diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 6bdfdfc..31bf7f6 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -18,3 +18,13 @@ After completing the regular installation above, also do the following:
 ## Usage in Other Derived Repos
 
 Create a repo based on this template. See https://github.com/marketplace/actions/actions-template-sync to make an Action to make the new repo automatically (make a PR to) sync changes from the template (this) repo.
+
+Alternatively, set this template as an upstream branch and merge in changes accordingly:
+1. *Set upstream*: From the derived (downstream) repository, run `git remote add template git@github.com:r-spiewak/python_template`.
+2. *Fetch changes*: Run `git fetch template`.
+3. *Merge changes* (maybe do this on a branch other than main and make a PR into main): `git merge template/main -- allow-unrelated-histories` (for the main branch in the upstream template).
+4. *Fix Merge Conflicts*: Fix the merge conflicts in your local branch.
+
+However, both of these methods are messy, since the package name (`python_template`) changes, and (if the derived repo is created from the gitHub template) the merge will want to revert it back to `python_template` and put anything new into a `python_template` directory as well (since they don't have a shared history).
+
+The possible way to avoid this is if the derived repo is created locally as a copy of this repo, since then they'll have a shared history (and then the flag `--allow-unrelated-histories` in step 3 can be omitted as well).