Author: jessaroni

Family History Binder – Part 3 – Dividers

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This is the third post in my Family History Binder series. Click here to go back to part 1.

My family history binder is broken into 16 sections. The dividers I used are the Avery Clear Pocket Label Dividers 8-Tab Set, so I used 2 sets of them.

The first page of my family history binder is my 4 generation pedigree chart. This also serves as an outline for my binder.

If your tree is on familysearch, all you need to do is go to the person page for the individual you want your chart to begin with, and then click on “pedigree” under the “print” heading on the right side.

familysearch-pedigree

If you want to fill out the chart yourself, here are a couple links to blank pedigree charts. It is very important that you use one that has numbers next to each individual.

Once you have your numbered 4 generation pedigree chart, label 15 of your dividers with those 15 individuals. Make sure to include the number on the tab as well.

The 16th tab I labeled “maps, photos, etc”. This is a place for things that don’t belong to a specific individual. I originally planned to put this section last in my binder, but I found that everyone was usually more interested in looking through the pictures than the documents so it made more sense to put them at the beginning. My next post is specifically about this section and can be found here.

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Family History Binder – Part 2 – Materials

jessaroni30 Comments

This is the second post in my Family History Binder series. Click here to go back to part 1.

 Here are the materials I used to create my family history binder:

Avery 3-Inch Extra-Wide Binder – If you don’t have much info about that family, you can use a smaller binder. It is very important that it is extra wide though, otherwise your tabs will stick out past the edge of the binder.

Avery Clear Pocket Label Dividers 8-Tab Set – These are basically thick page protectors with tabs on the side. They came with printable label stickers for the tabs but I found that those just peeled right off. Instead I printed my labels on cardstock and carefully cut and inserted them into the tabs. I got 2 sets of them so I would have a total of 16 dividers.

Avery Clear Sheet Protectors Box of 200 – The amount you’ll need depends on how much info you have for your book. I bought a pack of 200 and used about 180 of them.

Ultra Pro 5X7 Photo Pages – These pages each hold 4 5×7 photos and also have small slots next to each pocket to add captions. I used about 15 pages for this binder.

Paper and ink – I used normal printer paper and my inkjet printer. Make sure you change your printer settings to grayscale for all of your documents. If you are more organized, you could instead have it printed somewhere like Staples.

Click here to see the next section, Part 3 – Dividers

Family History Binder – Part 1 – Intro

jessaroni44 Comments

For Christmas 2016, I put together a family history binder for my father-in-law. I began at the beginning of September with the intention of including both his paternal and maternal lines, but with a baby taking up most of my time I was only able to complete the Reynolds side. This book contains information about his father (my husband’s grandfather) and 3 generations back from there, so 15 direct ancestors total. Eventually I would love to be able to create them for all of our family lines.

When I finally finished it on December 23rd, I decided to post a few pictures of the final product in a Facebook group called “The Organized Genealogist”. Within a few hours my post had over 2000 likes and close to 500 comments consisting of hundreds of questions and requests for tutorials. So here is my tutorial that will hopefully answer all of your questions and help you create a similar book for your family.

It took me a while to get through everything since I could only work during my son’s naptimes, so I divided it up into multiple posts that can be found here:

Part 2 – Materials

Part 3 – Dividers

Part 4 – Photos

Part 5 – Timelines and Maps

Part 6 – Documents