 |
| |
I am a new newbie to this stuff. I want to research my mother's family
history as top Christmas gifts. What are some ways to top gift this
information as I gather it? For example, a book? If so, how to lay it
out, how to keep it expandable, etc. Or are there other ideas? |
| |
 |
| |
-A book requires a lot of time to fill. Not only do you have to fill in
all the family names, but many folks opt to include family photos and
detailed citations for their information. One thing I did for my mom was to put together a nice framed family
tree with her and my dad, my brothers and their wives, my grand
parents, the names of my great-grandparents, and my parent's
grandchildren. Photos were included when possible. Most of the popular genealogy software programs will construct a tree
automatically, which you can coustomize for your taste. If you have a
color printer, opt for glossy paper so the photos look nice. Play
around with the fancy fonts and border styles. Buying, installing, and learning to navigate the software will take
maybe four or five hours. Once you keyboard in the names and vital
dates in the program's database, designing the tree ought to take no
longer than an hour. In these programs, you enter the information like
you would in an address book, only there are more slots than name,
street, city, and ZIP. Once entered, the program picks the information
it needs for a wide variety of charts and reports. TIP: If you use standard, office-size paper dimensions, you'll be
easily able to update the finished gift more often (and more
economically) as new information comes to light. If you are w-a-a-a-y new to genealogy software, a nice program can be
downloaded from the Latter Day Saints web site at by clicking on the "What's New" graphic. Look
for Personal Ancestral File (PAF) version 4. Many seasoned researchers
never find a need for another software variety. The book (more likely a pamphlet at the start) is also capable of
being generated by the software automatically based on the data you
enter. In any of the reports or charts, every time you change the
database by adding or changing information, the program will
automatically update the next reports you generate. Maybe that can be
your gift for next year. |
| |
 |
|
| |
| |
