A Look Inside the Family Book

In this post, I will once again turn to my experience with the family book. The book has finally been printed, and I can now show and tell you about the considerations and solutions we chose.

Cover and Title

For the cover, we used a wedding photograph because it features several members of the family. Wedding photos are always impressive – they often capture a large group of relatives, with people dressed in their finest clothes. From such photographs, you can easily read the era, fashion, and social status, and those familiar with local traditions can probably also spot region-specific details.

We chose a title that would immediately make it clear to the reader what the book is about. A slightly longer explanation is given in the subtitle.

Layout

The book describes several family lines of direct ancestors, which means multiple surnames appear. To make it easier to navigate, we added the relevant surname at the bottom of each page next to the page number.

I presented the information chronologically, by generations. Of course, for the oldest generations, it’s hard to find anything beyond names, years of birth, and places of residence. Therefore, we enriched the rather dry text with images of documents and maps.

Historical Context Information

We were fortunate that interesting materials about Veselava Manor and its landlords were available. In S. von Vegesack's novel Vorfahren und Nachkommen (Ancestors and Descendants), the Veselava landlords’ family is described, and letters about events in the parish are quoted.

Another goal of the book was to explain history to the younger generation. For this purpose, we added explanations of certain historical terms and events. These passages were highlighted in a different color.

Memories, Legends, and Famous Figures

The most engaging reading material is certainly the memories of family members about earlier times and relatives who have since passed away. Unfortunately, experience shows that people’s memories usually reach only as far back as their grandparents’ generation. For earlier times, there are only documents and rather vague stories, which should be verified whenever possible.

Some stories I managed to confirm – or refute – by searching for additional information online, in libraries, and in museums. There were also wonderful discoveries about events that had long vanished from the family’s collective memory.

I believe that family tales and legends are worth mentioning even if there is no documentary evidence. There must be some reason these stories have been passed down. After all, family legends are also a reflection of what we want to tell and remember about ourselves.

In some places, I also mentioned other famous members of the extended family, even though they were not direct ancestors. I think this does no harm and only enriches the family story with interesting personalities.

Photographs and Maps

Whenever possible, we visited and photographed family homesteads. This was important also because our family did not have many photographs. Nowadays, plain text rarely captures attention, and any image instantly adds so much extra information, feeling, and atmosphere.

Artist Daiga Dunse convinced me that photographs of documents are interesting and valuable artifacts in their own right. It is not always important whether the text can be read – some family members could never even imagine what church record entries actually look like.

We made the most use of maps from the 1920s–1940s because they mark homesteads. We placed map fragments both within the text and devoted two full spreads to larger maps showing several homesteads together.

Binding and Family Trees

The book contains a diagram of each family joined by marriage. These are only relatively simple schematic representations to help the reader navigate kinship. The complete information remains available only in the family tree created on the MyHeritage website. Living descendants are not included in the printed family trees.

Some more conservative readers might not like the “open spine” binding, but it had a functional purpose – this type of binding allows family trees to be printed across a two-page spread.

That said, before printing, it’s important to check where the separate sections will be glued together. We made a mistake here – one glue joint ended up right in the middle of a family tree, making it impossible to open fully and read. We learn from our mistakes!

In Conclusion

I want to encourage experimentation – every family book author will find their own approach and way of describing and presenting information. Some will have more memory stories or diary fragments, others will have a collection of old family photographs. Some prefer a more academic style, while others include more family legends. There is no single correct way, and that gives everyone the freedom to try and create their own family book.