Family History Book Tips

Tell life stories with photos

Photos tell a story, and Photo Books make wonderful records of family histories. Unlike traditional photo albums and photo scrapbooks, Photo Books can be easily replicated – create one and if you’re pleased with it order additional copies. Not all pages have to include photos – including text will allow the book to tell it’s own story in the absence of the creator, just as journaling does in a Photo Scrapbook.

Family History Book Ideas

Create a book of your own personal history. Include your baby pictures and childhood stories.
Interview an aging relative. Work with them to create the book. Have them write a personal note, include this in the book (scan it or photograph it).
Gather your old family photos and slides and have us digitise them then create a family heirloom to share with your own family. Purchase additional copies for other family members. Give as gifts.
Include personal histories, family stories, and genealogical data in the book.
Include photographs or scans of personal possessions, handwriting, certificates, letters, and other important documents. These will all make the book more personal.

How do you create this keepsake?

Sort out your photos and memorabilia and bring in to us for scanning.
- We can scan photographs, slides and large negatives to convert them to digital and return the originals to you.
- We can also scan anything on paper up to A4 such as poems, letters, awards, etc
If you want photos placed in the book in chronological order then the originals must be clearly numbered—write lightly in a soft lead pencil or CD pen on the back of each photograph.
Make sure our staff knows they are pre-sorted chronologically so we can name the files we create accordingly.
Combine the jpeg files of all the photos and scans going in the book into one folder
The photos must be numbered to keep them in a specific order when creating the book on our kiosks
- Read our article about rearranging photos here.
- If that looks too difficult you can do this on our kiosks the slow way - load the photos and use "manual rearrange" and move photos around the screen prior to creating the book. Ask our staff to show you how.
Our staff will show you how easy it is to create your own book on our kiosks - find out about templates, cropping, editing and more.
In the preview mode we'll show you how to fine tune the arrangement of photos on each page.
We then print the book on-site. It will be ready in one-hour or less.

How to add text

Scan or photograph handwritten notes
Type your stories in a photo editing program and save as jpeg
Type your stories in MS Publisher and save as jpeg
Type your stories directly onto photo book pages – slow as our kiosks are touch screen and can only be touched in one place at a time

Save time by preparing each page layout at home

If you are creative and want unique layouts use Publisher, Photoshop, or another page layout program to lay out your pages at home, save each as a single jpg file and then print a PhotoBook with one image per page.

Set up the page to the dimensions of the book style you prefer—our album pages are 8.5"x11" (landscape), 11"x8.5" (portrait) and 12"x12" (square).

For each page add your images, crop, resize, add text, add embellishments. When you’re happy with the page layout save that page as a 300 dpi jpg file

How many photos can you have?

Up to 270 photos can be reproduced in a 12x12 inch book or 378 in am 8½x11 inch book. This includes poems, letters, awards, and text boxes.