- Free tool
- PDF on A4 or US Letter
- Nothing is uploaded
Family tree book creator with a page for every relative
This family tree book creator turns a chart into a printable book. Each person gets a page with their photo, dates, places, parents, partners, children and life story, and the book adds a cover, a contents page, family group pages and the tree itself. The PDF is written in your browser, on A4 or US Letter paper.
Who gets a page
0 of 0 people have a page.
Choose a person above to write their life story. A story starts from the notes on the chart, if there are any.
The sample in the family tree book creator is the Hollis family, invented for this site, with drawn portraits in place of photos. The stories you write are kept in this browser, and the PDF is built here, so nothing about your family is uploaded.
Make a book with the family tree book creator
The preview beside the choices is the book itself. Every page in it is the page the PDF prints, so a change to a story or to the order shows at once.
Open a chart
Start from the Hollis sample, the chart this browser keeps from the editor, a JSON project, or a GEDCOM file exported from Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage or another genealogy program.
Choose the people
Tick who gets a page. The book runs by generation, oldest first, and you can sort it by year of birth or surname, or move people up and down into an order of your own.
Write the stories
Choose a person and write their life story. It starts from the notes on the chart, if there are any, and a page without a story prints ruled lines to write on by hand.
Check every page
Turn through the preview, fill in the cover, pick A4 or US Letter and download the PDF. A free account downloads it, as it does every export of the editor.
What goes on each page of the book
The family tree book creator reads every page from the chart, so a date corrected in the editor is corrected in the book the next time you open it here.
| Page | What it holds | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Cover | The family name, the number of people and generations, up to eight faces, who prepared the book and the date | The chart, and the fields above the list of people |
| Contents | Every person with their years and page number, under a heading for each generation | The order you chose |
| Family tree | The whole chart on one page, turned sideways when it is wide | The editor’s own PDF drawing |
| Person | Photo or initials, name, dates and places, work, parents, partners, children, brothers and sisters, life story | The chart and the story you write |
| Family groups | Each couple with the year they married and a table of their children, with the page of each person | The couples and children on the chart |
Planning a family book before you write
Decide whose book it is first. A book of one surname follows the people who carried it, while a book for a grandparent’s birthday usually covers their ancestors and every descendant, with the people who married in. The fewer branches a first book holds, the sooner it is finished and printed, and a second volume can follow.
Findmypast suggests three ways to order a family book, by generation, by branch of the family, or by theme such as migration or military service. The family tree book creator prints by generation unless you choose otherwise. For a book by branch, choose My own order and move one side of the family above the other.
Collect the stories while the people who remember them are alive. Short stories are fine. Three or four sentences on where someone grew up, what work they did and one thing the family still tells about them fill the lower half of a page. Family Tree Magazine reckons about 300 words to a page of a 6 by 9 inch book. A longer story here runs on to the next page, which carries the person’s name at the top.
Photos, scans and permission
The family tree book creator uses the photo each person has on the chart, cut to the same square you framed in the editor, so a face that is centred on the chart is centred in the book. Add or reframe a photo in the editor, then open the chart here again.
Scan old prints well
The Library of Congress advises scanning ordinary family prints at 300 dots per inch, and at 400 or 600 when a small print will be enlarged to 8 by 10 inches or more.
Keep the originals
The editor stores a small copy of each photo in the chart, which is sharp at the size the book prints it. Keep the full scans in a folder of their own for anything larger.
Ask whose photo it is
The US Copyright Office says the person who takes a photograph is generally its author and first copyright owner. Owning a print is not the same as owning the right to copy it, so ask a studio or a cousin before printing their pictures.
Ask living relatives
The National Genealogical Society asks family historians for evidence of consent before publishing details of living people. Show each living relative their page first, or tick the box in the family tree book creator that prints only their year of birth.
Printing and binding the PDF
Each page the family tree book creator lays out has a wider margin on the left, where the pages are bound, and a page number at the foot. Print one side of each sheet so every photo stays on a right-hand page, or print both sides and let the page numbers run on.
Family Tree Magazine lists the common bindings for a family history. A copy shop can staple and fold a thin book, add a spiral or comb, or glue a paperback spine, which it calls perfect binding. It warns that wire spirals wear the pages each time they are turned. Card covers cost little and protect the first and last pages.
Print-on-demand sites such as Lulu and Blurb print a book from an uploaded PDF. Read the site’s rules on page size and margins before you choose the paper here, and order one proof copy before the rest. Keep the PDF with your chart, so the book can be printed again when a new grandchild needs a page.
The Hollis family in the sample book
The sample book of the family tree book creator is the Hollis family from our family tree maker. Its 19 people across four generations are invented, so the book can be printed in a class or shown to a client without anyone’s private details. Each has a birthplace, a home, work and a short story, and a portrait we drew from simple shapes stands in for a photo. The oldest generation is drawn in sepia, like an old print.
In the family tree book creator, the sample travels through the same steps as your own chart. Each portrait is stored on the person as the editor stores a photo, then cut to its square and placed on the page, so the sample shows exactly how your photos will print.
Questions about the family tree book creator
What the family tree book creator costs
Choosing people, writing stories and looking through the preview are free without an account. Downloading the PDF needs a free account, as every export of the editor does, and on the Free plan each page carries one small line naming the site.
Whether the stories are uploaded
No. The stories and choices are kept in the storage of this browser, under the chart they belong to, and the PDF is built on your device. Clearing the browser’s data removes them, so copy a long story into the chart’s notes in the editor as well.
Using a tree from a genealogy site
Export the tree from that site as a GEDCOM file and open it in the family tree book creator. The book takes the names, dates, birthplaces, work and notes from the file. Photos stay on the genealogy site, so add the ones you want in the editor first.
How many people one book can hold
The family tree book creator reads a GEDCOM file of up to 1,000 people, and the contents run over as many pages as they need. A book of more than 100 pages is easier to read when it is split by branch into volumes.
Names in other alphabets
A page with names in Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese or another script is printed as a sharp picture of the page, because the standard PDF fonts cover only the Latin alphabet. The other pages stay as searchable text.
Where the facts come from
- Family Tree Magazine, How to self-publish your family history book Bindings, print-on-demand from a PDF, image resolution and about 300 words to a 6 by 9 inch page.
- Library of Congress, Personal digital archiving, scanning Prints scanned at 300 dots per inch, and at 400 or 600 for an enlargement to 8 by 10 inches.
- US Copyright Office, What photographers should know about copyright The person who takes a photograph is generally its author and first copyright owner.
- National Genealogical Society, Guidelines for sharing information with others Evidence of consent before publishing information about living people.
- Findmypast, How to make a family tree book A family book ordered by generation, by branch or by theme.
Checked on 11 November 2026.
