Its my sisters 60th Birthday and ...

[jmp]

I'm planning to get a copy of the family tree which I have been doing for her printed off professionally as her birthday present. We knew nothing about any of the family before I got started and now I have quite a lot of branches.

I am also hoping to provide her with a copy of the Gedcom file for her computer so that, say at Christmas, I can update it with any new information I have found.  I was thinking as well of providing a disc with the Census images on them too.  But what else would someone be interested in and how do I present it to her?

Any ideas or has anyone done anything similar?

I have a month to do this, as her birthday's on 15th August so any hints or tips would be really useful.

Thanks in advance
Jackie

[PrueM]

Hi Jackie 

What a lovely idea!  I'm sure your sister will love the tree and all the other bits and pieces.  If you have any photographs of people in your tree, have you thought about adding them to the printed version?  That way when it's framed and on the wall (as I'm sure it will be  ) there will be an extra element of interest.

Prue

[jmp]

Hi Prue,

The family tree printers can put only one photo on the tree and Ive chosen one of my sister aged 2, my Mum and Gran.  It is the only one I have got which shows " a number of generations".  I was thinking of putting some others which I have kindly been sent by rellies I have found, onto a disc but I'm not too sure how to organise it easily so that she can findher way round it.

I'm beginning to think that maybe a couple of disc's maybe one with Censuses etc and one with photos might be the way and then put them in a box with a picture of a Tree on the lid.  But not sure if this will work.

Any ideas would be gratefully received

All the best
Jackie

[jmp]

This is a P.S. to the above for the technically minded  roughly how many pictures in jpeg format would a disc hold in any event?  Dont want to find that I will need about 30 discs to do this!
Jackie

[PrueM]

Hi again Jackie,

Depends on how big the pictures are.  If you keep them all around 100kb then you should be able to fit 7000 photos on a 700Mb disc, so I think you should be right    100kb gives a reasonable sized picture for normal viewing.

How to label them - well how about give them a file name that relates to the number of the person on the tree (if you are using numbers) or just label them by Surname and given names (e.g. SMITH Fred John). 

I like the idea of a separate disc for photo and census returns etc.  Have you any other interesting paperwork/family documents that you could put in too?

It's a pity the printers can only do one photo on the tree 

Prue

[jmp]

Thanks for that information Prue.  I have just done a demo download of the Censuses on to a disc and it seemed to take all 200 odd without a problem.

Good idea about the naming part will rejig the names etc when I do the definitive version.  I was thinking maybe of some pictures of the churches or places where they lived if I can find any on line which can be downloaded without copy right problems etc. 

Think the way Im going my sister may be getting her pressie next year not this!

Cheers
Jackie

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi Jackie,

there are a couple of other topics on this, I've listed them here:

Topic: RootsChat Topics: Organising and Presenting your Family History 
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,158638.0.html

some of the ideas there might be a bit too ambitious if you want it ready for August, but if you get bitten by the the bug, then are always other birthdays, other family members, christmas presents, etc 

Good luck,
Bob

[PassionPlay]

Jackie, old postcards are a good way of illustrating places and churches - and eBay usually has the best bargains if you don't live in the place of interest.

Steph.

[jmp]

Thanks Bob and Steph,

I will check those both out.

Best wishes
Jackie