At our BONNER reunion this year I was given the task of producing a family history for the year 2000 reunion. Of course once the "volunteer" had been chosen, each cousin had his or her own idea of what the history should contain. As they described their visions of our history, they mentioned the photos, videos, audio tapes, certificates, and other items they had hidden away and wanted to share. How could we create something that would encompass all of our "history"? It didn't seem the traditional printed history would do.

The solution I proposed was to publish our history on a CD using the same type of technology used for Web sites. This approach will accommodate all the text we would need for a family history with the standard journal report and box charts. It lets us include photos of individuals, events, and places as well as audio tapes. Various cousins volunteered to scan in photos and images of Bible pages, graduation certificates, and mementos. The only software needed to view our family history will be an Internet browser -- Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Several commercial and shareware utilities can generate Web pages. You can even use Word for Windows to create text in the special format needed. The latter is a brute-force method, bound to inspire those with lots of time for typing and tweaking HTML code. While these products are good for creating Web pages, they are not really designed for genealogy Web sites. I chose to use the built-in ability of Ultimate Family Tree (UFT) to create a complete Web site, since it will automatically incorporate the genealogy data I have already entered.

When the cousins have scanned in all the images of people, places, events, and family mementos, in UFT I will link each of the images to the appropriate person, place, or event. Then when UFT creates the HTML code, it will automatically include those images for me. It will create the code in a series of files on my hard drive. We are also going to include a special "family gallery" with family images that cousins can view and copy into their own family history creations.

Once UFT has created the Web site and the gallery is complete, I will copy the entire file structure onto a CD using a CD burner and the appropriate CD software (I will use Toast). The CDs can be easily replicated, and we intend to include a CD in each invitation to the "Bonner 2000" family reunion. The recipient will invoke her or his browser program, point it to the index.htm file on the CD and then explore our history.

Not everything will make the final product. You can transform videos and films into QuickTime format and "play" them with an add-on for a browser. But the QuickTime files would be very large. (By the year 2000, DVD disks may be in wide use and be an option.) The conversion process also would take considerable time. I love my cousins dearly, but if I have to choose between four days of work converting a video tape to QuickTime or four days in the basement of a courthouse doing research, the courthouse will win.

For another example of publishing a history on a CD, check out Ultimate Family Tree's http://www.uftree.com Family Tutor series of genealogy multimedia tutorials. The techniques used for breaking content into sections, incorporating sound files, and displaying "moving" images in collages, are easily done in your own family history CD.