General Guidelines

Arrangement: The project must maintain the integrity of the original record by not rearranging material. For example, court minutes must be recorded in the order of appearance in the original source.

Completeness: The work must include genealogical records of all names and topics contained in the record source. For example, newspaper projects must not stop in the middle of a year and must not select a single category such as obituaries.

Citation: Book and page citation must be given for data. Content and data from other sources must be clearly identified through the use of brackets and citations. The original source document, or copies, must be available to the public for verification purposes.

Index: The project must include a full-name index of all persons mentioned in the source, with the exception of ministers in marriage records. The inclusion of place names is optional but desirable.

Accuracy: The project must not contain significant errors and/or omissions.

Quality: Applications that contain errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation in the introduction, preface, forward, etc., will not be considered. Arrangement of data must be in a clear format and easily readable font style and size.

Publication Guidelines

• Transcriptions, abstractions and extractions are required to be exact, including odd spellings and punctuation.
• All books are required to have headers and/or footers that include the book title and page numbers.
• Books may be formatted for an 8 1/2×11-inch or a 7×9-inch finished book size.
• The latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is considered to be the authority on book formatting and publishing.
• Photographs and illustrations are encouraged, but the Foundation does not pay for color printing.
• Any information added by the author (including notes on the legibility) must be indicated in square brackets [ ].
• The maximum number of printable pages is 600 pages. Any book more than 600 pages should be divided into multiple volumes.
• Binder margin should be 1 1/4 inches. Ideal top/bottom/outside margin is 1 inch (can be reduced to 3/4 inch, if necessary).