We just concluded Thanksgiving week, and there is a lot to be grateful for. As we think specifically about family history, there are many tender mercies that happen along the way. Let’s take a moment and reflect on some of the things we may occasionally take for granted but are always blessings:

• Ancestors who kept journals. One of the most enjoyable parts of doing family history is to discover, read, and share the stories of our ancestors. Even the smallest recorded details can sometimes brighten our lives and inspire us to do good. On the other hand, we wonder about the life stories of those who left little writing behind.
• Family members or others who took photos. A photo taken, found, or shared opens a pathway to an ancestor’s life. With online family history sites so easily accessible, photos continue to enrich our genealogy experience year after year.
• Volunteers who index records. Indexing records is a labor of love, and those who find indexed records about their ancestors certainly love it. Those indexed records sometimes lead to breakthroughs of finding many additional ancestors and relatives, filling out family trees in wonderful ways.
• Those who digitize records. How did those records get online anyway? It starts with the dedicated souls who find the records in the wild and capture them electronically. As a result, online sites such as FamilySearch, Ancestry, and many others provide us with billions of records to examine, ready at a click or a tap.
• Staff and volunteers at libraries, archives, and genealogical societies. While there are many records now available online, there are countless more that might be lost, were it not for the efforts of caretakers at libraries, archives, and societies. Staff and volunteers provide an invaluable service, caring for these materials and making them  available for public view.
• Those who donate to the cause. It all adds up to a staggering total: the time, effort and money required to keep family history rolling forward is truly amazing, as are those who contribute to the cause.
• Brick wall breakers. These are the careful detectives who patiently work the clues together, until there is at last enough connected information to bring an ancestor’s story to life. There will be many who benefit from their efforts.
• Those who create records. Record creators can include government employees, family members who submit obituaries to a newspaper, census enumerators, court reporters, and many more. It’s not a perfect science, but record creation is the lifeblood of family history.
• Ancestors and others with legible handwriting. Anyone who pores over record information trying to make sense of convoluted characters rejoices to see clear and careful writing that’s easy to read and transcribe.
• The everyday family historian. These are the unsung heroes—like you—who find, build, and share our family trees, making it possible to connect generations in love.

Thanks for all you do to support family history! We wish you success and all the best in your endeavors.