Your family history sounds fascinating, Lestie. By all means, go for it! I'd love to buy a copy of your cookbook and family history.
A wonderful resource for me was Ancestry.com, where records from all over the world are available online. I paid about $13 each month for a month or two while I was getting all the details straight. When I'd look up a birth or marriage record of someone, I'd get more info from the website within a couple of days that took me to links of other vital records and other family members working up a family tree. The website allowed me to contact people I'd never even heard of before and I found I've got a distant cousin with exactly the same name as my own. It was a wonderful resource! They have birth, death, marriage, divorce, military, school, census records, photos - more! - for people all around the world.
Ancestry.com's even got a TV show here in the US now - Who Do You Think You Are? - where they answer a family history question of celebrities and walk them through the steps of finding out the answer to the mystery. The first episode had Sarah Jessica Parker asking if it was true she had a relative convicted in the 1600s of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts (she did). On another episode, the football player, Emmitt Smith, wanted to know if he had direct connections to Africa; they took him to the very dock (in Gambia, I think?) where his ancestors boarded a ship to the US. That episode moved me to tears. I really enjoy that show, probably all the more so because of the work I had just done on my cookbook!
I went to a website called iStock.com to find / buy the photos I used for front and back covers. I think I spent about $40 total for them but you could use something you've already got and it would be wonderful - such as that diary you mentioned?
Did I try all the recipes? No. The recipes I contributed to the book were all recipes I've used many times before (I used to be a professional chef) and I added stories, cooking tips, serving suggestions, and that kind of thing to many of them. Many of the others I've eaten before because they've been in my immediate family for years and somebody usually cooks them for family gatherings. Other recipes, from more distant relatives, are something I might have had at a family reunion (we do this once a year) or that I know is a tried-and-true recipe because the person who contributed it took pride in serving it to their immediate family, many of whom also contributed recipes. Even though I haven't cooked them all, I do vouch for every one of them.
Funny thing - this cookbook was published in 2010. Since then, people bring their dishes to the family reunions labeled with the dish's name and page number in the cookbook! Before the cookbook, nobody labeled anything. LOL!!
Updates? I don't plan on an update any time soon. In fact, I've said there won't be an update until the 7th generation is ready to write it (as is, the cookbook covers 6 generations and the sixth generation has only just begun). Recipes are hard to type and the project took much longer than I'd anticipated. For an example of what I was working with, look for "Grandma Verna's Biscuits" on the page numbered 194. I had lots of those to translate. So glad I thought to scan and publish a copy of at least one of them.
I do offer you my very highest encouragement in writing a similar book for your family. If I can be of help in any way, please let me know!!
