Gift guide
Gifts for people who love family history
Genealogists tend to have the subscriptions already. What they rarely have is a way to share what they found.
Buying for someone deep into family history is tricky, because they usually own the obvious things. The subscriptions are running, the folders are organised, the tree goes back four generations further than anyone else in the family can follow.
The gap is almost always the same. Years of research sit in software and box files, and nobody else in the family has ever read it. The best gifts either help them dig further, or help them finally share what they have already found.
Family history gift ideas
Our suggestion
Their research, written into a book the family will read
A family tree records names and dates. It does not tell anyone who these people were. With Chapternity they talk through what they have found and what was handed down, and it becomes a written family history across the generations, with room for the documents and photographs they have spent years gathering. Extra copies cost less than the first, so every branch of the family can keep one. For most genealogists this is the thing they always meant to do and never got round to.
Other ideas worth considering
A DNA testing kit
Still one of the most exciting gifts for a family historian, particularly where there is a brick wall in the tree or an unexplained branch.
An archive or newspaper subscription
Access to historical newspapers, parish records or military archives opens doors that the mainstream genealogy sites do not.
Professional photo restoration
Have the oldest family photograph restored and printed properly. Often the only surviving image of an ancestor, and worth treating well.
An archival storage kit
Acid-free sleeves, folders and boxes for original certificates, letters and photographs. Unglamorous, and genuinely appreciated.
A day at an archive or record office
Travel and lunch included, ideally somewhere holding records for the family line. A day of proper digging is a treat.
Short on time?
A Chapternity gift card makes a complete gift on the day itself, and lets the person tell their story whenever they feel ready. Choose any amount, add a message, and have it delivered on the date that matters.
See gift cardsQuestions
- What do you buy someone obsessed with genealogy?
- They usually have the subscriptions and the software already. The gap tends to be turning the research into something the rest of the family will read, so a written family history is often the most welcome gift. DNA kits, archive subscriptions and photo restoration are strong alternatives.
- How do you turn family tree research into a book?
- The research needs shaping into a narrative rather than a list of names and dates, covering who these people were, what they lived through, and how the family moved and changed. Chapternity does this from a conversation, building on the research they already have.
Give the gift of a family history
It costs nothing to begin, and you read every word before you pay.