Courses

My Favorite Course: US Newspaper Records

My Favorite Course: US Newspaper Records

By Emma Whaley Compton, PLCGS While studying for the American Records Certificate with the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, one of my favorite courses included in the program was US: Newspaper Records. If I had to choose a favorite record group for research, it would be newspapers, so it’s perhaps no surprise that I greatly enjoyed this course! When you think about newspaper research, the most obvious thing that comes to mind is obituaries, which are a wonderful source of genealogical information, particularly if vital records are hard to get or may not even exist for that time period but newspapers offer much more to the researcher than just obituaries. You can frequently find birth, engagement, marriage and anniversary announcements and sometimes court cases, divorces, bankruptcies and real estate transactions will also be included.Then there are the regular newspaper stories or perhaps even photographs that may feature ancestors. Small town newspapers have society pages that give great detail about their inhabitant’s lives, such as who was in the hospital, had visitors from out of town, or may have been out of town visiting relatives, hosting a party or taking part in various club activities. Our ancestors didn’t have Facebook or smart phones, so they got all of their news (or gossip!) through the newspapers and we’re fortunate that many of these day to day records have been preserved and are even becoming accessible over the Internet due to digitization projects. So newspapers can perhaps help us find out information about our…

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My Favorite Course: Methodology Part 2

By Lisa-Dawn Crawley, Student Like the Baseball World Series but waaay better because it’s GENEALOGY, my favourite course from The National Institute for Genealogical Studies is not just ONE course — it’s an entire SERIES. I couldn’t pick just one!! I’m a Genea-Knowledge Nerd and, as such, I triumphantly welcome you back to Nerdville. In case you missed it, I gushed about Methodology Part 1: Getting Started in my previous post. I have to admit that I was definitely most looking forward to Methodology Part 2: Organizing and Skill-Building of all the (six) courses in the series. You should probably know that I’m the kinda gal who enjoys creating organizational systems and cleans when she gets stressed… However, if you want the answer to the question “What the HECK do I do with all this crap I’ve gathered from my own investigating, gramma, auntie, the attic, that nook, yonder cranny…??” this course will help you with that. I say “help” because I still don’t have everything in my vast cavern of accumulated genea-goodies labelled, filed and stored in comprehensive, orderly fashion. [I bow down to the genea-freak who does!! Are you out there?? Please say No so I can continue on in my delusion that everyone else is just as bad as me…] But at least I know what to do and how to do it!! I must pause here to note that this course does NOT address the issue of proper preservation materials and techniques for your precious items.…

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My Favorite Course: Palaeography

By Cheryl Levy, Student The  Palaeography: Reading & Understanding Historical Documents course is compulsory for almost all certificates, and with good reason. My initial expectation for this course, was that it would be mostly learning how to write various old scripts, using the pen and workbook provided. To my surprise, this aspect was only included in the first module. The detailed course notes and excellent companion workbook will stretch your knowledge and transcription skills. The extensive, customized exercises are a valuable component of this learning experience. The course description states: A number of topics linked to palaeography are covered to ensure participants have sufficient background to tackle unfamiliar documents that span the past five hundred years. The primary goal involves transcribing the unfamiliar writing in old documents to the modern day hand. A secondary objective is to provide the student with a feeling of success and achievement when new skills are learned. As Britain had a major influence on the cosmopolitan development of North America, examples will be taken from British and Canadian resources. Canadian resources will focus on The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, which are British in origin, and are now held at the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg. These materials reflect the profound influence of British language, culture and economics on the development of North America. Module 1 featured practical handwriting exercises, and a brief introduction on the relevant materials required for experimenting with scripts. Website URLs  were given for a variety of specific scripts and alphabets, as…

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My Favorite Course: Career Development – Choosing a Niche

By John Boeren, Student The first thing I did when I decided to become a professional genealogist, was to register for a membership of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). Quickly, I found out that (ongoing) education and certification are extremely important to the (international) professional genealogy business. It worried me at first: would I be able to get some kind of degree in genealogy? In the Netherlands professional genealogy is still a rare phenomenon. Genealogy is very popular, but most people consider it a nice hobby and nothing more. The consequence of this line of thought is that we have lots of courses for beginners, but we lack education for Dutch professional genealogists. After a while I started to see the challenge. I was convinced that I wanted to take courses to improve both my research and business skills. So I searched the Internet for information on genealogical studies. I found a couple in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. After reading all the available information and reviews on these courses, I was still doubting between two. In the end I chose for the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. Why? Mainly, because I was very excited about the Professional Development Certificate, a rather new program that “will benefit those who wish to pursue a career in genealogy, create a genealogy business or to augment their income potential by adding niche areas to their business plan.” After a good conversation with Louise St. Denis I registered for this…

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My Favorite Course: Methodology

By Lisa-Dawn Crawley, Student Greetings from Nerdville and the geek who picks the Methodology series as her favourite offering (so far!) from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies! It’s only logical, (said Mr. Spock, from Star Trek) that we start with the first course in the series, right? Right. Methodology Part 1: Getting Started was my first peek into the world of practical genealogy study. In fact, it was only the second course I took through the Institute! I had been doing my own thing for a couple years at that point, climbing and pruning my trees in a consistent though haphazard manner. As such a typical beginner, I knew there must be better, more efficient ways to manage what I was doing and I was eager to begin learning Proper Techniques for researching and organization. I was not disappointed. I get excited just going back to the outline for this course on the website and reading through my submitted assignments (which you can do by clicking the S beside any completed course in your Student Briefcase). I remember how new and wondrous it all was at the time. So much to wrap my little brain around! Fortunately, this course (and the series, for that matter) took it slow and steady. Not only did it give me a realistic idea of “how far back you can go” and of the caveats involved in most human interaction versus what is recorded and/or remembered, it introduced and explained frequently used and helpful…

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