TIP #364 - SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A FAMILY BOOK. I have been requested to give an outline of how to publish a family book. I am sure there are books out there telling you how to write a book, but I'm going to give you some ideas, guidelines and thoughts after doing this for over 30 years. Maybe I should call it the "Poorman's Guide to Genealogical Publishing." I have always needed to work on more of a shoestring in publishing and over the years have gotten more accomplished, I hope! It IS important that you preserve your family papers and findings for the family, for posterity. Sometimes it can seem a monstrous task, but it really isn't. So, let's go step by step through a process that might help you. The general outline that I'll follow is shown below and will be developed over several tips. The first tip is Getting Organized. I. Getting Organized - Your materials. A. Where from? B. What kind? C. How much? D. Documentation E. Organization F. Make it interesting! 1. Family Charts 2. Pedigree Charts 3. Maps 4. Photos 5. Historical Events 6. Place setting A. Where from: This is basically easy. Any place you can! Books, microfilm, family histories, oral traditions, web searches, old diaries, school records, interviews ... you know that part pretty well, I'm sure! B. What Kind? This rather over-laps with "A" above, but it's my rule of thumb is this: If it's interesting to me, it should be interesting to others. If it adds flavor to the memories of your family and will help others later on - it's worth saving. If you have family branches as illusive as some of mine, you will be thrilled to find their name in print any place and will definitely want to save that! C. How much? Well - take it from a pro on this ..... don't gather information for so long that when you get it all together, you end up with a 500-600 page monster that is out to get you. (1) it will take too long to organize it into printable form. (2) It will cost too much to publish it. (3) It will cost too much to mail it. (4) It is scary to the reader who thinks he is delving into the sequel of "War and Peace"! If you have a lot, divide it up into more than one volume. Keep them wanting more, not using the book as something to keep the door open or to use as a weight during workout exercises! D. Documentation. All of us, I'm sure, have been guilty in one way or another of gathering information and then not getting it organized. When we go back to look at it later we gulp and ask ourselves: "Where did I get that from" "Who told me that?", "What book did it come from?" Come on, let's be honest!! I know that in the early days of my researching back in the early 1970's, I did that. I was like a kid in a candy shop grabbing every thing I could, meaning to write down later where it came from. Having lived in 5 states in those 30 plus years and visiting a LOT of libraries, all too often, I've had to go back and pray I could remember! Please document! You'll bless yourself in years to come! E. Organization. I started out in a primitive mode. Computers were not in every home, no one had a copier, fax, or laptop to take with them to the libraries. The copy machines left a lot to be desired; most of the books we can now view (in person or on-line) weren't there. We did it the hard way - pencil and paper and a supply of dimes. Libraries were not all that interested in genealogy unless you lived in a larger town. When you were fortunate enough to find your family cited in a book, you wrote until your hand was in spasms and ran out of paper. You were looking for anything to write on ... even toilet tissue was a possibility if you really hit a "bonanza"! The microfilm readers were (and some still are) monsters that tore the end of your film, clanged and banged as you tried to fast forward. One who wears bifocals suffers more than you'll ever know, head tilted back ... a hand behind your neck to keep it from breaking off, black marks and tears over the name you needed. I think a lot of you have been there and done that! When you're writing or copying (from books or films) be sure to write down all the information. If it's a book: title, author, publication date, publisher, page number. If a film, reel #, where you copied the film and the date copied. When you get back home and take two aspirins, start a filing system. It can be in the electronic form on your computer, or in paper form in notebooks. I started out (without a computer) in getting 3 large 3-ring notebooks as I was tracing three different lines of our Gorin family. I started out with a section for the head of the family, and then separate sections for each generation that followed. If I didn't have time to re-do my notes (or am I the only one who writes fast, scribbles all over the page, around the margins, has arrows pointing to various things?)... I still put those pages in the right section. I lose things easily! This will be the basis of your book. F. Make it interesting! There is nothing more boring that reading through a family history book that has nothing but names and dates. I am a firm believer in 'fleshing out' the ancestors. It might take you a tad longer but it is well worth the effort and you'll be proud of the results. I normally use the following: 1. Family charts 2. Pedigree charts 3. Maps 4. Photos 5. Historical events 6. Place data (With the advents of software programs, I usually now use the book format that comes with most programs. However, you can vary your information in different styles to hold the reader's attention.) 1. I use family charts when I want to show an entire family unit and have notes that goes with it. Then I add any extra that pertains to the family. As an example, do you have copies of a will, deed, marriage license, funeral home record? Put a copy of the original in instead of typing it out. To see a photocopy of an old document in a book will always draw your eye to it. As a suggestion; if the copy is hard to read (light, blurred, difficult handwriting), then - under the original document, type out what it says for those of your family and friends that don't read early American handwriting or haven't been to an eye doctor lately to have their eyes tested! 2. Pedigree charts are neat if you are fortunate enough to have one of your family branches go back several generations. I still have never found a pedigree chart that I really like to reproduce for a book. There seems to be problems with all of them. Either they go on page after page and you have to put in detailed instructions on how to jump from page to page, or you can print them off as a wall chart, cut the pages, tape them together, reduce them .... it's a mess. So I don't use a lot of pedigree charts in my books. 3. Maps. I love maps! Maybe it goes back to my elementary school days, but maps hold a fascination for most people. So your ancestor lived in Bourbon County KY. That's fine for us - we have every road memorized from our research; but most people wouldn't know Bourbon County if it hit them in the face! Put in a map of the area where this family lived. If they came from the Old World, find a map! You might even get the oldest US map you can find and plot their course from where they started to where they ended up. 4. Photos! I love looking at the old photos! You can either intersperse them with the biographical and genealogical information or put in a separate section. We'll cover that later on. 5. .Historical Events. So, in 1811 your ancestor was born. Interesting to his parents; maybe exciting to you after hunting for the event for years. But???? What was going on in the world at his birth? Was he born during the big earthquakes along the New Madrid fault line that rattled Kentucky residents? Was the War of 1812 gearing up? Did some royalty die that year? You can find, on the web, historical events - calendars of events for about every year. After letting us know that ggggg-Grandpa Smith entered the world kicking and screaming, tell us what heralded his birth- or his marriage, or his death .... it adds pzazzzzz! 6. Place data. This is sort of like #5 above. Did Aunt Minnie Miniscule live in Mousie, KY? Well, tell me something about Mousie; I've always wanted to know about that town! Where is it, how big of a town was it? Is it still there? Was it a farm town, a railroad town? Did anything important happen there? One excellent source on old Kentucky towns is a book entitled 'Kentucky Place Names" by Robert M. Rennick. I believe it might be on line also. It will tell you the name of the town, what it used to be called, who founded it, how big it is/was. Hopefully, by the time I post the next tip next week, you will be totally organized! <grin>! The way I do it is pretty simple. When I get pictures, maps, photocopies, I put them in a box by the computer. I enter the statistical data or family data on that individual's file on the computer and print myself off a copy. I put the rough draft and the documentation together in that box (or file folder). Then when I'm ready to start printing the final copy, I have everything in one place. That also helps me remember if I've used that material before, rather than duplicating the information. Next week we'll talk about photos and other illustrations. (c) Copyright 1 Nov 2001, Sandra K. Gorin. All Rights Reserved. sgorin@glasgow-ky.com Col. Sandi Gorin, 205 Clements, Glasgow, KY 42141 (270) 651-9114 Publishing: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/ SCKY resource links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~moore/Gorin.html < >< God Bless America ><>