We all have received them and many of us write them, the newsy letters to family and friends where we give or receive detailed information on Aunt Mary’s hip surgery, little Susie’s tap dance lessons,  Ashley’s senior trip to France, the car that broke down during the family vacation, etc, etc.

We do these letters or emails, to keep in touch, to brag about our accomplishments, to let others know how we are doing, and to give a snippet of our lives to those we generally do not see through out the year but want to keep in touch with.

These letters can be a treasure of family information. If it has been a tradition in your family to send these out, I hope you are keeping one for yourself each year, place them in binder by year and watch your family stories grow through the years. Make a habit of pulling out the binder each Christmas season and reread some of the older letters and maybe relive some great memories or remind yourself how lucky you are. As the children grow the letters can be fun for the grandchildren to hear!

If you are a recipient of these letters, do the same thing for family newsletters. Keep them in a binder and reminisce, but these will also be great for yourself and future generations of genealogists.

The information and stories these newsletters generally give are brilliant. Births, marriages, anniversaries, deaths & funerals, traditions, stories, moves, occupations, schools, societies, and important names, dates, locations, etc.

I must also say it was recommended to me to scan the letters for safe keeping, but I have to admit to loving the touch of the real thing, the hand written ones are even better. But scan if you must, just as long as you keep these snippets of life where the future can also share in the details of our lives.