HELP!!! My 1st Heritage Album!!!

Hey ! I'm very soon about to try something brand new ---- a heritage book! How far back do I go? Do I go back to ancestry.com and print old records and research or just cut and past ( copies) old photos ????? I'm guessing 1 book of dads 1 book of moms side ....is that right ?? How can I make a book onbour family readily available to all my members of both sides ( would I have tovmake 4 books per side ? Etc or just copy the original ? Ugh I need feedback lol I was gifted some ancestry papers yesterday so I'm excited ! Btwv my order came in its great ! Thank you for reading !

• mindygail Said:

lets start here Mindy I have been doing heritage pages for years it starts with how many photos do you have? I use my originals sometimes I get copies if I want to resize it there are some people who prefer to save the originals & make copies but I think that my album is the storage place. I am on ancestry.com.. you can certainly find lots of stuff to use. they have t he censuses there from every 10 years I have seen people print out one of the cesuse for that pertecilar house of family or family house or a personon the page with the apprroriate photo .
how many photos do you have? that will determine how many books you have you can certainly divide by family lines
I would also not worry so much about this process & start scrapping photos 1st that you want or excite you to worrk on & then you have started working on them wiithout the stress of the upcoming things you want to do . once you strart you will feel much better & can decide those final things later arter you have a handle on it

I forgot to tell you that I have a monthly heritage challenge that has lots of ideas but you never need to do them but I am taking a break in July .

I've done several Heritage Albums for my family. There's any number of ways to approach this, so don't stress out. A project like this could take months to years to complete so don't worry about how to do it. You will find a grove that works for you.

I use copies of photos and store originals in Photo albums separate from my scrapped albums. My scrapped pages all have hidden journaling that tells who they are, a story about them (if I know something). I've only scrapped from my Great Grandfather forward. However, I do have my ancestor.com linage records in a separate spot as its to voluminous to include with my scrapped pages.

I started with a Family Tree page for my Dad's side of the family. Bo Bunny currently has a three generation record page that like this: https://www.scrapbook.com/store/ac-7310080.html?t12-13=...

Then, I followed the record page with individual scrapped pages for everyone on it. Depending on the kind of pictures you have like wedding, portraits, and so on, that will determine how many scrapped pages you'll need to create. I hope that makes sense.

The one thing I would encourage you to do while undertaking this labor of love, is to use 3D Ring binders to hold your pages. That way, when you want to add or move a page, it will be very easy.

Good luck and have fun!

Hi. I've done a couple of these albums for my parents (one each as a life story sort of thing). For those I only went back as far as my great grandparents, but that is because of the fact that I my focus was more on their lives of course. I used original photos, if I could find them, but I do suggest that if you do that, you DO NOT permanently secure them to the album page. Instead, use photo corners or some form of attachment that allows them to be removed easily if a copy is desired. Some of my photos were well over 100 years old. They store well enough and are protected in the acid free/page protected albums and get seen once in a while too.

I am into genealogy, and have another book (a binder really - made by my uncle) with the family history that goes back at least 12 generations from me. We don't have photos of everyone of course, but they are all on a family tree print out and there are several photos, articles, diary entries, etc. that document everything from grave sites to ships of passage to personal accounts (including my uncle's own version of his childhood). Obviously, he was able to make copies of all of that so that I could have one. I'm not sure that anyone else wanted one. For that, you could work page by page and create a helpful index at the end. Add as much or as little as you want to it.

I would also recommend that you do create books that are specific to whoever your interested audience is... but I think that is the point of all scrapbooking projects . I do it even when the only audience is myself really. So, yes, I would separate the family history as needed. So, if you make copies for your mother's and father's sides, you would need to make two - unless your audience is you or your children of course. You might then, only need sections.

I have also participated in Linda's (Anda11's) heritage challenge and think it is a really neat place for further encouragement and inspiration.

Just a suggestion on making copies for everyone.

I have a friend making her heritage albums now and I don't know how she is organizing and doing it all but she wants family members to be able to have copies.

I will be scanning the pages for her. I scan in 4 sections on a normal bed scanner and then stitch. You can use photoshop or any of a many other free stitch programs.

Or you can take the pages somewhere and the going rate is $1.00 to $1.50 a page to scan. At one time I mailed my pages to a woman in Florida who did a great job scanning.

(I have a scanner big enough to do 12 x 12 pages but the photos aren't as clear as with my smaller scanner - I use y big scanner just for scanning new papers so I can use them digitally - I scanned over 2,000 papers so I can use them digitally whenever I want.)

Once they are scanned, you can download to a book printing service. I like the quality of Shutterfly the best but I have friends who use different companies with results just as good.

I am making a book for my mother (her 90th birthday is in August) and many family members will get copies.

My family likes the hardbound Shutterfly books for their copies better then they do the originals because for the older people, the hardbound are only 3/4 thick for 100 pages and they can handle them easier than a standard paper/trimmer scrapbook.

That is the only way to give different family members copies without making every book original. I couldn't do the same pages over and over and over again! Once I make a page - I don't want to make it again.

Thank you everyone - Katie Jo and Henri Jean I agree ! Once Ive done a page the last thing I wanted to do is recreate the same thing over and over ! Great resources ! Still have not started yet! I own one 3d ring bound book it's a project life rainbow. Chevron book - and I'm giving it to prelude clubhouse a mental I'llness program I'm getting involved in ! They want me to help make a Scrapbook for their program with a members photos ! I'm excited I'll have to attempt to purchase a neutral colored 3 d ring album ! Ugh! Thanks for the great information, y'all !

I did my album in 8.5x11 so that would bean easier way if you did want to copy them fro relatives. I did a page with a picture if i had one then some info on them dates and a small story about there life if you know it. If I didn't have a story i just did their kids names and dates. I kept my album more for pictures and basic info just to have at a quicker reference. Then have a second book for the bigger family tree like census stuff etc. Definitely would suggest using photo corners if you're using original pictures. If you don't have a lot of info I like the life story tab on ancestry you could just print it since it tells the family's basic story then just send that to your relatives.

also check the gallery It's great for inspiration. Someone had suggested hidden journaling i did that for some people if it was personal but I would didn't hide all of it. I think jourmaling is a big part of a heritage book

I just finished my moms side of the family in a heritage album. I made one for each of my 3 children so I did indeed make each page three times! For the next one I will figure out something else as I'm not doing that again!! I duplicated the photos 3 times and bought embellishments x 3 and all of it...it became quite expensive. My children loved it.

I have not ever looked into Linda's heritage challenge but I am going to have to investigate that!! I love heritage pages!!

to answer your question about how many books, It really depends on how many pictures you have for each side of your family. i did one book{ I used three ring binders since i did 8.5x11 for my dad's side since I don't have that many pictures. My mom's side i had to split into a couple books and arranged by family.

I agree with the expense of duplicating. I had thought it would be nice to give out copies to my cousins but instead I just sent them some leftover pictures I had and shared some things on fb then if they want them they can copy them. I also sent them invites to my ancestry tree so they could see the stuff that way.

it is so nice that you did my heritage challenge & liked it
I took a break this month but I will be back next month for sure
I have lots of ideas that are monthly like holidays.. stuff that is was invented that month some people love the ideas but you never need to do any

• bears99 Said:

I just sent you last months heritage challenge so you can see what it is like IT is in your private messages we have a wonderful group of people we would love to have you

I just sent you a freind request then you will be on my heritage challenge list

I've done two of these - in sets of eight for my mom, daughters, siblings, and myself.

It was a gigantic undertaking between the research and the duplicating of photographs, but the creating itself wasn't all that complicated.

I used 8x8 albums, just to keep the costs down and give myself plenty of scrap papers to work with.

I used sketches for the templates and kept pretty close to them without a lot of veering off the pathway creatively.

I documented EVERYthing I could find about the people in the photograph, using ancestry dot com, conversations from my relatives, and any other resource I could get my hands on.

I selected inexpensive paper lines, using on sale paper packs of vintage looking type papers, so each book LOOKED a little different because the papers in each one were different - but the basic layouts for each page were identical.

And then I assembly lined the whole process. I wanted everyone to have original works - not scanned ones - so I created eight different page ones from the same template - keeping the embellishments simple, using my cricut and my big shot for the most part.

It was time consuming, I'm not going to lie about that, but it was a labor of love and they made fantastic Christmas gifts that year.