The Canowindra Historical Society is putting the finishing touches on the publication, which includes the stories of over 150 families.

"It's trying to give stories of families who put plaques on the pre 1901 Pioneer Wall, a Canowindra Centenary of Federation project opened in 2001, and how they fitted into the community and the development of Canowindra," historian Dorothy Balcomb said.

Some settlers came as convicts, having served their sentences or been assigned to pastoralists squatting on crown lands, while others came in the mining period from the late 1860s or as selectors after closer settlement laws allowed them to select blocks on the old stations.

Among the pioneer stories was a man who survived a bout of diphtheria in 1893, only to lose his wife and five children to the disease within three weeks

Mrs Balcomb said Canowindra began as a frontier township route to the Lower Lachlan from the 1840s, but lost its importance after gold was discovered at Forbes and Grenfell in the early 1860s.

The town boomed when the railway came from Cowra in 1910 and its population increased from 400 to 1500 within five years.

Mrs Balcomb said there were still descendants of the Finn family in Canowindra, whose patriarch arrived in town as a butcher in the gold mining period, then became a storekeeper and later developed T.J Finn department store.

The Finn family was responsible for building a number of the main street buildings in Canowindra.

The book "Canowindra Pioneer Register Pre 1901 - Stories behind the plaques" will be pre-launched by historian Heather Nicholls at 3pm at the Canowindra Community Centre on Saturday. People can pre-order the book, which will be available at the end of November.

The event is part of the Canowindra Historical Society's Focus on Families day at the Historical Museum and community centre, which starts at 10am and includes pioneer family displays, unveiling of new plaques on the pioneer wall and a barbecue lunch.