Joyce Ann Huston had been scrolling through microfilm for hours when she saw a familiar name and screamed.

She had found Ellen Fisher, the maternal root of her family tree, in the Latter-day Saints Family History Center in Las Vegas on a census record from 1880. She had been searching for Fisher for years. Until that moment in 2000, Fisher had only existed in the stories passed down at family reunions since the 1930s.

Huston, now 55 and living in Ferguson, Missouri, had discovered the link that connected her black O’Kelley family to their white plantation-owning ancestors.

She had found the O’Kelleys’ slave.

“Ellen Fisher was a slave on the O’Kelley plantation in Mississippi, and she refused to succumb to the advances of her master, so he blinded her in one eye and threatened to toss her into a burning bush,” Huston said. Fisher did, however, have children with two of the O’Kelley brothers -- her master’s sons.

Huston had heard this oral history for decades at family reunions. The story helped explain her grandmother’s silky hair and light skin. But the family had no proof.

Huston eventually learned the slave-owner’s name, and then found a book about the oldest proven progenitor: David Kelly, born in 1763. (The Kelly surname changed over the generations.) Huston reached out to the author of the book, one of Kelly’s white descendants.

“I’m trying to get more information to find out where my slave ancestor came from,” she wrote.

Huston received a chilly reception.

Then, she connected with Argie Shumway, an 81-year-old, white, Mormon genealogy enthusiast in Provo, Utah. Shumway had posted her detailed family history on a genealogy site, which showed their common ancestor. Shumway had been working on the O’Kelley ancestral line for years, just as Huston had been. She gave Shumway a call.

“Oh, I have black cousins?” Shumway said to Huston, without a moment’s hesitation. “That’s fascinating. How can I help you?”

This connection started an unlikely 17-year relationship between the women. In 2002, Huston went to meet Shumway in Utah, making copies of records and books while there. The two share the same great-great-great-grandfather and a love of family history.

“It’s easier not to believe something than to believe it,” Shumway says about the white author who seemed reluctant to accept Huston’s claims of an ancestral connection. That’s especially true when information challenges the world as you’ve always seen it.

A turning point in the genealogy search came in 2012.

Huston already had the death certificates of Fisher’s three mixed-race sons, which listed the names of their respective white O’Kelley fathers. But they got solid confirmation of the link when a black male relative’s DNA turned out to be an exact match to the O’Kelley paternal line.

“We had found a relationship in our family trees, and our DNA proved it,” Shumway said. “What an exciting day it was.”

There’s still a lingering gap in this branch of Huston’s family tree: She hasn’t been able to find an authenticated record of how Fisher ended up with the O’Kelleys. They know she was a house servant, laundress and nanny in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, whose grandchildren eventually went to college. But Huston hasn’t been able to find a ledger or bill of sale to determine who sold Fisher and where she came from.

“That’s our genealogy brick wall,” she said. “It’s devastating.”

She and her cousin, Nikki Williams Sebastian, have self-published a book about their family’s lineage.

“We have ancestors who came to America to find freedom and ancestors whose freedom was ripped away from them,” Williams Sebastian wrote in the preface.

Their book is about one family, but also about who we include in that bond. It’s a story that helps explain why some black Americans have Irish surnames. It’s a story of journeys, common roots and how our past informs our present.

The fact that some of the white O’Kelleys embraced them and others rejected them is the story of today’s America, too, as is the fact that they still don’t know what happened to their slave ancestor. Oppression, freedom, loss, rediscovery, rejection, reconnection -- these are still the stories of race in America.

But for the black O’Kelleys and white O’Kelleys who took a connection in biology and history and forged a relationship out of it, their story is ultimately about family.

When Shumway’s son and his family visited St. Louis this summer, Huston threw a party. The Mormons from Utah got to meet their black relatives.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” said Bradley Reneer, Shumway’s son. He didn’t know if there would be resentment or bitterness, given the brutal roots of their connection. Instead, he said, “I felt like family.”

A friend I met 25 years ago suggested a life hack with such compelling evidence that I have followed it faithfully ever since. He told me about an Ivy League study on goal-setting, in which only 3 percent of a graduating class wrote down specific goals and a plan for how to achieve them. Years later, the story goes, those 3 percent were earning 10 times more than the rest of their peers.

This widely shared anecdote was later debunked by a Fast Company article. But I had already became a goal-setting devotee. Even without the backing of an Ivy League study, it makes sense that people who write down their goals would be more successful at attaining them. It’s a reminder of how to prioritize your time, if nothing else. As a parent, I ask my children to set personal goals at the start of the new year, academic goals at the start of the school year and spiritual goals at the start of Ramadan.

They don’t always write them down, but at least it starts a habit of being purposeful and intentional about what they want to accomplish.

I started to notice a disturbing pattern in my own list, however. A few of the things I wanted to do kept recurring year after year. And yet, I still haven’t finished writing my book, lost 10 pounds, learned a new language, completed a triathalon or mastered a musical instrument.

Perhaps I have been writing my goals all wrong.

There’s an entire industry around how to be more productive and accomplish what you set out to do. According to these experts, what I should have been doing all these years is writing smaller milestones toward larger goals, with measurable benchmarks and time limits. So, instead of saying I want to write a book, I should make a goal to write a certain number of words each day or week.

This creates a way to measure progress and hold yourself accountable. Each benchmark also needs a subset of concrete steps to use as a roadmap to get where you want to go. It helps to find a person to commit to a project alongside you. Reporting progress to one another increases both your chances of success. It’s also useful to remind yourself of why you want to make a change or complete an endeavor in the first place.

But just like simply wearing a FitBit won’t make you walk more or get more sleep, writing something down isn’t going to magically bring it to fruition.

Of course, it takes consistent and relentless work.

I thought about what has prevented me from completing some of what I set out do each year. Time is an easy scapegoat. Parents of young children and teens don’t get blocks of uninterrupted time to work on side projects outside our professional and personal obligations. But another culprit may be focus. It’s very easy to become distracted and lose the precious extra time we can carve out for ourselves.

It’s also important to accept that ambitions can change over time. If, by the end of a month or year, you haven’t made any progress toward what you thought you wanted, maybe you didn’t want it that badly, after all.

My son takes another approach to goal-setting. When I asked him if he had accomplished his goals, he listed the highlights of what he achieved this year. He couldn’t remember his specific goals, but he was happy about how the year turned out.

That may be better than a fake study.

Mike Weiland has seen how teens have become more susceptible to addiction in recent years.

The current opioid epidemic is a well-known national emergency. Other societal changes, such as relaxing public attitudes and easier access to certain types of drugs, have also increased risks for young people. Meanwhile, our understanding of brain science better explains how addiction affects adolescents differently.

Weiland is a substance abuse counselor and owner of the Crossroads Program in St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia, Missouri. He has worked in recovery programs for more than 25 years and focuses on people between the ages of 13 to 25, when the brain is still developing.

He says many teens fail to recognize that marijuana is one of the most psychologically damaging drugs they can do at this age.

“THC actually stunts them emotionally,” he said, referring to the active substance in marijuana. It affects memory and discernment. He has treated many young people who start out smoking weed and end up on opiates.

He says teenagers haven’t changed much since he was one himself. They are still rebellious and push the envelope when they can. But in the past 10 to 15 years, attitudes about smoking marijuana and teen drinking have loosened. It appears to be more socially acceptable in certain circles, which increases the chances a child will use a chemical substance, he said.

“It’s also more accessible and convenient for these guys,” he added. People may not realize how much easier it is for a young person to become addicted. “The teenage brain can get addicted to substances in six months, versus a few years in adults,” he said. They have brain physiology that primes them to become addicts.

When he works with teenagers, he explains that getting clean is about more than getting off drugs. It’s about changing their entire lifestyle. His program has to create fun sober environments to keep teenagers in recovery. In addition to support-group meetings specifically for teens, young adults and parents, it hosts two social events each weekend. On New Year’s Eve, it hosts a lock-in for members and their families that consists of meetings, a dance, life stories and a balloon drop.

“The reason most teenagers get high is because they like it,” he said. “If they don’t find something they like more, they don’t stay sober.”

Everyone knows someone who has been affected by addiction. But Weiland has been in the trenches with those struggling with addiction for decades, and some of what he has to say would surprise teens and their parents.

He sees certain personality types more often end up with addictions than others. This includes those who have low self-esteem or self-worth. People who are very intense, “drama queens,” overly sensitive, very self-centered, and often with above-average intelligence also are at greater risk, he said.

Unfortunately, that sounds like most teenagers at some point. He tells parents to watch out for certain warning signs: If money is missing or your child is hanging out with friends who are getting high, your kid is also probably getting high.

Many parents deny their child has a problem if they are recreationally drinking but maintaining good grades and remaining involved in extracurricular activities.

“I think any kid using substances is in danger,” Weiland said. “Don’t deny your instinct.”

Research suggests that 85 percent of addiction starts with legally prescribed drugs. Many young people get painkillers from their parents’ or other people’s medicine cabinets. He also advises parents to lead by example.

“If you tell your kids to stay off drugs, but you are smoking weed, your kids know,” he said. The same goes for parents who have several drinks a night. If you find your child is using substances, he recommends getting all drugs and alcohol out of your house, at least temporarily.

An important part of the Crossroads recovery program is teaching young people to have ownership over their decisions. They want to show them it’s possible to have an awesome life and be cool while being sober.

Teens have access to a lot of information on the internet, but they don’t necessarily know how to make sense of it or discern what is true from it. They may not understand their personal risk, although drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50.

Overdoses cause more deaths than gun violence and car crashes.

“Chemicals, they take you down,” he says, in the voice of someone with first-hand experience. “They make your life unmanageable.”

If you think your child has a problem, check out the free, downloadable resources at drugfree.org/resources.