Legacy Books
People often ask me for recommendations—I don’t give them lightly. But here’s one I really want to give: Legacy Books.
I met David while we were both volunteering at our local Family History Center. David was struggling to figure out how to keep a promise to his wife’s sister Jane, with whom he shared a passion for family history. When Jane passed away David promised that he would do something with all of the genealogy information Jane had accumulated over her lifetime. He came to the National Genealogical Society conference when it was here in Florida and met some book vendors (and had a great time!) but didn’t find exactly what he was looking for.
Then at another conference, I heard Legacy Books founder, John Catron, talking to people about his company. He clearly cares about people and pours all kinds of love and expertise into what he does. His sample books were top-quality and GORGEOUS. I introduced my friend David to John and Legacy Books, having no idea what an impact it would make on my friend’s life.
The Legacy Books team flew out to Florida to meet personally with David, his wife Judy (Jane’s sister), and Davey (Jane’s husband, who commissioned the project) for a couple of days. They interviewed them and gathered up everything they wanted to put in a book: not just documents and genealogy discoveries, but boxes of pictures of Davey and Jane’s family. It took a lot longer than most projects, because they just kept finding more things to add.
As it turned out, this project would be the last family history effort that David would work on, as before the book was finished, he passed away. Judy and her brother-in-law Davey kept working with Legacy Books to finish the project that had been so important to them all. End result: a beautiful book about Jane and her life and family history, with all kinds of memorabilia and pictures and stories, and, importantly, a family who spend their last months together working on a project to preserve their legacy.
Here are a few more tempting images, along with comments from Judy, Jane’s sister. First: Legacy created this map detailing the migration patterns of all of their family lines….
We decided that we wanted to show how everyone ended up where they ended up. On [one side of the family] they are from South Africa, but they did go to Turkey and France and then in through Cuba. – Judy
And here’s a simple, beautiful pedigree chart. It’s a great visual reference for all the stories supplied by the family—and the supplementary research Legacy Books did.
The Legacy team did extensive research to try to help us prove that a newspaper article that mentions my ancestor in a bus accident was really my ancestor. After hours of work we decided that it really must have been her! -Judy
And here’s a shot of the elegant page design and style Legacy Books helped them choose:
The Legacy team writers came up with the titles for the chapters. Davey was in the printing industry as a profession, so when it came time to choose the paper and the cover he knew exactly what he wanted and Legacy was able to do it exactly as he wanted. -Judy
Legacy Books does all kinds of books, not just family history. I’ve also seen their company histories and professional athlete bios. Equally gorgeous!
This isn’t a budget service: Legacy Books projects generally price around $10,000. You can tell from what I’ve described that they do whatever work is required to get the job done right: travel, interviews, research, scanning documents and photos, and of course putting together the actual book. Nobody will take better care of you—and your family stories!
If you reach out to them, please let them know I sent you. They will award me a small finder’s fee, which doesn’t affect your price, and for which I will be grateful. Just know—I’d recommend them in any case. Their service and products are worth every penny.