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My list of people to thank is longer than a gushing Academy Award winner's list. But, it's hard to offer a personal thank-you to my list-dwellers because I don't even know most of the people who have done favors for me. In fact, many of the people on my list are deceased.

In the genealogy world, we all benefit from volunteers who have spent countless hours making our genealogy hunts easier.

We benefit from the men and women who carefully extract names from old ledger books in dusty courthouse basements and then publish those lists so we can come along years later and know where to look for great-great granddad's will.

We benefit from the volunteers who stumble through old cemeteries and write down every name and date they can find. As an example, in the 1920s volunteers cataloged a cemetery in North Carolina where one of my ancestors was buried. They wrote down the long inscription on his tombstone that included great genealogical clues. Ten years later, a flood destroyed that cemetery and his tombstone.

We benefit from the efforts of distant relatives who write articles and publish books on our family lines.

We benefit from volunteer genealogists who post indexes, transcripts and digital images all over the Internet.

Everywhere we turn in our hunt for our ancestors, we find nameless volunteers who have helped make our journey easier. Perhaps this year it's our turn.

If the New Year's resolution bug is buzzing through your mind, consider resolving to give back to the genealogy community by volunteering.

Here are six ways to volunteer:

1. Join your local genealogical society. These organizations always need willing volunteers to help with a wide variety of projects.

In Albuquerque, check out the New Mexico Genealogical Society, the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center and the Albuquerque Genealogical Society.

Many other community and county organizations can be found throughout the state as well.

Find a genealogical society near you by checking the index at the Federation of Genealogical Societies.

2. Volunteer at your local genealogy library, family history center or state archives. You can help other researchers or help the librarians.

3. Pull your research together and publish it. Sharing what you've discovered can help thousands of others.

4. Sign up for an indexing project. Many state archives and historical societies have ongoing volunteer indexing projects. Often you can do all of the work from your home computer. Find links to state archives at: statearchivists.org/states.htm.

5. Join more than 100,000 volunteers who have already signed up for FamilySearch Indexing.

6. Be a RAOGKer. Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness matches volunteer researchers up with people needing a piece of information.