Happy New Year to everyone! We have finally turned the page on a challenging year in 2021, and we look forward to great things to come in 2022.

A familiar ritual for most of us is the art of making—and keeping—New Year’s resolutions. Favorites include fitness, finances, family, and a host of other positive steps and habits to embrace. May I suggest a simple resolution:

• Take time to include family history in your life, in 2022.

The benefits are clear and unmistakable. For example, here’s a brief quiz: What are the two most important parts of family history? The answer is actually quite simple: family and history. Families get linked together by those who participate in family history, and history is the understanding of what has happened in our past, and how it can affect our future. It’s hard to imagine many things more valuable than those.

For many of us, including family history in our lives is something that’s already happening. (In fact, some genealogists among us, or their friends, may be wondering if spending a bit less time might be a good idea.) In this case, the opportunity may be to focus more on the quality of the time we spend. For researchers, better skills and organization can save time and produce reliable results, and The Family History Guide can help in those areas.

If you are looking to be more consistent with including family history in your life, here are some basic ways to get started doing that, featuring The Family History Guide:

• Check out the 15 Minutes link in the Intro Menu. There are some great suggestions for doing family history in as little as 10-15 minutes per day.
• Explore the Get Started page to see what piques your interest in family history. If you’re interested in a topic, the chances are greater that you’ll continue to explore it and discover what you need.
• Dig into Memories and share them. Start with Project 2: Memories and learn how to gather and share your important family photos, documents, and stories.
• Learn a family history platform, a step at a time. This opens the way to building and managing family trees, such as with FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, or Findmypast.
• Explore the Knowledgebase for information nuggets. Looking to learn the basics of family history research? The General Knowledgebase gets you started, and the Countries Knowledgebase gives you insights for doing research in many countries around the world.
• Use the To-Do list features on FamilySearch and Ancestry. For example, FamilySearch finds tasks you can work on and posts those on your home page.

These are just a few of many ideas to help you include family history in your life in 2022. Also, be sure to check out the Activities section on the website for great ideas on fun and meaningful family history activities you can do with family or friends.