For the more ambitious, instead of starting with your children with one unified book, you could start at different generations and create multiple books with a wider interest. A book for your children would only be of interest to your children and grandchildren and succeeding generations as it is only their unique combined ancestry.
Another idea would be to start at you as 1 in one book and then your spouse as 1 in another book to separate the two sides of your immediate family. These books could then be shared with each of your siblings as your own book would be the same ancestry as your siblings, in my instance my four sisters and their children and grandchildren and now a great-grandchild.
The benefit of this book version, in my case, is that my book would be numbered in a way that would correspond exactly with the updated genealogy charts that I have been creating. The numbering system is the same with my sisters and I designated as 1 and our parents as 2 and 3. My book would match my charts.
An even more expansive ideas would be to start 4 books, one each for my parents and my in-laws, our children's grandparents. This would allow each book to have a much wider interest out another generation to my cousins. My dad's book would be the same ancestry for my paternal cousins, my mom's book for my maternal cousins, and likewise for my in-laws in my wife's broader family. And this would keep each line separate and provide more clarity in the long run. If there was a connection between books due to overlapping ancestry, reference could be made to the ancestors as Eino25, my father Eino's 25th ancestor in his ahnentafel listing, to Elsie33, my mother's Elsie's 33rd ancestor in her ahnentafel listing. Interestingly, of the overlaps that I have found so far, they are all entirely within each side of the family. It appears that my dad's and my mom's ancestries are entirely separate and unique with no cross-connection whatsoever. Each appears to be entirely unrelated to the other before my parents' marriage.
As I reconfigure my own project to adapt from my start at my children to restarting at my parents, I have considered the idea of using dual numbering for (I hope) clarity.
In my dad's book, I would number my grandparents as: 2:4 or 2|4 paternal grandfather 2:5 or 2|5 paternal grandmother
Where in #:### or #|###, the first # is according to my dad's ancestry, his father is 2 and his mother is 3, but the second ## is according to my ancestry as 4 and 5, again matching with my recently updated charts from my ancestry's perspective. I hope that it is not too confusing with such a format but adds clarity to the "position" of each ancestor in relation to both my dad and me in my genealogy charts. I have not yet settled on a style for separator, either the full colon ( : ) or the long vertical ( | ) are my two leading contenders.
The beauty of more books divided by family line is to more clearly illustrate the important family stories according to the specific line of the family. It is easy for other extended family members to confuse more distant connections across family lines when they have not researched it to the same level as you have.
So children as 1, a single book.
You as parents as 1 in each book, two separate books for you and siblings.
Your parents and in-laws in each book, four total books for you and cousins.
Of course, this same idea could be extended back to whatever generation you would like but I fear that it would get too cumbersome and unwieldy with too many books in progress. I hope that these books can help you to collect your important information together in one place and as an easier way to share it with your immediate and extended families.
Again, as I offered in last month's article, if you work on this type of book for yourself and have a question, please feel free to ask me via email below. I would be very happy to hear of your project and to interject my opinion on your question.
Please feel free to send any questions, inquiries, or comments to my genealogy email greg@genealogy.mn. Thank you to those who have written to me!