Family History Book Template: Format, Layout and Samples

Most family history books are never finished, and the reason is almost never a shortage of material. It is that the writer started at the beginning of the family and worked forward, discovered that the beginning of the family keeps receding, and stopped somewhere in the eighteenth century with four chapters and no ending. A template solves this before the writing starts by fixing the scope, the chapter structure and the page layout, so the book has a shape it can actually reach. This page sets out that structure, the front matter a book needs to look finished, and the layout decisions that are painful to change later. To name any relationship as you write, use the cousin calculator.

Decide what kind of book it is

Three quite different documents go by the same name, and mixing them is why some manuscripts read strangely.

A narrative family history is prose. Chapters, scenes, context, and a story that moves. It is the version relatives read cover to cover, and the version that takes longest to write because every fact has to be turned into a sentence.

A compiled genealogy is a reference work. Numbered generations, every known descendant listed with dates and sources, minimal commentary. Dense, unglamorous, and enormously valuable to anyone researching the same family in thirty years.

A photo book puts the images first, with captions and short passages of text between them. The quickest to produce, the most likely to be opened repeatedly, and the format that suits families with a good box of photographs and thin documentary records.

Most successful books are mainly one with a little of another — a narrative history with a compiled descendant list as an appendix is the most common and probably the best combination.

Choose before writing. A book that switches from storytelling to a register of births halfway through loses both audiences, and the wider question of approach is covered in how to write a family history.

Set the scope on page one

The single decision that determines whether the book gets finished.

Name the boundary explicitly: "The descendants of Thomas and Ann Ward of Norfolk, 1798 to 1950." Write it down before chapter one exists.

Work forward from one couple, not backward from yourself. Backward research has no natural end — every generation adds two more parents to find. Forward from a fixed ancestral couple has a defined and finite subject.

One couple is usually enough for a whole book. Four generations of descendants from a single pair is more material than most writers expect.

Say what you are leaving out, in the introduction. "This volume covers the Ward line only; the Bennett side is planned as a second volume." That converts a gap into a plan.

Set an end date for living people, both for length and for privacy. Many books stop at people born before 1940 and list later generations only as names.

And accept the book will be incomplete. Every family history is. A finished incomplete book is worth infinitely more than a perfect unfinished one, and the practical process side is in how to create a family history book.

The chapter structure

A template that works for most narrative family histories.

One chapter per generation suits a small family that stayed in one place. One chapter per branch suits a large family that scattered, because it lets a reader follow their own line without jumping chapters.

Open each chapter with the people, not the dates. "James Ward was thirty-one when the mill closed" reads; "James Ward, b. 1841, d. 1902, m. Sarah Hall 1868" does not.

Put the hardest chapter second, not first. Writing the first chapter about the earliest and least documented ancestor is how books stall in week one. Start with the generation you know best.

Front matter, and why it matters

The pages that turn a stack of chapters into a book.

Title page. Title, subtitle naming the specific family and place, compiler's name, year. The place matters more than people expect — it is how a future researcher identifies whether this is their family.

Copyright and contact page. Your name, the year, and an email or address. Books outlive their authors' filing systems, and a contact line is how a distant cousin finds you.

Table of contents, with page numbers. Generate it last.

A "how to read this book" page. Explain the numbering system, the chart conventions, the abbreviations, and what a bracketed date means. Two pages here save a hundred confused readers.

An introduction that states the scope, what sources were used, what remains unknown, and who helped. Naming the relatives who contributed is both courteous and the reason the next person agrees to be interviewed.

A map, if the family stayed anywhere identifiable. Readers orient themselves geographically far better than genealogically.

And a photograph facing the title page. It sets the tone immediately, and any book with a face at the front is opened more often than one without.

Page layout and trim size

Decisions that are tedious to change once the text is flowing.

Trim size. A5 or 6×9 inches for a mainly textual book; A4 or 8.5×11 for one with charts and large photographs. Larger pages take wider charts and cost more to print.

Margins. At least 20 mm outer and 25 mm on the binding edge. The gutter margin is the one people forget, and text disappearing into the spine is the commonest amateur-book fault.

Body text at 11 or 12 point, in a serif face, with generous line spacing. The likely readership includes people in their eighties.

One column. Two columns suit a compiled genealogy but make photographs difficult to place.

Consistent heading levels — chapter, section, sub-section — and no more than three.

Page numbers on every page, because the index depends on them.

Images at 300 dpi at the size they will print. A photograph that looks fine on screen at 72 dpi prints as a gray smear, and the scanning side of this is in how to preserve old family photos.

Charts, photographs and captions

The visual material, which is what most readers actually look at.

Put a chart at the start of each chapter showing where in the family that chapter sits. A reader who is lost stops reading, and a small orienting chart prevents most of that.

Keep the charts simple. A chart that needs a magnifying glass belongs in an appendix as a fold-out, not in the body.

Caption every photograph fully: who, where, when, and how you know. "Ward family, Norwich, c. 1912. Identified by Margaret Ward, 1998." That last sentence is the difference between evidence and a nice picture.

Say when you are unsure. "Believed to be James Ward" is honest and still useful; a confident wrong caption propagates for generations.

Group family group sheets in an appendix rather than scattering them through chapters — the format is set out in family group sheet.

Leave white space. A page crammed to the margins looks self-published in the way you do not want.

Sources without ruining the read

The compromise every family historian has to make.

Cite everything, but keep it out of the way. Endnotes per chapter, or a superscript numbering system with sources collected at the back. Footnotes on the page suit a reference work and interrupt a narrative.

Cite the record, not the website. "1901 census, Norwich, RG13/1836, folio 42" survives; a link to a search result does not, and the full conventions are in how to cite genealogy sources.

Distinguish fact from inference in the text itself. "James was probably the son of William, as no other Ward family appears in the parish" is a legitimate sentence. "James was the son of William" is not, if you cannot show it.

Keep a research log alongside the manuscript so you can reconstruct where a fact came from when you have forgotten writing it.

Transcribe key documents in full in an appendix. Readers enjoy them, and transcriptions outlast archive access arrangements.

Getting it finished

The stage where most projects fail, and what actually helps.

Write the chapter you most want to write first. Momentum matters more than sequence, and chapters can be reordered.

Set a page count and a date. "A hundred and twenty pages by December." Open-ended projects stay open.

Publish in volumes. One branch per volume, each short and complete, is far more achievable than one comprehensive book — and volume one existing tends to produce volume two.

Print a draft copy early, even a spiral-bound one. Errors leap out on paper that are invisible on screen, and holding the object is remarkably motivating.

Send the draft to two relatives for corrections. They will find mistakes, supply photographs you did not know existed, and become the audience that makes you finish.

Print more copies than you think you need, and deposit one with a local archive or family history society. That single copy is what makes the work survive.

And record the interviews before writing anything, because the people are the perishable source — the question bank is in family history interview questions.

FAQ

How long should a family history book be?

A hundred to two hundred pages is a realistic and satisfying target for one family line. Length is not the measure of value: a short finished book that relatives read beats a long unfinished manuscript entirely.

What should a family history book include?

Front matter with a clear statement of scope, chapters organized by generation or branch, charts to orient the reader, captioned photographs, an appendix of descendant lists or group sheets, full sources, and an index of every name.

How do you structure a family history book?

Choose one ancestral couple and work forward. Give each generation or branch its own chapter, open each with an orienting chart, and put the reference material — lists, transcriptions, citations — in appendices rather than in the narrative.

What size should the pages be?

A5 or 6×9 inches for a text-led book; A4 or 8.5×11 if it carries wide charts and large photographs. Allow at least 25 mm on the binding edge, which is the margin most often set too narrow.

Should I include living relatives?

Many books stop the detailed treatment at people born before about 1940 and list later generations as names only. Ask permission before including birth dates, addresses or personal detail for anyone living.

Do I need an index?

Yes, if anyone else will use the book. An index of every name with page numbers is what turns a narrative into something a future researcher can actually search, and it is the feature archives care about most.

Fix the shape, then write

A family history book gets finished when its shape is decided before its prose. Name the ancestral couple and the end date on page one, choose whether you are writing a narrative, a reference work or a photo book, and lay the chapters out by generation or by branch before drafting a paragraph. Then handle the unglamorous parts properly — a gutter margin wide enough to read, 300 dpi images, full captions, sources at the back, an index at the end — because those are what make a home-made book feel like a real one. Print a draft early, send it to two relatives, and let their corrections carry you to the end. Use the cousin calculator whenever a relationship name in the manuscript is not obvious.