Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. It is one of the most cherished celebrations of the blessings we receive from God. Many people make a concerted effort to be together with loved ones on this day. The airports and highways are jammed with Thanksgiving travelers every year. In the United States Thanksgiving Day usually includes a traditional feast of a roasted turkey with all the trimmings as we surround ourselves with family and friends. Days of thanksgiving and gratitude are celebrated in most countries and cultures throughout the world. Often they have been instituted to celebrate the harvest and to worship God for his goodness. There is something so unifying about gathering as a nation on one designated day to give thanks and talk about our blessings.

Sometimes in our family we say that “Thanksgiving is Every Day” because we express our gratitude to God in prayer each day of the year. Expressing gratitude and appreciation for the good things in life is a wonderful practice, especially with our families. Each family has its own traditions and ways of looking at its blessings. The point is that Thanksgiving is something that has existed long before national or cultural traditions were established; it is part of man’s nature to recognize there is something bigger than ourselves. To be thankful is to be filled with gratitude.

I’ve been thinking about what it is about family history that pulls me in and keeps me wanting to do this work? What am I grateful for as I look back over the years? Researching our ancestors makes us realize that we are a part of something so much bigger than we might have imagined. I love that. As I discover the stories of our deceased family members, I am so in awe of them and what they have taught us and who they were. Their decision made all the difference in who we are, and our decisions matter. Their lives were filled with hardships, sacrifices and sorrow as well as joy.  I don’t want any of them to be forgotten.  I love to find their stories through research and divine inspiration and share them with our family members here on the earth at this time. I also want to keep good records of each of our lives going forward and preserve them for others.  Everyone’s life is worth remembering. Without an effort on our part, they will be forgotten so quickly. I also am grateful that I don’t have to do it all myself. I must, however, do my part. I want to leave something wonderful as a legacy for our posterity.

One of the things I am most grateful for is technology, the Internet, the informational age, and easier access to genealogical resources. What a difference this has made for us all! Can you still remember trying to gather facts without technology and how slow it was? Do you recall how hard it was to even find a typewriter with a carriage large enough to type our handwritten Book of Remembrance pages? Technology and the Internet have brought the genealogy community together, and the resources we have now are phenomenal. We have access to so much!  It is literally getting better every single day. We have billions of records at our fingertips, indexers, archivers, digitizers, and experts all working together to make this doable like never before. I’m grateful for the big genealogy giant companies like Family Search, Ancestry, Findmypast, and My Heritage. We have DNA technology and wonderful instructors and mentors who so tirelessly move this work forward.

The day I discovered The Family History Guide in 2015, the week it was launched, I realized I will be doing this for the rest of my life. Because now the greatest thing of all is that I don’t have to know everything to be successful in my family history work or to teach others how to do the same. Now I just need to know where to find it. That is what The Family History Guide has done for me. Now I have access to a learning system that is readily available, free, dynamic and always improving. The Family History Guide is teaching me how to be an independent learner. I can work at my own pace, keep track of where I am in the process and get help with the program any day I need it. It is so much more efficient, easier, and more enjoyable. Because I love this work so much, I am more relaxed about it as I know whatever I can get done for my posterity and my ancestors now will make it that much better for our family going forward. I believe it is inspired and that God’s hand is in it, and I and filled with gratitude and thanksgiving for it. The genealogy myths have been dispelled that it is “all done,” that it is a piece of cake to do, or that it doesn’t take any real effort. Of course it does, and I am grateful for that, too. What is worth having is worth working towards one day at a time.