Producing a Quality Family History

by Patricia Law Hatcher

For anyone looking to create a useful, lasting history of your family: This is a book that should adorn the library or bookshelves of all genealogists! Whether you're an amateur or professional, chances are the ultimate goal of your research is to produce a quality family history.  Producing A Quality Family History,  by Patricia Law Hatcher, guides you through the steps required to create an attractive—and functional—family history report. Learn how to organize your work, how to write the narrative, choose type faces, grammar styles, and punctuation. You'll also see how to create useful bibliographies and discover ways to incorporate photos and illustrations effectively plus much, much more!

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

286 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1996

Reviews

[Brad Garton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw a recommendation for this book in another text, and ordered it. I was originally looking for a book that covered the research, citation, and writing needed to properly document a family history. This book is much more than that. It's focus is on creating well researched genealogy BOOKS. This book is a very good resource for determining what to write, when to write and how to work through the issues with publishing a compiled genealogy in a finished book. There are some issues related to when it was created. It gets in to detail on technology available to do a number of tasks related to writing and publishing a genealogy. Since this book was published in 1996, however, those recommendations are somewhat dated now. Still the general process, considerations and steps, are the same. At some point I would like to publish or republish a book on my families genealogy, and this book will be a useful resource when I do.

[Missy LeBlanc Ivey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great book for writing and producing your family history, only problem is it has now been 25 years since I've read and marked up this wonderful book, and I still haven't written my family history. Oh my gosh! I'm making myself sick. Today's date: 5/26/2021

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The technology and printing industry portions of the book are quite outdated, but the remainder of the book is very good.

[mbm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what we need to consider in publishing our family history. This is an excellent book on a tedious subject that should be read and referenced in the process.

However it is more than time for an update to this guide, as so much has changed in the world of publishing our family history. For example a chapter could be added on how good genealogy software like RootsMagic and Legacy will write a first draft. Perhaps some now unnecessary detail could be deleted from this book.

The bottom line is that Patricia Hatcher does a great job of handing this subject.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book that I intend to keep at hand as I work on writing my family history. The book is seriously in need of updating however, so I will still need to find more guidance elsewhere.