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Adding Generations, People, and Record Pages to Your Ancestry Family History Book
Adding Generations, People, and Record Pages to Your Ancestry Family History Book

Extend the number of generations, add another person, timelines, family group sheets, records, and blank pages to your Family History Book

Janelle avatar
Written by Janelle
Updated over a week ago

MyCanvas is a self-publishing website that enables Ancestry.com members to incorporate some of the information from their online trees into Family History Books, Posters, and Calendars. When you create a project, please remember that our layouts won't display all the data provided in the Ancestry Tree.

The cost of the books will vary depending on the size, cover type, and number of pages. The base price includes the first 20 pages, but you can easily add up to 350 pages - additional pages are $0.98 each for the 11 x 8.5" book and $1.25 each for the 13 x 10" book. Click here for more information on our Ancestry Family History Book - Product and Pricing.

You can create the Standard, Combination, and Descendant Books. All three book templates include a tree chart, family group sheets, and timelines that fill automatically with information from your Ancestry Tree.

Unwanted pages must be manually deleted from the preview (double-page spread). You can select the DELETE tab to remove the page. Before you delete a page, please remember that deleted pages cannot be recovered.

Do you want to add generations, people, and record pages to your book?

Keep reading for instructions, or watch the video tutorials at the end of this article.

First, open the project you want to edit. From the preview (double-page spread), select the + Add to Book button.

The + Add to Book feature allows you to add several new pages while editing your Family History Book. These features include:

  • Extending the book to include more generations.

  • Adding a missing person from your tree beyond the number of generations you included.

  • Adding Ancestry records for everyone already in your book.

  • Adding a Family Group Sheet with the names of two parents and their children.

  • Adding a Timeline page for a single person from your tree.

  • Adding all available Ancestry photos for a person in your book.

  • Adding and removing the Table of Contents.

  • Adding a Title page.

  • Adding blank (canvas) pages to customize with stories, recipes, fun family facts, photo collages, and more!

When using the + Add to Book feature, you may select "Add a Family Tree," allowing you to extend the book to include more generations. When adding new generation pages, the data transferred from Ancestry to the MyCanvas project must come from the same Ancestry Tree selected when creating the book.

You can add more generations until you have put in the number of generations you want or until the book has reached its maximum number of pages, whichever comes first. Each book includes a minimum of 20 pages, but you can add up to 350 pages.

Are you looking to add a missing person from your tree beyond the number of generations you included? Select "Add a Person" to include their Timelines and Family Group Sheets.

Select "Add Title" to add a title and dedication page to your book.

Ancestry records and photos are available in the editor and can be added to your project manually.

You will select "Add Record Pages" to add all available record pages for a person in the book.

You can also use the "Find Records" button beneath the Family Group Sheets and Timelines in Preview mode (double-page spread).

You will select "Add Photo Pages" to automatically add all available photos for a person in the book.

Would you like to add more Family Group Sheet pages to your book? You can add them by selecting "Add Family Group Sheet."

You can select the "Add Timeline Page" if you want to add a Timeline page for a single person from your tree. Our book editor picks 3-5 vital record information such as birth, death, burial, and residence data from the individual's Facts column in the Ancestry Tree. Additional information needs to be added to the page manually.

Here is an article with instructions on Adding and Editing Text in Your Family History Project.

If you'd like to add more lines to the page, please see How to Customize your Project with the Line Element.

If you delete the Table of Contents page(s) and want to undo that action, select the "Add Table of Contents" box to add them back to your book. Please keep in mind deleting the pages will remove any manual edits you made and cannot be restored. Manual edits will need to be added to the restored Table of Contents.

Select "Add Blank Page" to add a blank (canvas) page to customize with life stories, recipes, fun family facts, photo collages, and more! Please note the project will not transfer the "LifeStory" history from the Ancestry Tree. The individual stories need to be added to a page manually.

You can also add a blank page by selecting the ADD tab on the preview page.


Tutorials

How to Add More Generations to a Family History Book:

Using the "Add to Book" Button to add Photos, Records, and More:


Need help starting your book? Check out this article: How to Create Your Ancestry Family History Book.

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