives says that, because of a 72-year restriction on access to census records, the 1950 census is the most recent year available.¹ It holds digitized census records from 1790 to 1950, and they are free to use at National Archives facilities, along with free access to Ancestry.com and Fold3.com at those facilities, with availability varying by location.² The Archives also says it cannot conduct census research on your behalf.²

That means you will do the searching yourself. For later years, use letters, certificates and living memory.

Photographs and papers

Ask relatives for the original when it is theirs to lend, and make a copy of everything you borrow. The Library of Congress notes that giving copies of photos and documents to relatives helps preserve them, and that everything deteriorates over time.⁵

Record who gave you each item and when. That one line becomes a source note later.

What does a simple template look like?

Here is a layout for a 40-page book. It works as a binder, a printed book or a PDF. The page counts add up so you can see the whole project at once.

Use the same layout for every person page. A consistent page is easier to read and faster to write.

How do you handle names, dates and unverified stories?

Every family has a story that cannot be proven: the ancestor who came over on a famous ship, the cousin who was almost a movie star. A family history book should keep these stories and be honest about them.

A three-label system keeps the book honest. Put the label in small type at the start of the paragraph.

Write names the way the document gives them, and add the family’s spelling in brackets when it differs. Write dates in one style throughout, such as month, day, year. When you are not sure of a year, write “about” and the year.

Source notes can be simple. For each fact, write the document or person, and the date you saw it or heard it. You do not need a special format to be useful.

How do you protect old photos while you work?

Your best photographs are your most fragile items. Handle them as little as possible, and work from copies.

• Store photographs in a relatively dry, cool and stable place. The Library of Congress gives 30 to 50 percent relative humidity and 70 degrees F or below.³
• Handle prints with clean hands or clean nitrile gloves, and avoid touching the image area.³
• Avoid albums with colored, “magnetic” or sticky pages.³
• Use enclosures that pass the Photographic Activity Test and store prints in acid-free boxes.⁴
• For a fragile photograph, make a high-quality reproduction and work from that.⁷
• Frame a copy rather than the original.⁶

Scanning only the most meaningful items is reasonable, according to the same personal archiving advice, and you should keep an original when it has value as an object.⁶

The National Archives gives somewhat different storage numbers for family papers, so read both if you want to compare: its advice is below 75 degrees F and below 65 percent relative humidity.⁹ For a sealed box, see time capsule ideas, which uses the National Archives figures.

How do you print or share it?

There are three simple ways to share a family history book, and you can use more than one.

Before you share, check names and dates with the relatives who appear in the book. Ask permission to include living people, particularly their photographs and birth dates.

Back up the final file. The Library of Congress advises backing up digital files to a separate drive so that a single failure won’t erase your work.⁶ It also advises at least two copies on separate media, with new copies made at least every five years.⁸

Where Memory fits

A family history book mixes documents with spoken stories. Chutex offers Memory, a service in preparation in which Aria, an AI, helps a person tell their life story, keeps the memories they choose to share and can prepare a book they review together. The service has its own page on this site: Chutex Memory. Memory is not a medical product and gives no diagnosis.

If you are making a gift rather than a research project, see the memory book for grandparents guide. For a recipe collection, see the family recipe cookbook guide.

Frequently asked questions