'Tis the Season for Genealogy -- Reconsider the Often Maligned Holiday Newsletter as Genealogy Gold

Many of us at one time or another have probably said something like, "Enough of these end-of-year holiday newsletters. Why do people write these things anyway?" Or we have voiced particular criticsm of specific newsletters we receive -- morsels like: "All this bad news is a downer!" Or its polar oppositie, "Geez talk about self absorbtion, the 'we,' 'me,' 'us,' and the litany of all the great things we do and that happen to us. Makes me want to vomit." And then the whispered appraisal of family members who remain anonymous, "Why do they tell us all this stuff when they know we hear of all these things and events during the year as they happen?"

A Google search of "Holiday newsletters good or bad?" yields some evidence of the criticism that is out there: "Just Say No to the Holiday Newsletter -- Snarky in the Suburbs" or "Oh No! The Generic Holiday Newsletters Are Coming!" and "Holiday letters: Personal updates can reveal too much information." There are undoubtedly some valid points in these various views of the holiday newsletters that often come stuffed in cards containing only canned holiday sentiments and a bare signature; but perhaps there is another way to view these annual newsletters. How about something like "Holiday Newsletters: Genealogy Gold For Descendants and Relatives!" 

Many years ago I grew tired of simply signing printed holiday cards or having to painstakingly handwrite some real news for every card sent to family and friends. After some years of voicing my own often derisive criticism of end-of-year newsletters, I had an epiphany and a re-set in my thinking. I decided to begin an annual newsletter to insert in cards that we sent to family and friends (and more recently even emailed to some). Sure, it was easier than handwriting pithy news blurbs tailored to each recipient -- blurbs that usually became repeated across cards anyway -- but after rethinking the purposes of a newsletter and who the audience was, I realized that there were two basic groups and two differnet purposes to writing a holiday newsletter.

The first group is friends and somewhat distant relatives who are often scattered around the country and as a result we did not see them often and communicate with them sporatically and mostly in the telegraphic language of email or instant messaging. The content of the annual newsletter is an update for them of things they did not know about in real time and are probably of only ephemeral interest -- the newsletters are read and shortly find their way into the "round file" until trash pick-up day.  This is fine and the newsletter serves a real need and purpose. It is easier to be informative for this group with a newsletter that covers many news events of the year than to try to handwrite individualized summaries in each card.

The second group is comprised of members of the immediate family (who really already know most or all of the news and events in a newsletter) and, I realized, their children and future descendants. For the latter especially, the newsletters would be informative windows into the lives of the ancestors and relatives they never met or knew. I thought of how many times I wished I had letters, diaries, or other written material from ancestors and relatives to fill in their stories beyond the cold facts of birth, marriage, children, death etc. I realized I would love to have annual holiday newsletters written by ancestors and relatives to tell me what they valued as memories for a given year, to memorialize their successes and perhaps some disappointments, to share their joys and sadness, etc.  

And that was when I put aside the thought that my newsletters might produce groans or smirks or even derisive laughter because I knew more clearly for whom I was writing the newsletters and why.  Sure, the newsletter serves a purpose of ease and convenience for me regarding most recipients, but for others it provides a genealogical record that might just be preserved so those in the future need not wonder as I have about the important events in the everyday lives of their ancestors or relatives.

In 2013, as I wrote the annual newsletter for that year, I realized it was the 21st such annual summary and I decided to make a gift of all the previous twenty newsletters (1992 - 2002) to our sons.  I posted here about the three-ring notebook of twenty years of holiday newsletters that I assembled, wrapped, and presented to them on Christmas Day 2013. We spent considerable time that day reading back issues of the newsletter, recalling forgotten events, putting mistaken events back in their correct chronological order, and laughing out loud at many stories and photos the newsletters helped us reminisce about. At the time neither of our granddaughters had been born, but they now feature large in the newsletters of the last three years.  We look forward to the time when we can sit with them and read over the newsletters so they can learn about the early experiences of their parents and grandparents, read and see how they entered the family and got their own section in the newsletter, and come to appreciate the value of having an annual review of their lives and those of their family members.  They might even want to continue the tradition in their own nuclear families when the time comes.

And this is why each Christmas since 2012, I have gifted our sons with the newest annual holiday newsletter in a protective sleeve to be inserted into their binder of the collected Tew Family Holiday Newsletters. Fifteen days from now they will receive the "Special Edition" 25th Annual Tew Family Holiday Newsletter .  .  . and I will have my binder with me to add the 25th edition and just maybe I'll pause to read portions of some oldies but goodies!

         

So,  I urge you to reconsider the much maligned holiday newsletter. Put aside any prejudices you might have about holiday newsletters and start creating one if you do not already compose one each year. Remember you have different audiences. Care not about the audience that will groan or laugh at you and not with you. Observe a few cautionary tips: avoid being heavy on bad news and disappointments (nobody likes downers), but give gentle and truthful summaries within the limits of getting too personal; include photographs and stories; add a little appropriate and perhaps silly humor; and most of all .  .  . remember that you are not just creating an annual holiday summary of the years event's, you are creating genealogy gold for your descendants!  

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Newsletters image screenshot from Google Images search for "holiday newsletters."

Scanned image of the "Tew Family Holiday Newsletter" binder cover was created by the author. 

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Copyright 2017, John D. Tew

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