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The Book of Shadows (BoS)

Originally, the Book of Shadows was a collection of spells, rituals and beliefs unique to a Tradition, passed from teacher to student. These have frequently become highly codified practices, although Gardnerian author Frederic Lamond has recently suggested that this might not have been the original intention. Here he writes as if quoting Gardner, although I'm guessing it is, at best, paraphrasing:

The Book of Shadows is not a Bible or Quran. It is a personal cookbook of spells that have worked for the owner. I am giving you mine to copy to get you started: as you gain experience discard those spells that don't work for you and substitute those that you have thought of yourselves.¹

Lamond does admit, however, that this attitude is quite contradictory to Gardner's own attempts of attempting to pass off his Book of Shadows as being hundreds of years old, or his insistence to those who knew his BoS had been assembled by himself and high priestess Doreen Valiente that "Until recently witches were not allowed to write anything down, lest it incriminate them if their house was searched."2

Today, particularly among Solitaries and Eclectics, the BoS has become a personal book of rituals, private thoughts, meditations, spells, and anything else dealing with one's Wiccan experiences. Some compile their information is attractive, bound volumes, but others use spiral notebooks or even computer files. Some places will try and sell you special inks, saying it will make your works more effective or even that regular inks render your book useless! This is like telling a Christian only crosses made of gold are effective. No one has a right to your BoS but you. If you wish to share your personal BoS, that's fine (as long as it doesn't contain any oathbound information, if you are initiated), but it is your personal workbook and no one should ever demand that you reveal it. On the flipside, if you publicly wave your BoS around, people will presume it is fit for public consumption. You can't have it both ways.

Because Wicca is such a personal religion, a BoS is vitally important. Setting down information allows you to more exactly review it later or compare it to information acquired at a later date. I personally have also found it helpful to write because ideas that look fine in the book of a Big Name Pagan sometimes read a lot sillier when I try to write it in my own hand. Writing helps me reconsider what I really believe, and what I'm blindly quoting.

Some authors include exercises in their books asking you to write down certain things in your BoS such as your beliefs on a variety of topics. These are important to consider and eventually write down, but I find these exercises put pressure on the reader to make such decisions on the spur of the moment. Take your time. You don't, and shouldn't, need all the answers on day one. I'm on year thirteen, and I still don't have all the answers.

"Someone I know says her family has been passing down a Book of Shadows for five-hundred years."
I hate to break it to you, but this "person you know" is lying. According to Valiente in The Rebirth of Witchcraft, Gardner first came across the term Book of Shadows in a magazine in 1949,3 where the term actually referred to a Sanskrit document regarding divination through the studying of shadows. Gardner seems to have simply taken a liking to the name, even though the two documents have nothing to do with each other.4 Therefore, in reference to Wicca or witchcraft, the term was effectively invented by Gardner.

It's technically possible that the family in question has a book of herbal or folk magic lore, although highly, highly unlikely. Peasants were almost entirely illiterate. Generally everything they taught to their children was oral, not written. Moreover, books were hideously expensive until the 20th century. Thirdly, five hundred years is a very long time for a book to last even in relatively well-protected libraries. The oldest books I have ever handled were a mere three-hundred fifty years old, formerly owned by the well-to-do, and even they were crumbling and decaying.

Historically, ceremonial magicians (who were generally very wealthy) created books known as grimoires (grim-WAARS). Some famous ones have been published, such as the Key of Solomon. Their nature was somewhat different than a Book of Shadows, however, frequently focusing upon the ability to call and bind spirits and/or strongly rooted in Judeo-Christian religion.