PUBLISHING FAMILY HISTORY BOOK

LegacyUser

Rangi Jane Minhinnick said: it would be great if family search can create a publishing system where family search can help us members to publish a family book with all the family history that we have inputted into the family search program. If not please let me know which organization i can connect to where all my family pedigree charts or memories can be published as a book for my family. I dont want my memories shared to other peoples who are not connected to our family tree. Please help me!

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.

I am sure that many users would welcome this ability. Such a feature is very complex, especially when it comes to producing pages like the one you've illustrated. Those kinds of presentations take special layout software in addition to the data and images that you may have stored on your computer.

Each of the fully certified family tree management programs has a wide variety of report capability. All of them can produce a "book" that includes a lot of information, including automatically generated sentences based upon source entries, which can then reference images, complete with captions.

I use Ancestral Quest, but have also tested Legacy and RootsMagic. I found AQ to be the best for my purposes, but it has been several years since I tested the three programs to see which I preferred.

All three versions provide free versions, but those versions are limited in their print options, from what I can tell. All three also allow you to download your ancestors and their descendants from FamilySearch FamilyTree into a database, which is linked between your local database and the records in Family Tree.

FamilyTree itself is weak in the area of living persons, which only the person who entered the information can see. As such, I also use my local database to record information on my living relatives. By including photographs, I can publish very usable "books", complete with an index. The flexibility is amazing and it is not unusual for me to print a book that covers the descendants of one of my ancestors to share with others.

As a feature request to FamilyTree, Joe Martel, an employee, told us that there were 1,000 feature requests and that due to limited resources, only a few could be accommodated.

As it is, there is a very limited number of reports that can be printed from FamilySearch. The flexibility in the external programs is amazing and well worth exploring. Refer to the Solutions Gallery (link is below this discussion thread) for the programs and any others that may have become available.

There are also a number of report generating applications, which you may want to explore. Setting up to publish a book with just the data is time consuming and not easy, but I wanted the ability to produce books that could be used to further research by others and AQ has provided that for me.

LegacyUser

Rangi Jane Minhinnick said: I am so relieved and happy to know that I am able to publish a Family History Book for myself and family. I am excited and thank you Tom Huber from community support forum for FamilySearch. This is amazing, thank you so much for this precious information. On sunday just gone i spoke to my Relief Society President and asked her if she knows any of our ward consultants know about publishing book in family search she referred me to Sister Carol as i approached her she humbly went straight into her mobile and showed me what to do and again I am so grateful for the help i had received. I had organized a Minhinnick Family Reunion in first weekend in April 2018. I had so many response from all over New Zealand, Canada and England. I was able to find out connections to our ancestor siblings and their families. The family are so excited that I was in the process of searching for the right program, to publish our family book.

Thank to Family Search and Ancestral Quest for creating these amazing programs for members to store their stories and whakapapa.

THANK YOU THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU ALL

Sister Rangi Jane Minhinnick xxxxxxxxx

LegacyUser

Julie Kay McCauley said: What steps did this Sister Carol give you to do this? I would be interested as well.

jweber1

Thank you to Tom Huber for those suggestions! I will try Ancestral Quest and RootsMagic.

Today in 2021, Legacy does not have a version for Mac users.