Photo albums are an affordable and enjoyable way to share priceless family photos, honor a loved one, or tell the stories you’ve uncovered during your research. Putting together a photo album is also relatively quick—it’s a weekend job, compared to the hours of laborious work required to create a traditional scrapbook or family history book. (If you’d like to learn more about creating a family photo album, check out my series on choosing your images, five items to include, and creating a page plan.)
Another good thing about family history photo books is that you can easily and affordably print multiple copies. keep one for yourself, then print several for holiday gifts or reunion fundraisers. So what are the best photo book services when it comes to documenting family history?
You are reading: Family tree photo books
There are so many photo book creators and printers online, where do you start? How about this spotlight on five of the best photo book services? we’ve reviewed your design and pricing options for the types of projects genealogists want to do: life stories, estate, tributes to loved ones, reunions, cookbooks, and more.
Keep in mind that, along with heavy sales discounts and promotions, it sometimes means an increase in users on the site, especially before major holidays. On occasion, sites may experience technical issues and you may have trouble ordering your project. If you’re doing a time-sensitive project, try to plan far enough in advance that any minor site slowdowns won’t affect you.
1. mix book
mixbook has won the hearts of photo book creators by offering tons of creative and fun designs on their sharp looking books.
We give it full marks because several designs in the family category are perfect for telling heritage stories. these styles are gorgeous! We’ve taken screenshots of the following family tree layouts from the family history and family memories categories, respectively. the timeline design is from the scrapbook design, and the life stories design is from the modern memory design:
Genealogists may also appreciate mixbook’s milestone, family reunion, grandparent, kitchen, adoption, and military hero designs; Not to mention the various options for tributes from fathers and mothers. keep an eye out for deals and coupon codes for this popular site.
2. shutter
shutterfly is a fantastic all-round photo book service. it offers a fairly easy-to-use interface with dozens of options and excellent print quality. frequent sales significantly reduce prices.
See Also: Children&039s Book Crafts – I Heart Crafty Things
Browse several different design categories to find the one that best suits your album. the family category, for example, includes inheritance, reunion, adoption, African-American culture, Jewish culture, memoriam, grandfather, family yearbook, cookbook, life story, Spanish-speaking family, and military hero. there are many styles of homage to loved ones.
here is a two page spread of the African American design:
This is a simple timeline layout of the layout called Life Story:
look at this photo family tree of the family ancestry design:
Those who don’t want to design their own books might appreciate the site’s create my book service: they’ll create your book for you in three days. pay the small fee of $9.99 only if you order a book. A Spanish text option is available, as is an Apple Photos extension. the site offers frequent sales and promotions.
3. adoramapix
adoramapix is a highly regarded website catering to professional photographers. both the quality and price of their photo albums reflect that approach. the site offers a variety of album sizes, styles, and even paper finishes. all albums are printed on photo paper and have a flat binding (which is an optional upgrade on the other sites reviewed here).
The designs are great, but they focus more on an overall design than a theme that could easily correspond with the family history. That said, the mommy and me style is a good one to adapt to a family album. the template incorporates good options for journaling:
the food category contains a gorgeous farm-to-brunch style that would make a visually delicious family cookbook:
See Also: Sean Parnell – Book Series In Order
adormapix offers various diary style templates. it would be interesting to try them if you want to print the images but write the stories, subtitles and other text by hand. (Note the site’s recommendations for which paper finishes are best for writing on.) Although most of the layouts you’ll see don’t include much in the way of captions, you can always add text to the layouts.
As mentioned, adoramapix is more expensive than the other sites. so many factors affect the price that the details are not included in the comparison table below. click on the link provided to calculate the price of your own project. (For comparison’s sake, at the time of publication, a 20-page 10″ x 10″ hardcover album with a gloss or gloss finish is priced at $58.99.)
4. swordfish
snapfish has offered photo printing services for many years. its photo book offerings for family history-themed albums are strongest in the family category. You’ll find those honoring mom and dad, celebrating grandparents, a family yearbook, a reunion theme, and family keepsakes. below are family reunion pages and we love the grandparents design styles. In general, the layouts look a bit less sophisticated than those found on sites like mixbook or shutterfly.
you can use an apple photos extension with snapfish. Some Snapfish photo book reviews have given the site lower marks for the quality of the book. keep an eye out for frequent sales of photo albums (and many other photography-related products) on this site as well.
5. amazon prints
amazon prints offers a basic photo book service with good print quality and an everyday low price – a great choice for someone who wants an easy option without waiting for sales. This is also an easy option for Amazon Prime members, who get free shipping and can easily access the images they save to their free unlimited Amazon photo storage.
What is the disadvantage of this economical option for the genealogist? There are only a small number of designs, categorized as travel + life events, baby, or everyday. you will have to be creative to adapt them to heritage use. For example, you can adapt this world travel exploration theme for an immigrant ancestor’s book:
Or, keeping in mind that you can create your own headers and captions, adapt this classic-looking color palette (the style is called wedding chic) for a traditional album of just about any kind:
familytreemagazine.com participates in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and affiliated websites.
See Also: The Best Books on Midlife Crisis – Five Books Expert Recommendations