I like to use Thunderbird for drafting emails, in part because Thunderbird makes it relatively easy to customize signatures, e.g., with randomized quotes, which has been a topic of multiple blog posts. I have multiple email addresses and was one of the first to apply for a Gmail account. Gmail does have a signature option but it's fairly static meaning I need to change the default or overwrite the quote in my draft email.
Still, the ability to briefly access Gmail at work or (say) my Thunderbird client is down leads me to compose occasionally on Gmail. So this morning I went to draft a minor email to the rest of my family (Mom and siblings). Only to find out 'Family' wasn't available--only certain contacts with embedded 'Family', e.g., 'Hilton Family'. I had noticed this behavior before, but I wasn't sure it was worth my time and attention to fix. I solve problems for a living. After all, it only takes a little time to add 7 contacts to my email list
I did a mini-search within and outside of Google, not really focused on 'Family' per se, but I found puzzling references to delete and/or rename groups, which I didn't see in the context of 'Family'.
So here's what I've basically pieced together. There are certain groups that are fundamentally bundled with Gmail, and Gmail doesn't let you mess with them (i.e., rename or delete). Now personally I don't like how Google handles this ( I would leave the options to name or delete for the purpose of consistency but simply give a visual cue to show the options were unavailable for this group, e.g., greyed out). I subsequently observed that the delete or rename options were available for my own custom groups.
A quick workaround is to create a new group/list/label, say 'myfamily' and then basically copy the contacts from the original 'family' list (e.g., select all the members of the 'Family' group, then click on the group icon. You should get a checkbox list of groups; toggle the 'myfamily' checkbox on). I have found 'myfamily' works in Compose like I expected 'Family' to work.
I still think my seeming inability to use the original 'Family' as expected is a bug, but at least there's a simple workaround.
