If you've got the genealogy bug, that great!  It's a wonderful, fulfilling pastime.  The beauty of the hobby is that it doesn't have to ever end.  There's always a family line to explore further, a cemetery to visit, or a history to write up.  This last aspect can be the creative outlet, especially if you use scrapbook albums as the window to your heritage.

If you've been researching your heritage for even a short time, then you've collected a lot of information.  Facts, photographs, documents, stories, and so on.  A scrapbook album is a great way to organize and showcase your family heritage.   Each album and page can tell an ancestry story using the information you've discovered.  Here's how to get started:

Choose an album
While there are several choices of album size and types, post bound scrapbook albums that are 12" x 12" in size are the most useful for creating heritage layouts.  The plentiful page size allows room for pictures, documents, stories, and charts - even your handwritten journaling if desired.  Being post bound, this album allows you to easily add pages for expansion.  Cover color and design choices are abundant, so find something that sets a tone matching the story you're telling.  Color should be your prime consideration as it creates a first impression to the viewer.  Consider using traditional colors like navy, black, and burgundy to convey importance and significance, which is what your heritage probably means to you.

Choose a theme
Your files and notebooks are stuffed with information.  How do you convey that in an album?  Here is where your creativity gets its first workout.  There are many approaches.  The most straightforward is to pick one family line, start with the earliest ancestor and go forward in time following the line that leads directly to you.  Create a page or two on each family, much like a family group sheet.  If you want to be more creative, consider topical themes such as an album of your ancestors who served in the military or an album of your favorite women (men). Read this article for more suggestions.

Create the pages
The next step in this process is the most creative - making the pages!  Color again comes into consideration, not only for the background scrapbook paper, but also for any stickers, picture frames, borders, etc (learn more).  The next thought is page layout or organization.  This ties into the theme you chose.  Are you doing a family line album?  Then maybe you'll want to have a  group sheet on each family page.  Or show a family tree on each page with the family highlighted to show where they are in your lineage.

Preserve the album
You've spent a lot of time researching your family and made the effort to communicate it by creating a heritage scrapbook album.  You'll certainly want it to be around for your descendants.  So make sure the album and everything you put in it is acid free.  Over time, acid will cause your materials to become brittle and fall apart.  If a paper item is not acid free, deacidify it with a product such as Bookkeeper.  When not viewing your album, store it in an area of your home that has moderate temperatures and humidity - stay away from attics and basements!  High temperature speeds up aging and high humidity can cause mold.

As stated in the beginning of this article, researching and displaying your family heritage can be never ending.  Enjoy it!

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Use archival safe scrapbooking supplies to make your heritage album: