Per your suggestion a few years ago, I used Shutterfly to make books of my children’s childhood pictures from the 60s through the 80s. I have seven children and only one copy of each photo. Now they each can have a compact book with my captions. They are loving it, and so am I. Thank you!
I watched your presentation at the 2024 RootsTech but my insanely complicated Royce/Beach/Austin ancestry is difficult to comprehend, much less write about it. Five Royce women and four Royce men, all of them descendants of Robert Royce and Mary Jackson, are ancestors. Robert & Mary are 10th maternal and 9th paternal great grandparents. One of their sons is a 9th maternal and 8th paternal great grandfather via his two wives. Adding more chaos to the mix is Beach/Royce ancestor Michael Beach, a descendant of Thomas Beach. Michael's great granddaughter, Mary Ann Madden, married Clark S. Beach, a descendant of Thomas' brother, John. So, both Thomas and John Beach are 9th great grandfathers. Mary and Clark were 7th cousins. Do I start the story at Mary Ann Madden & Clark Beach then work backwards to include both my mother's and father's lines to Robert & Mary, or start with Robert & Mary? I wrote a Word document to visualize it since no commercial tree template accommodates the complexity. Thanks for reading this!
The answer depends on your writing experience. If you've never written about someone, you would want to start with someone less complicated. If you have written a few biographical sketches or biographies, then you should decide what do you want the book to accomplish? Is it untangling the same named individuals? Is it focusing on a couple (but inserting how they're not another couple with the same name)? The answers to those questions will be your guide.
