Leaving a Legacy

Good news, there are several ways we can create a legacy that can enrich and impact our family for generations. This may not be a financial legacy, it would instead be a cultural and family specific legacy that celebrates and teaches the clan's history.

Why Is Leaving a Legacy Important?

A legacy relates to leaving something behind of value be that monetary or enrichment in some other form. Genealogically speaking legacies are not always financial but they can be designed to carry deep meaning and relevance to your family.

Years of research may have taught you a great deal about the family's history but how do you create a lasting way of preserving all that work? The obvious way is to create legacy items which can be shared through the family hopefully for years to come.

When there are legacy items in a family it creates a connection to the history of the clan. Seemingly unimportant things may become a vital part of the family's ongoing culture and traditions with the creation of a legacy.

Create a Scrapbook

This is a creative way to create a legacy for the family that will be entertaining, eye-catching and informative. In doing this you can gather together family pictures and stories that can be passed onto the next generation in a form that is meaningful but also engaging.

Choose a Style

It’s important to start out your scrapbooking by determining what type of style you want to use. You can choose to go with a more decorative style or you can choose to keep it simple and clean. You should consider that you want the book to last for a while and be passed down. A more decorative and intricate book therefore may be more prone to becoming ragged and falling apart over the years. A simple layout may be easier to maintain.

You should also consider how much you want to spend putting together the scrapbook and again consider the potential longevity of the piece. Cheaper options may not hold up to the years whereby using more quality supplies may help to preserve the scrapbooks for longer.

Organize Your Stories and Pictures

A family history scrapbook by its nature is going to be designed to be more informative than it is decorative so it is important to consider the best way to lay out the facts of the family. The goal is to give life to your research and inform coming generations about who they come from.

Decide which photos and family documents you will incorporate. You can have a varied collection which includes not only people but perhaps images of family heirlooms or former homes in which the clan have resided. This is a project intended to inform with interesting facts so play around with some layouts before doing the final affixing of items in the book.

In terms of layout you need to consider how you’ll organize your album. A common arrangement used is to do it by family, one generation at a time, starting in the present-day and working backward in time. This could include chapters such as:

• immediate family
• father’s family
• mother’s family
• paternal grandfather’s family
• paternal grandmother’s family
• Scrapbook Theme Ideas

The scrapbook does not always have to be about the whole family; it can also be about an important event or some specific element of the family's history. Common ideas for this might include:

• family reunion
• school book for individuals
• cemetery book which features images of ancestors' grave markers
• immigration book that includes images and details pertaining to immigrant ancestors
• family home history scrapbook (especially great for homes that have hosted the family for generations)

Create a Written Narrative

A scrapbook uses a lot of pictures and limited words but a written narrative of some form would allow you to use more of the stories with a select number of important images. It is a good choice for the creative writers in the family who want to impart more of the family history and lore.

Gather the Stories and Pictures

The most obvious place to start in forming your family history book is to gather the family stories, research findings and pictures together. As mentioned in the tips you should look to get a collection of pictures of ancestors, research graphics and document images.

When it comes to the stories that you gather from family try and make sure they are accurate to how they were first relayed to you. This is why I always advise recording family interviews on audio files when possible.

You will know which of your ancestors you are going to focus on so make sure you have ready at hand all the important images and stories for those you intend to include in the creation of the book.

Choose Your Book Type

As mentioned there are various types of family history books and it will depend on the scale and scope of the information you have collected as to the most suitable. Additionally if there is a special reason for which you are creating the book, such as a relative's birthday, you may have particular needs.

As a special gift the best method might be a lay flat photo album or hardcover photobook. The lay flat offers a book that has no seams and a handcrafted appearance. A hardcover photo book is not as decorative so it is suitable for a more casual gift. It also offers a higher potential page count.

Softcover options are acceptable however they do not tend to be hard wearing and may over time start to show their age. This is fine for a mass produced family history book that may be for the whole family but as an individual gift for a parent or grandparent it is not as suitable.

Organize Your Information and Images

It is key that you organize both your text and images into a chronological order. This is vital to create flow in the book and avoid confusion. Often individuals with the same name in a family pop up in different generations so it is important to maintain order in the book.

If you can try to add dates to any family images you use or at least a date range. This will help the reader follow the chronology of the lives of individuals included in the book.

Consider Using Heritage as a Theme

When using colors and other decorative flares in a family book it may be interesting to give a nod towards the family's heritage. A family that identifies as being of Irish, German, African etc. descent may want to show this in the layout of the family history book.

This can be achieved by including motifs and colors that might be associated with the heritage of the family. In doing this you add more of an homage to the ancestors listed, some of whom may have been born in the country that the family's heritage originates from.

Include Quotes

Many family stories might include something that a great grandparent may have said that could have been funny or poignant. It may even be a saying they were known for repeating often. The point is if an ancestor was known for saying something of interest to the family this could be included as a graphic under a photo of them.

There may also be songs or song lyrics that may be pertinent to an ancestor which you might consider using to further give insight into who they are. Poems can also be poignant especially if they were personal favorites or perhaps even were featured in memorials for deceased ancestors.

Create a Family Cookbook

This is a very unique idea which can help unify the family through shared heritage and of course food. Some families have a strong culture of food and recreating grandma's recipe for this or that event may be very important.

The idea here is very simple and includes gathering together the known family recipes from your ancestors some of which may have been in the clan for generations. You can then present them by creating a book, digital file or even a website that the family can turn to when seeking a legacy recipe.

You can use the earliest known images of the recipe having been made and perhaps images of original physical forms of the recipe being written down. Some grandparents might even have vast collections of written family recipes.

Final Thoughts

Leaving some kind of physical legacy that can impart the family history to the next generation is very important. Your years of research may mean a great deal to them when you are gone, so packaging that in an inventive way is part of your own legacy to the family.

Neil Edwards

Genealogist and family-tree research specialist

Neil was born in Shropshire, England surrounded by centuries of living history. His interest in the past has been a lifelong passion leading to undergraduate degrees in both Economic History & Geography and History & Politics.

This interest in history quickly translated to family history when he moved to the U.S. in 2010. It was here that he began working on his own family tree as well as that of his American wife. That research allowed him to gain a wealth of experience working with both U.S. and European genealogical documents and studying their best uses in researching family history.

Following 9 years of honing his genealogical research skills, Neil was proud to have earned a certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University in late 2019. Neil also took part in the research process for a Duke University study into the families of 19th Century UK Members of Parliament.

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