Family Histories have always been a little difficult to put together in book form. They just don't flow well sequentially. Instead families branch and converge in a way that is much better viewed using hypertext links. I design these family albums in HTML (the same as the web page you're viewing now) and save the entire album onto either a ZIP (tm) disk or a CD-ROM. Using pictures as well as information to make it a true family album takes up a lot of room so this can't be done on convential floppy disks.
Hypertext Family Albums are great gift ideas. Summer is approaching and so is the season for family reunions. What better way to commemorate the event with the unveiling of a family album. Also, these are good birthday or holiday gifts for anyone, young or old. These days we don't spend as much time on our front porches passing family traditions and stories from one generation to the next like families used to. What a wonderful gift it would be to future family members to record for them stories of where they came from.
The advantage of putting your hypertext family history on ZIP (tm) is that it can be added to easily. Just like Web pages, family histories are almost always a work in progress, or "under construction". With this in mind, the ZIP (tm) has a definite advantage. On the other hand, for long term archival purposes, the CD-ROM format would seem to win out since it is a write once format, and technologies on the horizon (DVD) have been designed to be backwards compatible (i.e. your CD-ROM's should be able to be read in a DVD drive.) Usually a family album project is not going to be large enough that it wouldn't fit on a ZIP (tm) drive, so the choice is up to you.
All packages are in IBM/compatible format only right now. All family albums require either a Zip or CD-ROM drive, IBM compatible computer and Web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.
6 generations with individual pages for you (and your brothers and sisters) through your 3rd great-grandparents no individual pages for Aunts and Uncles. (Should be 63 pages + your brothers and sisters) $500 on Zip disk or CD-ROM
6 generations with individual pages for you through your 3rd great-grandparents plus individual pages for all Aunts and Uncles (your brothers and sisters, your parents brothers and sisters, etc.) $1200 on Zip disk or CD-ROM
6 generations with individual pages for you through your 3rd great-grandparents plus individual pages for all Aunts and Uncles and individual pages for their children $2000 on Zip or CD-ROM
6 generations ancestry and full descendancy from Aunts and Uncles. This is the full fledged family album. There are individual pages for every member of the family in your records back to 6 generations. $4500 on Zip, or CD-ROM
8 generations with individual pages for you (and your brothers and sisters) through your 5th Great Grandparents. No individual pages for Aunts and Uncles $1300 on Zip disk or CD-ROM
Package prices assume an approximate price of $7 per individual page. Similar in length to a printed 8.5" x 11" page. (1 picture per page is included if the picture is already on disk. Otherwise, $5 extra per picture scanned)
Custom Packages: I realize that most of the packages I do will be custom suited to the individual family. The packages listed above are intended to give you an idea of what is involved in each type of family album. The estimate per page or $7 will be used in estimating prices for custom packages. I know that everybody has a different opinion of what they would want to be included in a family album. For example, you might only want Great-Grandpa Jones and all of his family and their descendants, or you might want every distant cousin that you've ever discovered in two decades of research included. If you don't see what you'd like listed in any of these packages, then contact me with what you're looking for and we can design a customized family album.
Each individual page will include as much of the following as is available: Full name, picture, birthdate, birthplace, marriage date, place of marriage, date of death, location, and where buried, plus a brief biography. Also the name if their spouse and children are on each page with appropriate links to those family that also have individual pages. Additional links can include information such as the historical notes mentioned below.
Each package includes up to 10 separate pages for historical notes, such as information on a certain military regiment that an ancestor served in, or a church important to the family, or a family homestead, hometown history, etc. Let me know what you'd like to do and I can put it together for you. Additional pages can be added in at $7 each.
I need a $300 deposit to begin work. Please send only copies of your information unless it's absolutely necessary to send originals. Also, please make it clear what materials need to be returned. These will be returned on completion of the "album."
Please contact me by filling out the form here, to discuss what you're interested in and to receive an order form. To request more information, or for an estimate of the family album that you want, click here.
Back to top
It depends on the size of the project. Approximately 70 web pages can take about a 40 hour week to perfect. For any family album you should expect to wait at least one and a half months. If it's not completed in 45 days, I'll send you a progress report and let you know when to expect completion.
If some of your family tree still needs some excavation, then I will refer you to my Genealogical Research Services page here. Right now I am not accepting research which would require me to travel outside of North Carolina. The 14 county region that I primarily cover is as follows: Nash, Edgecombe, Wilson, Halifax, Warren, Franklin, Wake, Johnston, Wayne, Green, Pitt, Martin, Bertie, and Northampton. These are all in North Carolina and resources include all County Libraries, County Courthouses and, of course, the State Library and Archives in Raleigh. Back to top
If you would like to view a few samples selected from my hypertext family album click here. (Note: Out of respect for privacy of living relatives, I am only providing
a sample from a few generations back for your viewing.) Back to top
Genealogical and Historical Bookstore