THE ALBUMS

One of the wonderful things about the EGE system is the simplicity of the album system. The albums are direct line ancestors only. They are set up according to the numbering system. They are very simple to understand and set up. Best of all, they are easy for people to understand who look through them. They make sense.

4-GENERATION ALBUM

The first album you work on is your 4-generation album. This is a book with 15 people in it. You, your parents, your grandparents and your great-grandparents. That's it.

SUPPLIES
  • A large 3-ring binder, 3"-5" wide. This is the album that has the most information. You have the most photographs, source documentation and historical information about these people.
  • A 15-tab set of dividers. This will give you an index and a separate tab for each person in your album.
  • One binder pocket. I like to have a binder pocket in each album that I create. This gives me a place to store information I am researching.
  • One CD/DVD pocket. This is to hold the CD/DVD that you have your backup genealogy files stored on and any photographs, documents, sound files, and videos that you might have of the people in this album.
  • Photo Protectors. You will need photo protectors for all of the photographs you have of each person in your album.
  • Sheet Protectors. You will need sheet protectors for each of the documents you store in your album. These include things like birth certificates, census records, newspaper clippings, marriage certificates, histories, etc.
  • Paper. Obviously, you will need paper to print on. I like a little bit of cardstock for my cover sheets, etc. and regular computer paper for most things in my album.

THE INDEX

Once you have all of your supplies, you can create your 4-generation album. It is fairly intuitive. First, you fill out your index. Each number corresponds to your pedigree and to your EGE numbering system.

01 - YOU
02 - FATHER
03 - MOTHER
04 - FATHER'S FATHER
05 - FATHER'S MOTHER
06 - MOTHER'S FATHER
07 - MOTHER'S MOTHER
08 - FATHER'S FATHER'S FATHER
09 - FATHER'S FATHER'S MOTHER
10 - FATHER'S MOTHER'S FATHER
11 - FATHER'S MOTHER'S MOTHER
12 - MOTHER'S FATHER'S FATHER
13 - MOTHER'S FATHER'S MOTHER
14 - MOTHER'S MOTHER'S FATHER
15 - MOTHER'S MOTHER'S MOTHER

I use the Avery Ready Index Dividers and if you use the same, you can download my index template and use it for your album. Make whatever changes you'd like to mine, or go online to Avery's website and create your own there.

TAB DIVIDERS

You will notice, as you put this album together, that the tabs do not stick out far enough because we are using sheet protectors. You can put the tab dividers right into a sheet protector, simply cutting a slit into the sheet protector for the tab to poke through. Or, you can just attach the tab divider to a sheet protector with double sided tape.

FILL UP THE ALBUM

In the front of the album, right after the table of contents, I like to include a 5-generation pedigree sheet for reference. For each person in the album, include a family group sheet, a history and as many documents as you want to fit into the album. This is the place to store all of your source documents... birth certificates through death certificates and everything in between. Obviously you'll go a little easy in the section about yourself! This isn't the place to put an entire personal history and/or every photograph ever taken of you. A brief history and several photographs will suffice. You will be surprised, though, at how much you can fit into even a 3" binder.

Make sure to have your backup CD/DVD and your binder pocket in the back of your album for easy access while researching. If you consider this album complete, then you do not need a binder pocket.

Here are some downloads for you:

  1. Table of Contents (this template works with Avery Ready Index Dividers)
  2. Cover Page, Blue
  3. Cover Page, Pink

Here are some photographs of my book, so that you can get a visual idea of what you're creating:

You can download my cover pages - or you can make your own (probably much better looking) cover pages! I did pink for females and blue for males. I sometimes put relationships with f's and m's (fathers and mothers), so my father's mother's mother's father would be fmmf underneath the photograph.

Here you can see a couple of scanned documents - they print very much like originals. If you have originals, feel free to put them in your album. If you don't own the original simply scan the document (that you borrowed from a relative) and print it out for your book.

Another copy of what my cover pages look like. You can see that I print one for every tab. This is number 06 in my genealogy (mother's father).

Here's a shot of some photo pages for number 04 in my genealogy (father's father). None of these photographs are actual photographs. They are all scanned photographs printed on photo paper. As I scan them, I save them into the proper directory using the EGE numbering system. Then, any that are direct line ancestors I can print out on photo paper and put into my album using photo protectors.

BEYOND THE 4TH GENERATION

I think it's good, in genealogy work, to plan on starting with 8 generations. So, I usually recommend purchasing the supplies to do 8 generations at a time. In order to do albums for generations 5-8, simply put together 16 smaller versions of the first album. This gives you an album for each person in your fifth generation. The 16 albums represent 4-generations from each person in your fifth generation.

You will have a total of 17 albums. One will be 3"-5" and the other 16 can be quite a bit smaller, 0.5"-2." This may sound like a lot of albums, but they actually take up quite a bit less room than most bins and/or boxes people have lying around. Plus, when you are doing research on a specific line you can simply take that album with you to do your research. It is great to have a binder pocket in each album for keeping things you find while researching. These albums will be much smaller because you will have fewer photographs, documents, etc. You can always increase the size as needed.

Remember that [index person 1]* in these albums is actually numbered from your original five generation sheet. [Index person 1]* is actually 16, 17... 31. So, on the cover of these albums I put their number. I also put this on the spine. I like their number and their surname for quick reference. I know that the others in the book have their proper numbers as long as I add [index person 1]*'s number in front. You can then fill these binders in the exact manner you filled your 4-generation album. There won't be nearly as much information, but it gives you a place to store all you find. Here's an example of what some of your binders might look like:


You do not need to renumber the tabs or anything goofy, just remember that the index is numbered 01-15 from [index person 1]* so it will be:

*01 - Index person 1! This is actually ancestor 16, 17, 18... 31 so be sure to put their surname and EGE number on cover and spine and to include a 4-generation sheet for them after the index. That way you won't get confused.

02 - [index person 1]*'s FATHER
03 - [index person 1]*'s MOTHER
04 - [index person 1]*'s FATHER'S FATHER
05 - [index person 1]*'s FATHER'S MOTHER
06 - [index person 1]*'s MOTHER'S FATHER
07 - [index person 1]*'s MOTHER'S MOTHER
08 - [index person 1]*'s FATHER'S FATHER'S FATHER
09 - [index person 1]*'s FATHER'S FATHER'S MOTHER
10 - [index person 1]*'s FATHER'S MOTHER'S FATHER
11 - [index person 1]*'s FATHER'S MOTHER'S MOTHER
12 - [index person 1]*'s MOTHER'S FATHER'S FATHER
13 - [index person 1]*'s MOTHER'S FATHER'S MOTHER
14 - [index person 1]*'s MOTHER'S MOTHER'S FATHER
15 - [index person 1]*'s MOTHER'S MOTHER'S MOTHER

That's it. You have made your albums. Now you can start filling them up with your research!