Customer Reviews

Our Family Tree

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is an excellent place to start organizing your genealogical research. The format provided by the book is helping me to see the areas in which I need more information. I plan to use the book as a guide when I begin interviewing other family members. The book does provide helpful information about gealogical research on the last few pages.

It is true that some sections could have been better. If you have information on generations prior to your Great, Great, Great Grandparents, there is not space provided for them on the tree diagrams. Too much space is given for legal guardians. There is not enough space for children and grandchildren of the starting couple. One of the other reviewers mentioned that the book assumes that the first entry in the book will be a couple. This is true, but you can chose to start the book from your parents' generation if you are not part of a couple.

Basically, this is a good starting reference book. Once I've used it to conduct my family interviews, I plan to load the information from it into one of the genealogy PC programs.

Over the last ten years (my span of genealogy research), I have purchased this book every time I have seen it. It is very clearly laid out, and allows you to fill in family information as you get it, not only on your direct ancestors, but their siblings as well. Because of its size, it is also a great book to take on trips to visit relatives, to fill in with the basic information. It also has quite a bit of blank space - I have seen a few where the margins are filled with interesting family lore - it really personalizes the book. I have given quite a few to friends who have expressed an interest in collecting information on their families - it's a great starter item.

This is a fill-in-the-blank style book with room to include a husband's and wifes ancestors and children as well as other relevant information. However, in places it seems to include too much room for some things.....like a full page of lines for 'legal guardians' while only one line(quite small) for children of the husband or wife and thier siblings. Since that page is next to the 'legal guardians' page I was at least able to make use of it for the run off of listing children of those with more than two kids.

It is a convenient book to take along to family gatherings to record information and fill in the blanks. I think this is a good book to start recording family history and geneology, but I would prefer another book for a completed book. In the meantime, I don't mind a few scratch-outs of mistakes in this one.

The Illustrations are early american/civil war era style. Under the "Religious Acticities" section it shows a catholic baptism of a baby and a cathedral. So, if you're not christian it doesn't really apply.

This book is smartly desinged. The easy to complete pages cover most aspects of family live, past and present. The slim design allows one to complete several volumes and take up little space on the bookshelf. The research rescources are very helpful.I highly reccommend it as a wedding or baby shower gift.

When I first got this book, I'll admit that I was overwhelmed. Documenting your family to get every single mother or father down the line is intimidating. I haven't written anything in this book because I want to make sure I have enough information to put inside it. I'd hate to fill up a page or two and then stop because I was unable to find anything more.

When you start the book, it begins with "Our Family" where you write down your name along with your spouse's name and the information of when/where the wedding ceremony took place. If you're single and have no children, it's okay to put your parents in and use them as the starting family.

The next following pages are for simple information about the Husband, the Wife, and a page where you list the children and their birth information. After that is a page for Grandchildren and Descendants.

Then it gets to the Family Tree part. You fill in information about you and your spouse and then it branches off to husband's parents, wife's parents, the grandparents of both and it keeps going for 3 more generations.

That kind of scared me. The family tree tends to get a bit hairy. What comes next is what intimidates me.

After that is the section where it focuses on the Husband's Ancestral chart. It starts with information about the husband (Name, Birth, Marriage, Death/Burial, Occupation, Special Interests). Then it branches off to his parents, the parents of his parents, and keeps going for 3 more generations. All in the same format except for the last 2 generations where it all seems squished together.

The next section is about the Husband's family. You list his brothers and sisters (Up to 9 entries), their spouses and children (the children entry is just one small line!).

What confuses me is that the page where you record this information is small while the very next page is a full page about Legal Guardians. However, it's very easy to use this Legal Guardians page to list the children of the husband's siblings if you wish to.

The next section is the Husband's Parents' Family. This page is where you list the husband's father's siblings, spouses, and children. Again, a full-sized Legal Guardians page right next to it, which you can use to write any children that couldn't fit on the small page.

And it tends to repeat. The sections are as follows: Husband's mother's siblings, children, and spouses. Husband's Grandfather's (Father's Side) siblings, etc. Husband's Grandmother's (Father's Side) siblings, etc. Husband's Grandfather's (Mother's Side) siblings, etc. Husband's Grandmother's (Mother's side) siblings, etc.

Then the last part of the section is just Husband's Great Grandparents siblings, spouses, and children. It doesn't split up into mother's or father's sections like previously though. It is all squished together on the page and you'll have to indicate which come from which (and I think it gets confusing). And also there's a legal guardians page right next to it if you need more room.

Then, it repeats all over again for the Wife (Ancestral Chart and Family information).

The next following sections are Citizenship Records (Name, Emigrated From, To, Date), Weddings (Names, Date, Place), Religious Activities (Name, Ceremony or Occasion, Godparents or Sponsors, Date & Place), Our Places of Worship, In Memoriam, Our Home (You put in the full address and the dates of when the house was purchased and when you moved out, as well as any extra information about it), Where Our Ancestors Have Lived, Schools and Graduations (Name, "School, College, or University", Dates of Attendance, Certificate or Degree), Clubs and Organizations (Name, Organization, "Activity, Award, Office Held", Date), Companies We Have Worked For or Owned (On the last page is a small section for Social Security Numbers), Military Service Records (EIGHT pages for this section!), Special Friends, Our Pets, Family Automobiles (This'll be amusing to put down information. I remember the dinky red stationwagon that my parents drove in the early 80's.), Favorite Things (One is a HIS-HERS page and the other is a CHILDREN page), Collections and Heirlooms, Favorite Family Sports, Favorite Family Hobbies, Family Vacations, Family Reunions, Family Traditions, Events to Remember, Oral Family History (Stories that family members have told and it encourages you to write them down or they'll become lost.), Extraordinary Events We Have Survived and Overcome, Illnesses (Name, "Illness, Operation", "Hospital, Doctor", Date), Vital Statistics (This is real detailed. There's separate HIS, HERS, and Children sections. Height, Weight, Hair Color, Eye Color, Suit Size, Blouse Size, Shirt size, Waist, Shoe Size, Hat Size, Ring Size, Other Sizes, Color Preference, Toiletries Preference.).

And at last, there's the Photography section. There are a couple of pages to randomly glue pictures to them.

Some sections tend to be extremely long but I imagine if you wanted to, you can always put extra information onto certain pages if they weren't being used. I think this book can be extremely helpful and it's definitely something that you can pass down for future descendants to look back on. I know a lot of people think that our present time is rather boring but imagine it 100 years ago. I'm sure the people of that time thought it was boring yet here we are wondering what it was like for them.

This book is the prompting we all have been waiting for and the resources to build on our current knowledge of our personal family trees. You can create within the book itself and pass it on to other family members. The pages are bound and all information you add to it creates an ever expanding book about your own history. I liked to resources they had to further my own interest and I had a way to put all my information in one place.

This book is absoultely amazing! This is a very smart idea for a book and whoever thought of it, I give praise. Finally a book to record EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about your family in one place!

I found this book for a beginner quite helpful however, given that my research is already quite extensive essentially i have too much infomration for the book to hold. The book holds up to Great, Great, Great grandparents. Unfortuantely, i need a lot more room at this early stage of research and need to look for another book which holds more information. If you have a lot of research prior to the purchase of this book i would not buy it however, if all you have to start with is your grandparents then it most certainly is of value providing great tips on how to conduct research etc.

Our Family Tree is a duplicate of a book I have had for more than 25 years. It has been a wonderful way for me to record family members on both sides of my family, as well as memories of my own family, marriage, growing up years, special times, special interests, etc.. The book is made of quality materials, both inside and out, and comes in a variety of colors. It has suited my needs well over the years, and this year, I purchased two of them to give as Christmas presents for my two adult children, both married, so that they can begin to record their own family histories. I'm planning a special time after the holidays when I can sit down with my daughter and daughter-in-law to get them started. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to capture a piece of their lives for future generations to share.

Our Family Tree

I have been giving these books as wedding gifts for years, along with the obligatory china place setting or crystal stemware and the couples always rave about the book the most. It is very detailed and something the whole family can work on together. An inexpensive gift, but the end result is priceless!!!