For ten years, starting in 1995, I published Relatively Speaking, a family newsletter focusing on my paternal lines.  One of my goals in creating the newsletter was to involve my cousins with our heritage, and provide a platform for them to share their family stories, memories and traditions that had been passed down.  In addition to my aunts and uncle, some of my distant cousins were most enthused about helping with information by sending me newspaper clippings, obituaries, stories, and evidence from research they had conducted.

The newsletter was a way for me to disseminate the stories and names I had discovered researching the family.  I wrote 62 issues that I distributed to a small circle of relatives and a few genealogical societies.  I enjoyed putting the issues together, rediscovering documents I had stacked away and hearing back from relatives with what they had to add; but a shortage of time was a big factor in ending this venture.

Now in 2015, I’ve organized and recorded much of the research I had done years ago. My database has tripled to over 15,000 names and I have a lot more information to circulate to relatives. Since I stopped producing Relatively Speaking, technology has greatly advanced making dispersing information much easier and certainly less costly. With that in mind, I have decided to remount Relatively Speaking in blog form to continue my goal of sharing family history—both maternal and paternal, as well as an occasional collateral line—in the hopes of reaching an even wider audience.