Turning Points

 

Here in the northern hemisphere, we just passed the shortest day of the year. Looking ahead, the days will get imperceptibly longer—and noticeably colder. Sometimes, those turning points can be rather obvious. Other times, the change has to overtake us before we even begin to realize what happened.

The new year is one of the more obvious turning points. Some people plan for the "new you" they will become with the flip of that special page on the calendar. I've never been one for New Year's resolutions, but this year I'm already gearing up for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025. I've given it quite a bit of thought, ever since I realized I hadn't planned for this year's technology advances which could favorably impact my research progress. Less than one month spent on my father's ancestry this past fall and I woke up to how much more can be accomplished when newly digitized record sets become available online. The game changer is increased access.

While my numbers today for my biweekly count hardly show any turning point despite that game changer—I only added seventy nine more documented family members to my parents' tree—the steady plodding through available digitized records over the years has resulted in a tree which now totals 38,752 relatives. Besides this month's focus on First Families candidates, I also managed to work on my in-laws' tree as a follow-up to discovery of a DNA match. Seventeen new names in that tree puts the total count for my husband's lines at 37,044.

Before long, it will be decision time for a new year of research. This time, I'll know better than to slack when I think lack of records access would hold me back. Between new—or new-to-me—websites in the countries of my family's origin and AI-assisted developments like FamilySearch labs' full text search and reading capabilities, I'm looking forward to selecting the most frustrating—yet now promising—family lines for my research focus in 2025. 

Only four more days and I'll begin selections for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025. I'm ready to reach some turning points in that constant quest to break through ancestral brick walls in the upcoming year.