At this time, our “Planning Your Family Reunion Guide and Workbook” is only available in print format, but we are exploring options to make the workbook fully digital.

We are excited to offer more than a dozen templates to kickstart your family reunion planning experience. You can access all templates at this link. All templates are available in Microsoft Office applications (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel), with some templates also compatible with Google Drive applications.

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Not yet, but we will soon! Our guide for family genealogy research and storytelling for the uncommon genealogist will be published in late 2023. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to us with any genealogy / family history research questions using our contact form.

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Mail merge is a powerful functionality available in Microsoft Office applications to create things like nametags, address labels, and more. We reference mail merge in the “Design Your Check In Process” sub-section of the “Planning Your Family Reunion Guide and Workbook” on pages 60 and 61.

To complete a mail merge, first download the Event Name Badge Template at this link and then open an Excel spreadsheet where your attendee data exists. If you are creating nametags, you will want to one name per row. Depending on the design of your nametag, you may want to include the first name and last name of each attendee in two separate columns. Include other relevant pieces of information like generation, ancestor, current city, and other items in subsequent columns. What you include here really depends on what information you want to be shown on your attendees’ nametags.

Once you have all your attendees’ information included in the spreadsheet, be sure to add column headers (e.g., “First Name”) in the first row and save the spreadsheet. Next, in your Name Badge Template, click “Mailings” in the top ribbon and then “Select Recipients.” Select the “Use an Existing List Option” and find your Excel spreadsheet. This connects the Excel list you previously created with your attendees’ information to the Name Badge Template. Select the sheet which contains the data you wish to utilize.

Now it’s time to add your fields. In the first name badge, highlight the “[First]” including the brackets and click the “Insert Merge Field” dropdown in the ribbon options. Now select the data field you want to be included in that position. You may need to update some spacing and formatting. Repeat the same exercise for the remaining parts of the name badge.

Once your first name badge is set with the merge fields, copy the badge and paste in the name badge at the right. The only thing you need to do here is add a “Rule” from the ribbon options and select “Next Record.” Be sure this is typed before the first name in your template. This tells the mail merge to move on to the next name in the list from your spreadsheet. Copy that name badge and past in the remaining badges. Create additional pages as needed by hitting the “tab” button in the bottom right name badge.

At any time you can see how the name badge looks with the merged data by clicked “Preview Results” in the ribbon options. When you’re satisfied with the merge, click “Finish & Merge” and “Edit Individual Documents” from the dropdown list. It is important you double check the output for any spelling errors, formatting issues, etc. Before your finalize and print, be sure to remove the border around the name badges by selecting the entire table and clicked “Table Design” in the ribbon and then “Borders” to “No Border.” If you don’t do this, you will see the borders when you print.

Lastly, save your new document and export as a PDF for easier printing if needed. If you have any questions, view some help content online at this link or this link. Of course if you have specific questions to our templates, send us an email at danny@uncommongenealogist.com or submit a contact form.