The 6 Best Gifts for Family Historians (FREE Shopping Guide)

One of the most important things we can do as family historians is to write our ancestors' stories. To do this, you need to have the best tools for the job, and in my humble opinion, the best tool for writing is Scrivener.

Originally created for novelists and scriptwriters, Scrivener is a robust, content-generation tool that lets you focus on your writing while giving you complete control of your project.

Many genealogical and historical writers - including me - have already embraced Scrivener as their go-to writing software. It helps them write, outline, view their research, take notes, and organize everything in one, simple space.

And there's an app for that! Take your writing projects with you wherever you go on your tablet or mobile device with the Scrivener app. It syncs with your Scrivener projects so you can keep writing, wherever you are.

Learn more about Scrivener in my review: "Using Scrivener for Family History Writing Projects."

Every day, old reel-to-reel films, videotapes, photographs, and negatives are slowly fading away... decaying and neglected in closets and attics. Digitizing your analog media stops the fading and preserves your recordings so they're safe. And the best part is that you can enjoy them again!

Stop the decay! Help the family historian in your life (or yourself) preserve their analog media with digitization services by Legacybox.

How does it work? It's simple: just pack your analog media in the provided Legacybox kit and drop it off at a UPS location.

The Legacybox team of professionals will carefully digitize each item by hand with updates provided to you at every step.

Your original media will be returned to you along with perfectly preserved copies on a thumb drive, in the cloud, or on DVDs for you to enjoy.

Family historians are notoriously disorganized. In fact, one of the most Googled terms is "how do I organize my genealogy?" (SPOILERS: Get started with THESE TIPS.)

With so many paper piles, digital files, online family trees, photos, and even documents in the cloud... it can be difficult to pull it all together.

A good genealogy database software system can help.

RootsMagic 9 is the award-winning genealogy software that makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history easy.

Whether you're a beginner or an experienced professional, RootsMagic is the perfect tool for organizing your family history data. I have personally been using RootsMagic since 2007.

RootsMagic is available for Windows 7 through 11, as well as macOS through Ventura. There's even an app so you can take your data wherever you go on your tablet or mobile device.

Download a trial of RootsMagic Essentials absolutely free. (Compare the free and paid versions here.)

P.S. If you or your family historian are still keeping the family tree online at Ancestry, you should download it to the computer ASAP!

SAVE UP TO 50% with code HOLIDAY2023 through 24 December 2023!

Family historians value education and are always looking for opportunities to expand and improve their research skills. Look no further than a subscription to Legacy Family Tree Webinars!

Legacy Family Tree Webinars was founded by professional genealogist Geoff Rasmussen in September 2010. Originally envisioned as a once or twice-a-month live webinar series, it quickly grew into a full-fledged membership site offering hundreds of webinars for genealogists of all levels, from beginners to board-certified professionals.

With a Legacy Family Tree Webinars subscription, your family historian will get on-demand access to the entire archive of 1,887+ recorded webinars shared by 364 speakers, as well as 7,082 syllabus pages. That's a lot of learning!

P.S. If you're interested, you can watch my webinars at Legacy Family Tree RIGHT HERE.

Writing a family history can seem like a daunting task, especially at first. But Storyworth makes it easier to "eat the elephant one bite at a time."

How does it work? Each week, Storyworth emails the subscriber with a question about their life. Storyworth has prepared a collection of questions that are ready to go, but you can also add your own custom questions and delete any questions you don't want to use.

The subscriber replies to the email with their written story, which is then saved and shared with designated family members.

At the end of the year, all of the stories are printed and bound together in a keepsake book. Extra copies can be ordered for everyone in the family.

I bought a Storyworth subscription for my father a couple of years ago. Despite his original protests, he's enjoying writing his stories, and I've had to extend his subscription twice so he can get them all written. I can't wait to see the book when he's finally finished!

HOLIDAY SALE: Save $10 on a Storyworth subscription with this link (no coupon required).

Don't let your family historian's precious research get lost in a hard drive crash! Protect their digital files with automated backups from Backblaze.

Backblaze is a cloud backup service that will automatically back up all of your designated files, documents, photos, music, movies, and more. Unlimited files of unlimited size. You can even back up your synced services like Dropbox!

Your files can be easily accessed on the web or via an app on your mobile device. No matter where you are, your files will always be with you.

And if the worst happens, you can download your files for free from the web or have your data shipped to you on an external drive for a fee (full refund upon return of the drive).

I've been using Backblaze since 2015, and I love knowing that my research is backed up and protected.

Visit the Backblaze website to sign up for a free 15-day trial.

Purchase a Backblaze gift license online and email the link to the recipient. Gift-giving doesn't get much simpler than this!