by AGS member Michael A. Blackledge
One of the great legacies we can provide is capturing our family history. This will delight family members and provide a treasure trove of information for researchers not yet born.
Many of us have done considerable family research over the years. We may have captured a goodly portion of this work into genealogy software program such as Legacy or RootsMagic. But how best to distribute that work? Let’s consider some examples.
The most traditional, and arguably the best process for distribution is to publish a book of your family history. Several AGS members have done that and more are in the process. An example is James Roy Lee who wrote and published a book on his family, and donated a copy to our ABC Genealogy Center where it is available to everyone. His book even includes an appendix on DNA.
Here is James’ story behind his book, and its distribution:
“All four of my wife Kathleen’s grandparents were immigrants, and she grew up with three of them. Her Armenian grandmother died before she was born. There were many family stories that would be lost if someone didn’t write them down.
“Printed copies are available at Blurb.com. There is no commercial value in a book like this, so my only goal is to distribute it as widely as possible. I published it as a “photo book” to do justice to the historical photographs, one of which can be seen here. The book contains more than 100 images. The publishing company Blurb started as a place where photographers could showcase their work. They do a really nice job of producing a high-quality edition, and when you are in the library you might like to take a look at it. But the large format, page count, and photographic paper make it quite expensive. It is currently $150 per copy, and that is with me taking zero profit. I bought 40 copies and have given them all away to family and people who assisted me with the research.
“There is no cost to distributing digital copies, and I have sent the file to hundreds of people who have requested it. I would be happy to have a library host a digital copy to distribute on a non-exclusive license. I mentioned this to Lisa Kindrick, the Genealogy Librarian for the Public Library Albuquerque and Bernalillo County, but it seems like there are legal issues in doing this. I haven’t fully explored this option.
“If anyone wishes to look at the rest of the book without visiting the library, you are welcome to download a pdf file by clicking here.
“Feel free to share the file with anyone who is interested. Comments are always welcome.”
We will consider other possibilities for publishing your family history in Part II of this blog article.
