Are my trees ready to publish?

[feelsrgreen]

Hello to all
In my posted reply to 'Venting', to Susan in particular, I am adding my two pennies worth.
I started to compile a sample of my family record to be included in a small book for my family members.
Like the others, included on this theme, I have been torn between a large collection of detail on each person and tree picture, OR a simple decendents record of my own branch.
I don't have an extensive number of people on my tree, just 953.
I consider that enough as my family contacts have not born fruit at all. None of my family so far have any interest in genealogy nor Apple computers, so I am just about to finish my efforts with a book. The style and makeup is yet to be determined. Another important point, is it to be printed or in digital form and in which format etc.?

I have had extensive experience with newsletters and journals for societies etc with PCs and I know my Macs now very well after about 6 yrs. I have, and understand most aspects of Adobe Photoshop Elements but have not used it for yrs. I have found Apple's Aperture to suit my photo needs.
I have iBooks Author and have started to make my story book.
Not the easiest program to use but I have done 6 pages. That was about 12 months ago. Found that copying my own notes onto paper to edit properly, than to copy and paste into their templates etc and then try and edit. It works ok but nowhere near what I want yet.

I understand the limitations of the finished iBooks product.
Some key points in any publications is to nut out the content on paper first.
Questions like, how many generations, how much of each person to include, which photos suit the narrative etc.
Most importantly, to whom is this intended and in which format?
I shall restrict myself severely to my side of the tree from Great Grandfather to my grandchildren. At 79 yrs I am one of the eldest of my line.
About half of my 'family line' are still alive, so leaving out the living would not interest said family members.
I have no intention of publishing online nor using Ancestors.com. Or any similar.
I must finish this project before my cognition ability diminishes. Hopefully not for a few years.
We are never finished I know, but must draw a line somewhere and get vol1 done.
Another important consideration is that I may have all the knowledge about Macs but none of my family are Mac users nor the very few who have Pcs interested in genealogy.
So trying not to be crying into the wilderness, I must keep this part of the effort going.
Who knows who may take up an interest later, when I am gone.
Noel

[rclrocco]

Re: Are my trees ready to publish?

Noel, I can definitely see where you're coming from as I'm in a similar position. I've studied my family history for over thirty years, going from the totally paper years; to some twenty years on PCs; and finally to Mac and Reunion since early 2008. At the moment, I have about 2,300 people in my Reunion database;
I too would like to record what I've done, probably in the form of a narrative, illustrated with many photos, maps, artefacts, etc and small family trees relevant to each century or place. As you say, this is never "complete" but if I don't start to record my findings soon - I'm a young 62 - the information may die with me which would be a pity.
Most of my research is in thirty or so ring binder files and on Reunion, and I'm always adding more detail into Reunion, so that has become my "goto" place for information.
I'd like to write the story, partly for immediate family members and a dozen or so interested cousins, but also for posterity. I think its a good idea to send a copy of the completed "book" to major national genealogical libraries like the Society of Genealogists in London, and the local record offices where my ancestors came from, or lived, as they will then hold that for others who may want to look it up in years to come. You mention the issue of readers either having Pcs or Macs. Paper will long outlast both of those.
I feel the computer, both the hardware, the media and of course Reunion itself will all change utterly or be unavailable in years to come, so for me , the only way to leave a permanent record of what I've done is with a paper record. After three decades of research, I can already see this as the first ten years of my data, held as backups on two kinds of floppy discs are long since redundant, and fit now only for the bin. Trash can !!
Reunion has its place for now as an excellent program for storing and sorting all my family data, but its the family story that I want to tell.
I'm not keen on using a set format like web project or given data sheets. I plan to write the narrative in Pages or Word, or similar, copying and pasting extensively from my notes in Reunion; and using a "publishing" program such as Pages to insert photos , maps and so on. I have an issue with the actual family trees which will be included. Reunion produces quite nice descendant and other charts and I might include a few but as i have for many years produced my own hand drawn charts showing exactly what I want, I think i may include scanned coloured hand drawn trees. I think this will be much easier for me than trying to work out how best to print trees directly from Reunion, and squeeze these in to an A4 format.
I like Reunion as a program - its probably the best Family History programme that I've used - but it's only a tool; the real product of all my research will be the written , illustrated story, probably in A4 booklet form, with double sided printing.
And to answer your question - the point of the thread ? - my trees will be ready to publish, when I am happy that all the facts and people therein are fully verified. I don't like the idea of so many who rush to publish any old trees online on Ancestry and other places when little is verified or proven.

[donworth]

Re: Are my trees ready to publish?

I agree with Rupert that a book is an excellent archival strategy But I wouldn't limit myself to that - partly because I have so much to archive that I couldn't possibly fit it all into a book (nor would a complete dump of all of the family information and images I have be of interest to everyone who might get a book).

I have 1000s of old photographs I have collected for my wife's and my various families. The physical photos are likely to end up the way many family photos do - discarded by some later generation who doesn't see the value in them or burned up someday in a house fire. Some of these images went into my books, but I'm sure I have photos of people that someone will desperately want someday that were not published because they aren't of interest to my branch of the family. I have scanned all of them in high resolution as well as scanning the contents of my 3-ring binders (I had 15 of them before I started going digital) and I have distributed all my "holdings" on computer media (thumb drives and DVDs) to local historical societies and my various cousins. I figure even if that particular cousin isn't interested in them now, they may eventually end up in the hands of a descendant who will think they are a gold mine - especially if I send them to enough people/places.

I spent 40 years in IT and I am less concerned that current formats will be unreadable. As long as things are stored in a format that many people use (JPG, TIFF, PDF), it's highly likely that people 50 years from now will have a way to convert it. It's still possible to find a service that will convert floppy disks and 8-track mainframe computer tapes for you because there are people willing to pay for it. And, with digital media, the files will get copied to newer technology (without a loss of quality as with paper media) if they are viewed as family heirlooms.

I figure the books I do are primarily for non-genealogist family members. My huge database of scanned documents and photographs and GED files is for the future genealogists in my family so that they can build on what I have done.

Don

[The Wheeler Family]

Re: Are my trees ready to publish?

I do a lot of digital scrap booking using PSE and have nearly finished a book on my maternal family. It looks good but a lot of work. I have recently been introduced to Blurb Bookwright which is a publishing software for producing books. I have started to play around with it and think I will use it to produce a book for my paternal family. It's free and there is good support in the form of videos to help you get started.