New Year New Discoveries
- Leslie Ryan
- Jan 7
- 2 min read
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your end of year holiday brought you lots of new shared memories, joys, and New Discoveries about your family tree!
Ancestry sent me a congratulatory email about how great my 2025 was, did you get one? They said I was a "Hints Hero" as I had 35,196 hints, I viewed 7,271 of their records, I added 1,639 people to "my tree," and clues from "my tree" helped 9,414 people. My DNA test gained 6 new regions, and my matches list grew by 1,280 people. The fact that I have about 2 dozen trees on their site as a professional genealogist has probably inflated those figures quite a bit!
The figure about helping 9,414 people was astounding, and rewarding. I did have a great year revealing family histories going back decades for quite a few people, and finding two birth mothers for people given up for adoption, and am working on finding a father for one of them right now, fingers crossed!
Priorities for a New Year with New Discoveries:
1. If you gave or received a gift of a DNA test, now is a good time to look for a deal on memberships at Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, and MyHeritage.
2. RootsTech 2026 is accepting registrations! This is a FABULOUS opportunity weekend for FREE GENEALOGY EDUCATION put on every year by FamilySearch. All you need is a FREE FamilySearch account and you will have access to this year's classes and ALL of their extensive archives! This year it will be the first weekend in March, here is a link to see what is coming! https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/schedule
3. Make a written Research Plan for 2026. Start by picking a grandparent or great-grandparent in your tree and see what information might be missing; a photo, a birth date, wedding date, death date? Write down where you looked so you won't go back and duplicate the same research in a couple of months!
4. Consider hiring a professional genealogist that offers a free review of the information you already have (generally 2 hours of work) before you have to make any commitment, and some people have been know to get some free advice! Send me an email, and let's talk! I'd love to be able to help YOU make New Discoveries in 2026!
Looking forward to new discoveries in this New Year with you!
Warm regards,
Leslie Ryan
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