Ancestry Press
A New Service to Help You Publish Your Family Tree Book
Now you can produce a quality hard-cover book of your genealogy research and family tree charts. All with a few handy online tools from Ancestry.com
Publishing your own family tree history book has been discussed earlier, and now there is a new service to make the whole process even easier. Ancestry Press gives you the tools to create a lovely hardcover book with your genealogy research laid out beautifully.
Ancestry Press is part of the huge Ancestry.com family of genealogy services, known particularly for their large online databases (mostly available by subscription only).
First of all, be aware that you need to have your family tree research uploaded to the Ancestry.com website before you can use the Ancestry Press service to create your book. It's free and pretty simple, since you just have to start an account and upload your GEDCOM file. If you are only interested in using the Press service and don't really want your genealogy data online, you can always make your uploaded tree "private".
If you don't have photos or scanned document images as part of your genealogy file, you might want to upload them as well if you want those types of images to be used in your book. Basically, everything you want to have included in the book should be part of your family tree file right from the beginning.
Once your data is in the system, you are ready to make a book. Don't let the size of the project scare you either. Much of the formatting process is automatic. Pedigree charts with photos are created, along with pages for individuals, timelines and more.
The formatting tools are quite extensive, and will allow you to tweak and change the automatic format to your own taste. You can change background styles, typefaces, positioning of photos and more. Though the initial book is produced automatically, you do have a great deal of control over the final design.
Limitations
Don't get overly ambitious with this service. There is a 100-page limit on books, and it is really designed for only a 4-generation series of relatives. Though you CAN add additional pages to your project to extend it beyond the 4 generations, you are doing yourself at that point. You can purchase professionally bound books, but there are no options for a digital, CD or PDF version of the finished product.
Cost
The cost of getting your book printed is $29.95 for a 24-page book. Additional pages will cost you $0.39 each, up to the 100-page minimum. So if you wanted to create a large book of a 100 pages, the cost per book would be approximately $56. Still, not a bad deal for a custom designed and personal book. If you plan on getting copies for relatives, you can get a price break when buying 2-9 copies (10% off) or more than 10 copies (15%off)
You can also get single sheet, family tree posters (24x18 inches) for $19.95. Larger posters are going to be available in the future.
The Final Product
The Ancestry Press books are bound with a hard leatherette cover, with a title stamped on the front with gold foil. The pages are acid-free, 100 pound glossy paper. It will take 2-3 weeks for shipping, so if you are thinking of getting one of these books done as a gift, you still have time to get it completed and delivered for Christmas.
