The Purpose: I created these resources to help you feel more comfortable creating your own Family Heritage Book, and to help you anticipate the most common barriers encountered. I offer hard-won perspectives and step-by-step instructions on how to “Do-It-Yourself”. The emphasis is on ways to create a book that is meaningful and fun to work on!
Ways to begin | Advice | Resources | Prompts & Exercises
I. Starting Your Family Heritage Book
Finding the right topic and focus for your Family Heritage Book is about confirming your existing and finding your new emotional connections to your family members, moving from close to more distant. Emotion should drive your search.
“If it is emotionally meaningful to work on your book, you’ll succeed!”
1. 5 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN STARTING YOUR BOOK
- Get rid of perfect.
- What is most important?
- What defines your emotional investment?
- What sits at the center of the page?
- Do an initial inventory check.
| Free Word Download |
2. A FAMILY HERITAGE HABIT YOU NEED TO START TODAY!
- A wonderful habit to start now that will boost your family heritage work (and may strengthen relationships with family)!
- Why we often know less about our family heritage than we wish we did (and why you shouldn’t feel bad about it).
- Is a “tree” the best metaphor for conceiving of family across generations?
- Fun and useful family heritage exercises that will help energize your DIY book.
| Free Word Download |
3. HOW TO CREATE NEW EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS THROUGH YOUR GRANDPARENT’S NAMES
- Taking time to consider the full range of our own names.
- Exploring your foundation, how many family surnames do you know by heart?
- Fun, visual ways to expand your sense of connection to a broader range of your own family names.
| Free Word Download |
4. VISUALIZING YOU AND YOUR GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
- Developing traditions and visuals that prompt us to recall our own family across multiple generations.
- See and emotionally connect to your own range of surnames.
- Fill this out with family members and put it on your refrigerator.
| Free Word Download |
5. VISUALS TO INCREASE YOUR EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS TO MORE GENERATIONS
- Visualizing you and your family across more generations.
- Strengthening your emotional reach by creating engaging visual connections.
- Adding more and more layers, like you and your great-grandparents (8), then your great-great grandparents (16), or at least as many as you can name, and even where they were born. It might take years, or you might have this information on a Genealogy site. Doing this kind of creative work is fun and can transform a dull set of information into something engaging and meaningful.
| Free Word Download | Printer-Friendly Visuals for You to Use
6. [Coming soon] WHAT MATTERS MOST? AND WHY? DIGGING INTO YOUR EMOTIONAL COMMITMENTS & INVESTMENTS
7. [Coming soon] WHERE OUR WONDERFUL GENEALOGY SITES FAIL US (AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT)
II. PRODUCING YOUR BOOK [coming soon!]
“A family heritage book is often one of the most treasured and lasting gifts
that you can give to your loved ones.”
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Identifying your “sites” and sources of information
- Digitizing your files
- Labelling and describing your digitized files
- Creating maps
- Creating unique and engaging family trees
- Looking for themes and stories in the content
- Verifying your audience and tone
- Establishing strong writing and image patterns
- Using a consistent design that creates the most engaging stories
II. Step-by-step instructions for making your book [coming soon!]
- Creating a free Mixbook account.
- Choosing a design theme.
- Core tips for changing a theme to fit your content:
- Issues with designing meaningful family trees
- Issues with margins
- Issues with font size
- Issues with sequencing
- Issues with condensing information
- Playing with visuals and text patterns
