As the family member most actively researching our background I have been lent two books containing pedigrees, neither of which is of my direct family. I have been asked for advice on the best way of reproducing the contents for the benefit of the wider family, most of whom will only be interested in spotting any celebrities!
The title of the books is as shown on the subject line above and the first printed page reads:
A collection of diagrams for pedigrees
so arranged that
Eight generations of the Ancestors of any Person
may be recorded in a connected and simple form.
by
William H. Whitmore, A.M.
London
Elliot Stock, 62 Paternoster Row, E.C.
All rights reserved
A page of explanation including a publication date of 1885 follows. The system of entry is ingenious and includes cut-out spaces which allow cross--referencing. Eight generations per page cover, on the male side, 1596-1858. One of the volumes has data very neatly entered, the other less so.
Google showed me that a modern version of these books was offered more recently but reviews on a current web site indicate that it was not successful.
My reason for posting here is to ask for suggestions about how the entries in these books could be extracted for the benefit of other family members. The records are mostly dates of birth/baptism, marriage, death or burial, some with place or church. There are a couple of extended pedigrees with more interest to the wider family: one with a line of descent from Alfred the Great, another from Edward III. These have not been verified! These and other pedigrees have been inserted without conforming to the publisher's plan.
I am not able to transcribe all the data into RootsMagic (which holds my own data files), but would welcome any views on methods which could be used by others.
Thanks for ploughing through!
Ainslie