Filled in by hand, calligraphy, or type, and hand-colored in pen or paint, each of these family trees is guaranteed to be unique, and each illustration--whether elegant, whimsical, or just plain folksy--is a joyful celebration of your family. Uses for it are limited only by your imagination.

You can photo-reduce the family trees for use as note cards and stationery, or you can enlarge them to show family detail at its optimum. Remember that each of these family trees is an ancestral tree. The tree starts with you, and each generation back doubles in size, showing two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, etc.

Memory Trees begins with suggestions for choosing the design of your family tree, using purely aesthetic considerations or one or more subject themes (births, careers, homes, geography, pets, cars, vacations, etc.) that are important to a particular family. With a design in mind and one of Tony’s layouts selected, the scrapbooker (a term meaning someone who makes scrapbooks) can choose from a myriad of beautiful papers, borders, stickers, stencils, clip-art, stamps, etc., etc. that are readily available. Matthews provides oodles of suggestions for embellishing the basic design, adding photographs of varying shapes and sizes, filling in names and dates, and generally putting a personal touch to the family tree. Tony has laid out each tree so that it can be enlarged to fit within a 10" x 10" border, the size most commonly used for scrapbook albums The layouts themselves range from hearts and flowers to shields and insects, from toys to crosses, and from landscapes to elephants. The creator can complete some of the trees from the outside in and others from the inside out. There’s a collection of borders to choose from, and many of the designs are suitable for child scrapbookers. In short, if your scrapbook is lacking a family tree, you’ll find that Memory Trees is an easy, convenient, and FUN tool for adding one.  52 pgs, paperback

There are few families who are not affected in some way by genetic disorders, whether a crippling and devastating disease like cystic fibrosis, a chronic condition like high blood pressure, or a predisposition to alcoholism or mental illness. We know that heart disease, diabetes, and cancer all tend to "run in families." Yet few of us know very much about genetic disorders--what they are, how they are transmitted, how they may be screened or treated, or even how to find information on them. Indeed, few of us know whether we or our children are at risk from such disorders.

While geneticists have long been interested in genealogy and genealogists in genetics, only recently have the two fields become linked in a way that promises dramatic advances in our understanding of the relationship between genetic disorders and ancestry. This book, by Los Angeles Times Syndicate columnist Myra Gormley, was a pioneering effort to explore that relationship, to alert people to things they and their family ought to know about both their family tree and genetic research, and to examine the scientific breakthroughs that have made possible the control and treatment of some inherited diseases.

Written in a popular style, in language few of us will find difficult to understand, this ground-breaking work examines the genetics revolution and its implications for your health; it discusses genetic diseases and whether you and your family may be at risk; and it explores your mental and behavioral roots--your genetic susceptibility to manic depression, for example, or to alcoholism--all in the framework of ancestry and family health history. And if the question of ancestry should prove vexing, the books shows you how comparatively simple it is to trace your family history, establish your medical pedigree, and construct your own family health tree.