Starting a Family Newsletter
Your Own Little Publication Can Really Help Keep a Family Connected
Keep in touch with living relatives with your own family newsletter. A great idea to help share photos, stories and personal family history.
The best resource you will have for learning about your family tree, is your family. Staying in touch with all those still-living relatives can really help your research, even once you've moved on to older generations of relatives. A regular family newsletter can be a great help in keeping your network of relatives at hand.
Don't undertake this sort of project lightly though. Once you have established your newsletter, people will expect you to follow through and continue it. Make sure you have the time to organize it, put it all together and get it mailed on a regular basis.
If you are thinking of doing this sort of newsletter, here is what you need to do to get started.
Content
As a genealogist, you may be tempted to do an entire newsletter on history. But you may find fewer interested readers that way. Though genealogy may be your personal goal, you should remember who else is going to be reading your newsletter. Combine a mix of historical information with current family events, personal news, announcements and photos. A good variety of material will appeal to more readers.
Ask for involvement
There is no way for you to keep up with everyone's family news unless they let you know. Each issue of your newsletter should have a notice that you are looking for material, and an easy way to reach you. Your email address will make it easiest, but a mailing address is also nice for those without Internet access. Not only do you need people to submit their personal stories and news, you'll want people to tell other family members about your newsletter. Word of mouth will help build up your mailing list.
Schedule
How often you send your newsletter is up to you. If you have plenty of interested relatives who send you lots of good stories and ideas, you may be able to do a monthly newsletter. More commonly, family newsletters are sent every 3 months or even just twice a year. An annual letter will surely give you plenty of time to get it all together, but won't really be all that timely if you plan on including on-going family events and announcements.
Print or email
Mailing a paper newsletter can get expensive, especially if your newsletter is a big hit and you have to send out hundreds of copies with each issue. People may be willing to pay for their subscriptions, but don't count on it. Email is the cheapest way to send a newsletter, and it gets delivered immediately. A digital newsletter can become more work if you find you're scanning photos all the time or having to transcribe stories that could otherwise just be photocopied into your paper newsletter. If you don't have a clue about formatting a printed newsletter, you can always try some inexpensive software to help you out.
