Buying a holiday gift for someone who’s into genealogy and family history? (And it’s totally, 100 percent acceptable if the person you have in mind is yourself.)
Here’s a list of gifts that I and the other genealogists I know would love to find under the tree. If you’re ordering from Family Tree Shop, take shipping deadlines (at the bottom of this post) into account, or choose one of our many downloadable genealogy guides, cheat sheets or videos.
- The Family Tree Historical Maps Book or Family Tree Historical Maps Book: Europe: These beautiful compilations of old maps are perfect for a genealogist or someone who loves historical maps.
- A membership to the person’s local genealogical society. Search online for the town or county and genealogical society.
- A Genealogy Cheat Sheet or two: These quick-reference downloads are great if you’re worried about your gift arriving in time for Christmas. You could download the cheat sheet and send the PDF to your recipient, print out the cheat sheet to give, or both. Cheat Sheets are listed here—they cover topics such as German Genealogy, Obituary Research, Genetic Genealogy and Source Citation.
- The Flip-pal Mobile Scanner, which you could give with the Flip-pal Deluxe Carry Case: This light, portable scanner is easy to take to the library or a relative’s house to scan pictures or old book pages. Update: Now is the perfect time to get this scanner! You can use code 10FLIP in Family Tree Shop to save $10! The code expires on Wednesday, Dec. 23.
- A subscription to a genealogy website, such as Ancestry.com, MyHeritage or Findmypast.com.
- A DNA test from one of the above subscription sites or from Family Tree DNA.
- Help and company while scanning old photos and documents, traipsing through a cemetery or looking up local records at the library. This might not sound like much, but many genealogists would give anything to have a loved one express interest in his or her research.
- Help finding free genealogical records in the form of the Unofficial Guide to FamilySearch.org.
- For the person who already subscribes to Ancestry.com, help him or her make the most of the site’s historical records databases with the Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com or the Get Started With Ancestry.com Kit (which includes a signed copy of the book).
- Can’t decide or out of time? Let your recipient choose his or her own gift with a Family Tree Shop online gift card for $15, $25, $50 or $100.
Some important dates for ordering Family Tree Shop books and other physical items:
- Wednesday, Dec. 16: last day to order in-stock items to arrive before Christmas with standard or ground shipping (orders over $25 include free standard shipping in the lower 48 US states)
- Friday, Dec. 18: last day to order in-stock items to arrive before Christmas with 2-day shipping
- Tuesday, Dec. 22: last day to order in-stock items to arrive before Christmas with overnight shipping
