Which is Best?

[suttontrust]

I think I'm going to disagree with some of you!  In presenting family members with "the book" I've started with an "ancestors of" tree.  For the narrative I start from as far back as I can on one line, go down to where it joins another, and trace that line etc.  I'm saying, "We start from here", and they can trace the story with the chart in front of them.  The other way of doing it, starting with onself, is how the reports print out on Legacy, the main programme I use, and I find that much harder to follow a coherent story.  Doing it past to present also means that you can isolate different branches for different people.  E.g. I can do a version for my half-sisters, for whom all my mother's side is irrelevant.  I'm not being prescriptive - do what works for you.

[Sylviaann]

Thanks everybody.

As my main family has 50 pages of about 45 different bits of the family, plus 12 pages for one line and several pages for various wives and it's from the top down I can't change it all.  I did do a separate one for direct ancestors, going down from the oldest.  I have now added another for the main family going up from my mother.

There are 14 pages of trees for this family, all with notes making them easier to follow( there are 9 pages for the other line).  I also have some wives families on this side but not many.

I have squeezed most of the main names onto a one page tree, or line, as I call it with an extra bit for the other large line.  This is all for my mother's father's side.

My mother's mother's side are another 8 and 15 pages, one goes back to 1300(taken from a book which was from the oldest down.

I have also done a birth brief which also takes up a lot of pages.

I believe the convention is to work down from the oldest known ancestor but I know it is sometimes difficult to follow.

Now to deal with my father's side which is not large but has lots of info on some of the wives families.

Thanks again

Sylviaann

[Lydart]

For non-experts (unlike us all on RC !) I'd always work from the known to the unknown, i.e. from this or the last generation, going backwards in time.  My own daughter had no idea what I meant by 5xgr.G.parents ... and she's not stupid ! 

[yn9man]

For non-experts (unlike us all on RC !) 

Many thanks for the compliment.   

Now off to more research ....

yn9man

[behindthefrogs]

I start with a forward of a fan of surnames, actually produced using Excel, which starts from the present and fans out through the various marriages to show all the ancestral lines, not mentioning any Christian names at all.  Each name cross references a chapter in the rest of the document or a file on the CD which contains the information  for that name starting from the oldest and working forwards.

David

[trish251]

I think I've done mine somewhat similar to David. I have a first page where I name the person to whom I am presenting the book, followed by an index referencing the main family names that I have researched. I then allocate a chapter to each of these names & document from the oldest I have found, down to the person being researched.

I have also discovered that many of the folks interested in my research are genealogy smart but computer illiterate. A CD (as I used to give) has been pointless - they much prefer it all on paper.

Trish

[Sylviaann]

Trish

I'd love to give it all on paper but there is just too much and as I'm sending a lot of it to New Zealand the post would be too expensive.  I did do a couple of books (one for each side of my family) some years ago but it has got too much now.  I thought they could print it out themselves if they are interested enough.

Sylviaann

[Lydart]

You can read the paper/book in bed, which you can't with a CD !!

[trish251]

I just have to mention - I gave a CD to one of my favourite relatives (as I had run out of paper copies and I suggested she get her son to print it for her) but she couldn't get past trying to play it on the CD player - so I printed some more paper copies.     

I have sent CDs overseas but only to those I know have computers - but I do find they never seem to get the time to look at same - whereas if I send the paper it seems to get read!

Trish