Late each June, my Keating family holds a family reunion.

Over the years, I’ve put together staple–bound family histories created by my primary genealogy program. The resulting histories are distributed at the reunions and corrected or added–to on the spot and brought home as keepsakes (and sometimes ignored).

This year, I’m considering asking each of my family members to write a page (either individually or as a family group) about what they’ve done over the last year and send them back to me in time to include them in the family history. Each year, we’ll repeat the process, adding new chapters to the family’s ongoing history.

I expect sending a sample blank page (and possibly my own as an example) in mid January, and then resending or reminding every two months would get a sufficient response. That would give me one month to put everything together.

I also think it is time to start binding the family histories into something a bit more keepsake–worthy (or at least something more durable than staples…). I’ll need to look into what Kinko’s has to offer, and the costs involved.