I recently called my sister Brigitte, an economist at a prestigious university, to ask her advice about my mortgage. A few days later, I was in the room when my sister Heidi called Brigitte to ask whether she should refinance her townhouse. Since I had moved some of my retirement funds into “safe” assets, I […]

Thanks to all of you who offered comments and suggestions in response to my last post. I’d like to answer the two most common questions and then tell you about some recent improvements.
“I’ve created a book in the 8.5×11 inch format, but now I want the larger size. Can I upgrade to the 11×14 inch […]

Last weekend I had the following conversation with my 5-year-old nephew, Alex.
Alex: “Where are you going?”
Me: “To the store.”
Alex: “Why?”
Me: “Because I want to buy some shoes.”
Alex: “Why?”
Me: “Because I’m a girl, and girls like shoes.”
Alex: “But you don’t need any shoes.”
Which, from an objective point of view, was certainly true. I had a whole […]

A couple of years ago, when I was living in New York, I went to Philadelphia to spend the Easter weekend with my sister and her family. The guests at Easter dinner included my brother-in-law’s sister. She brought Napoleon Dynamite lunch boxes for my nieces, who had seen the movie so many times that […]

A few months ago I heard a wonderful essay on NPR. The author was reminiscing about making a lanyard for his mother at summer camp when he was a kid. The essay was addressed to his mother. He said something like, “You gave me thousands of warm meals, 18 years of free housing and clean […]

Today we launched an exciting new feature that many of you have requested: the ability to share AncestryPress projects in a digital format. You can now invite family members and friends to view your project and, if they wish, order a printed copy of it. We’ve also made a navigation change that will make it […]

Family photos are the heart and soul of any AncestryPress project, and we’ve just added several new features that make it easier to showcase your photos through a custom book or poster.
Picasa and SmugMug
AncestryPress is now integrated with Picasa and SmugMug, two leading photo sharing web sites. So if you’ve uploaded your vacation photos to […]

I have great news for all the people who have been asking, “When I edit information in my online tree, why aren’t the changes reflected in my AncestryPress book?” This week we launched an update feature that lets you synchronize the data in your book with the data in your Ancestry online tree.
Please note that […]

Several people have asked whether it’s possible to include more than four generations in an AncestryPress book. The answer is yes, you can include as many ancestors as you’d like, although they won’t all appear on the same page.
When you create a book from templates, AncestryPress automatically generates a certain number of pages based on […]

This week I’d like to offer a few tips for creating family tree posters. You can use AncestryPress to create a standard tree poster including 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 generations or a combination tree poster including 4, 5 or 7 generations (a 6-generation combination tree poster is coming soon).
Creating a poster is a […]