Author: Chris

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Family Memories on DVD

Each year for the past five years I have created a DVD that has pictures and video clips. My family loves watching them over and over and I enjoy making them. They take some time to make, but the end product turns out so good that it makes all worth it. I edit the video quite a bit so that it is interesting and I put the pictures into a slide show with musical background.

I thought that I would share some of the lessons that I have learned.

1. I transfer all of the video tapes for the year to the computer and then I make one set of DVDs without editing. I have found that if I make this set first then it’s not hard to cut out a lot of the video because I have a copy of the complete, raw video that I can personally watch if I want to see more. Maybe it is just a psychological thing but it works for me.

2. I work with a PC all day, every day and I love how it makes my life easier. But when it came to making videos, it didn’t work very well at all. I tried many different programs and even bought a new computer, but as soon as I did some video editing it wouldn’t work. I finally came to the realization that it wasn’t going to work on my PC. With my friend’s prompting, I bought a Mac and within a few weeks I had a perfect DVD to share with my family. Maybe there are new PC programs that will work now, but for me, the Macintosh is the only way to go. It works every time and editing is very easy.

3. Videos take a lot of memory, so I would suggest that you get as large of a hard drive as you can afford. You will also want to have an external hard drive that you can use as a back up. (See last week’s post about backing up.)

4. Plan a time of year to do it. For me, it works best to produce the DVD in January.

5. Put several different video clips on the DVD. Don’t try to put everything into one, long movie. If you break it down into shorter video segments then your family can watch the clips they want without having to sit through clips that they aren’t interested in (i.e. the clips they aren’t in.)

6. If you don’t have the desire or time to do it yourself, you can hire someone to do it for you, but remember that the editing decisions need to be yours. A stranger won’t know which shots are the most important to your family.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com 

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Remember to Backup Your Files

We live in a very fast, electronic age. It makes our life so much easier, but there is a little more risk. One of the risks of working with your book on a computer is loosing all or part of your computer files. I know that you have heard this before, but it is especially important to make backup copies each time that you work on your book. Make sure that your backups are on either a flash drive or separate disk so if the computer crashes or gets a virus you won’t lose both original and backup files. Something else that often gets overlooked is the possibility of disaster so occasionally store a backup copy in another location with a friend, relative, online, or at work in case you have a fire or flood. It is hard enough to gather all of the information and type it up the first time; I don’t want you to have to do it all over again.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com

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A Few Extra Books Will Be Handy

If you have finished writing your book you may be wondering how many copies you should have printed. If your book is about an ancestor that has quite a few descendants, this could be a difficult question. It can be very helpful to contact relatives to determine their interest or better yet to get advanced orders from them. If you are giving them as gifts to your grandchildren, it is easier because you know how many grandchildren you have. Whatever method you used to determine the number of copies to print, there is one more thing for you to consider. After several people see your book in its finished form, you will be asked if you have some more copies. These people may be friends or relatives that didn’t show any interest before the book was done, but now that they can see how great it is and they can have an “instant” copy, they are interested. So my advice for you is to print a few extra books. It is less expensive to run a few extra copies when your book is being printed the first time than to start over and print and bind just a few copies at a later date. If your finances won’t permit this additional expense, consider approaching a relative that can finance the few additional copies. Then as you sell the additional books you can repay their investment in your book. I have found that it will save you a lot of hassle and expense if you print a few extra books with the first printing.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com 

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Put a Digital Copy in the Back

Here is something that can be of great benefit to your readers. It can be very beneficial to include, with your book, a CD that has an electronic copy of your book file. If you can, include both a PDF copy of the book plus the original file format. These files will be searchable by your readers and can be a great aid to them in finding specific info that they are looking to find. You can even include, in a separate file, all the sources that you used to research and create the book. You might make another supplemental document that includes most or all of the parts of your book that were edited out. Then, if there is enough room on the CD, include JPEG copies of the pictures that you have in your book. You may have had other pictures or documents that were left out that you could include in the CD with very little extra cost or effort.

Making a CD to include with the book can even help you in editing your book. If you don’t really want to include all of the pictures you have of Uncle John in the printed book but you want the rest of the family to have all of them, then including them on the CD is the perfect answer. By putting this kind of CD in the back of your book, you will add great value for your readers for very little additional cost.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com 

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What If I Don’t Type Very Fast?

Is it better to type my book myself or hire it out? This question could be changed to many different parts of the publishing process, but this post is specifically about typing. You might be the type of person that likes to do it yourself. But if you can’t seem to find the time to type up your book, you can easily hire that part out. If you’re not sure where to start looking for a typist, you could start looking in your own family. You can arrange for a relative to do it, if they are willing and have the time. You might check with a young married member of your family who is looking for additional income. Another place to look for a good typist is at a local college. You can find many students that want to earn a little money on the side who are very good typists. Even though you can turn the typing over to someone else, that doesn’t mean that you loose control of the content of the book. With red pen in hand, you can edit to your hearts content and rework the book over and over until it is just how you want. Don’t be shy about asking your typist to make the changes that you want. If you are excited about the end product, they will be happy to help you reach that goal.

Another option is to buy a software program that transcribes from your voice, like Dragon Naturally Speaking. For someone who is a very slow typist but still wants to do it themselves, this is a good option. I tried this program many years ago and it work fair, but I can imagine that they have improved it greatly since then. You could look into it and see if it will work for you and then leave a comment below to help others with this same problem.

Many publishers will have in-house or freelance people to help you with typing or other parts of the project that are just too overwhelming to you. The important thing to keep in mind is to overcome all of the obstacles that are in your way and successfully reach your end goal of publishing your history! Your history and your unique stories are too important to lose.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com 

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Help The Reader See How They Fit

A few of the books that we have published have put a small pedigree chart at the beginning of each chapter. I thought that it was a good idea and for certain family histories, might be very useful. I’ll include a picture to demonstrate how this works, but essentially what you do is to create a small pedigree chart that shows the scope of the book. Then you use bold or a gray highlight to indicate where this chapter’s person is on the pedigree chart. It is a helpful way for your reader to be clear about who the person is that this chapter is about and how they fit in the family. I think that this would be extremely useful for families where names are repeated. You could also use this technique with a family group or a descendant chart. It may not work for your book, but I thought it was a good idea.

Here is an example:

PedigreeChapterStartExample

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com

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Adding Another Volume Later

Here is a dilemma that was again presented to me, so I thought I would address it here in case someone else has the same issue. You might find yourself like this gentleman who published his life history 15 years ago on legal size pages. He now wants to update his history by adding additional pictures that would be inserted into the first history and then adding a few more chapters about what he has done in the last 15 years. The hard choice is deciding on the format of this new printing.

Here are the choices: #1) Format all of the new material the same as the first printing (legal size) so that they match.

#2) Retype all of the first printing so that both the new and the old can be produced in a preferred size (6 x 9 or 8.5 x 11).

#3) Create the new chapters in a self contained book in a preferred size and copy the original book the same (legal) size and give the family two volumes (one legal size and one letter size).

#4) Reduce the original book pages to 8.5 x 11 and then add the new pages in the back so the whole book is letter size.

Here are the strengths and weaknesses that I can see with each method. You might think of some additional reasons, if so, add them as comments below.

#1) This is by far the easiest, but if you don’t like the original size or it is not preferred by the reader then its usefulness decreases very rapidly. Another advantage to this way is that you only need to copy the additional material to give to those that already have the first volume. The main disadvantage is that you don’t really like the old size (or at least your readers dislike it).

#2) This method is the most work but will yield the best finished product. The new book will be all in one volume and can be distributed to your readers as an updated history and will be in a more pleasing size. The disadvantages are that you have to spend a lot of time (or hire someone) to retype all of the text and scan all of the photos from the first volume. It will also be more expensive because you are reprinting the first volume in the new format.

#3) With this method, you are using the preferred size for the new material and not having to retype all of volume one. Volume two will be a friendlier size for the reader and for those that have volume one already, you won’t need to reprint those pages. With this method you will have two different size books, not necessarily a bad thing, but this may bother you or the readers.

#4) With this method you avoid having to retype volume one and your new edition has both the old and new all in one book. The disadvantages are that it will be difficult to read the reduced pages because the type will be much smaller. Also, the margins will be extra large on the sides of the reduced pages. And like method number two, it will also be more expensive because you are reprinting the first volume in the new format.

If you have a similar challenge, hopefully this has been helpful to you. There isn’t just one right answer, so study the advantages and disadvantages of each method and decide which will work best for you.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com

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Stories Add Wonderful Flavor to Your Book

Tell a story; don’t just get stuck in the dry facts. Anyone who reads your personal or family history will likely be interested in the facts, but what they’ll enjoy most and remember are the everyday details – favorite stories and anecdotes, embarrassing moments and family traditions. Sometimes it can add interest to include varying accounts of the same event from different perspectives. Personal stories offer a great way to introduce new people and chapters, and will help keep your reader interested. If your ancestors left no personal accounts, you can still tell their story as if they had, using what you’ve learned about them from your research. Look at historical information at the time to see what was happening in their city. Be sure to make it clear that this
information is not from their own writing but is added to give an example of what your relative might have been doing at the time. Use a phrase like “Mary didn’t say this in her record but I can just imagine her …” The stories in your history will help to make it memorable and enjoyable for the reader and satisfying to you. The Stories will make it great.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com 

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Video Histories

Ever since YouTube came along, the younger generation want to see it instead of read it. Adding a video DVD in the back of you book could be the icing on the cake to cause your grandchildren and great-grandchildren to really enjoy your life history. Here are some helpful hints if this is something you are considering.

There are professional companies that can interview you with a camera rolling and video some special family events. Then they will take that film and edit it into a wonderful DVD to be enjoyed over and over again. If you want to have a more hands on approach or do it on a smaller budget, you can do it yourself for a simple but effective look. I few critical things to keep in mind when you are doing a video. Be sure that the lighting is good so that you don’t show up as a black blob on the screen. Also, do the taping where background noise isn’t a problem and where you are close enough to the camera to be heard clearly.

Here are some web pages that will be a great recourse for you:

http://storytelling.concordia.ca/oralhistory/resources/tips.html

http://www.genealogy.com/95_carmack.html

http://genealogy.about.com/od/oral_history/Oral_Histories_Interviewing_Relatives_and_Collecting_Oral_History.htm

Interviewer tips: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/resources/rohotips.html

Make your DVD fun and interesting and it will capture future audiences for years to come.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com

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Decide Your Page Size in the Beginning

Occasionally someone asks if I can take there letter size (8.5 x 11”) book and reduce it to 6.25 x 9.5” size. I can, but the margins will are much too large on the top and bottom so it doesn’t look very good. I would suggest that you decide in the beginning on the size that you want your finished book. Then when you are typing and placing pictures in the document, everything will fit together nicely and your book will have a more professional look.

I would also suggest that you choose a good readable font. Three common fonts that are easy to read are: Times Roman, Bookman Old Style, and Garamond. Try these out and see which font you like best and find the easiest to read.

Another tip is to include the chapter in the header on the same line as the page number. One caution, don’t number the pages manually, use automatic numbering. This will save you hours of time and the page numbers will stay consecutive even when you add pictures and edit your book.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com

Here are two examples of headers with the chapter and page number on the same line:

PorterV3

SampleP3