Since the late '70's we've received mail advertisements from a number of Heritage book outfits.

This one came in the mail just this weekend (7/10/04).

You have probably found these in your mailbox too and wondered what they are all about. 

Here are some websites that go a long way toward lifting the curtain on the mystery.

These links will open pages in a new browser window.  If you are running a popup blocker you may need to disable it temporarily.

Ancestry.com is the first site I found. Someone did a lot of work to explain just what's behind that ad shown above.  Here's another one at geocities.com.   This one, from whitmania.com lists several different outfits and their "products".  Finally, some of these outfits have found themseves in court. For example this one at  usps.com/judicial.

There are lots of other sites.  Just go to Google and try some related phrases.  Enclose them in quotes, like this: "Family Yearbook", or "genealogy scams", or "American Genealogies Inc."