Starting: Nuts and Bolts of Reporting Research

By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student One of the most important skills a researcher needs to have under their belt is how to report the information they uncover. While there are various writing styles and types of reports to choose from there are specific items that need to be covered so your reports represent your best work. Which is why I was very excited to see a new course offered in the Skill Building track, Nuts and Bolts of Reporting Research. While I enjoy writing blog posts and articles, reports can be like pulling teeth at times. Reports are necessary however, even if you never take a paying client in your life. Technically, your family are your clients. I am sure you have heard that we should document our own research the way we would want a professional too. So, that means you should really be writing reports for yourself, your loved ones, and your files. Looking over the syllabus it looks like instructor Leslie Brinkley Lawson makes it easy and simple for everyone to learn. While some of it looks like review  (or maybe you have attended lectures on the topic) there are also a few gems in there. Practical exercises are always a wonderful way to practice, learn, and hone your skills. Exercises and case studies are exciting additions to a course and I was thrilled to see them both being used in this course. Case studies are excellent ways to learn from someone else’s experience. For those who…

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New Course: Australian Church Records

  The National Institute is proud to announce a new course added to our Australian Certificate Program. Australian: Church Records, authored by genealogist Shauna Hicks,  examines religious resources that are available in Australia. Major emphasis has been placed on Christianity and the various church records available for the main Christian denominations in Australia. Parish records such as baptisms, marriages and burials and other lesser known church records are examined. Religions other than Christianity are also looked at briefly as Australia has been a multicultural country since the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. This course begins March 7th. Register today!

Finishing Up Research: Social History

By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student Wow, what a course!  I hope you enjoyed reading the last few blog posts about some of the things you will learn about in this course. There was no way I could over everything that was taught, but I hope I caught your interest. Like I said in the introduction to the blog series I think social history is critical to beefing up your ancestor’s profile.  If you are not familiar with how to do that, or what it entails this is a course you should take. Well written and easy to read, it is more like a novel at times than a course. I did say I couldn’t put it down right? If you are still not sure why you should consider taking this course, here are a few resources you should read about why social history is an important field of study for genealogists.   Lisa Louis Cooke Genealogy Gems “Tell your Ancestor’s Story: Use Social History for Genealogy” Gena Philibert-Ortega, Gena’s Genealogy  “100 Social History Websites” Katherine Scott Sturdevant Bringing Your Family History to Life Through Social History Good luck on your ancestor hunting and I will see you online!    

Your Ancestor’s Game Changers

By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student Well I am in the home stretch with the Research: Social History course. I have learned a lot, once again, and have an interesting insight into some of the aspects of life for ancestors that I had not considered.  These last three modules cover the economic, community, and government aspects of social history.  However, it was the last module, entitled “Game Changers,” which caught my attention. The title alone peeked my curiosity. This module focused on the 20th century and the aspects of it that concern social history. Which, means everything. The “game changers” were everywhere in the 20th century and are still occurring today. Automation, radio, TV, automobiles, airplanes, and so on dramatically and drastically changed our ancestor’s way of life. I thought I understood what that meant in the study of my ancestors. But I was wrong. Particularly with the worldwide impact that our instructor taught. While I understand the United States aspects well from my days in school, I found it enlightening to see how they played into what was happening in other places around the world. For instance, the spread of the railroad was similar yet took very different courses in England and the US. As a descendant of Irish immigrants who worked on the railroad in the US it was interesting to read about. Then there were the little inventions, like the portable camera. A little over 100 years ago Kodak created a smaller camera that allowed people to take…

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Your Ancestor’s Life

By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student Onto Modules 3 and 4 in the new course Research: Social History. These were a very home and family centered set of topics: domestic life and then birth, life, and death. Things that we all have some sort of experience with. I was a little intrigued looking at the titles and the subheadings wondering what in the world we were going to learn about. As the daughter of a doctor,  Module 4 was really right up my alley. Lots of information on health, disease, mortality, and so forth. To be honest, I called my mom a couple of times. She loved going through some of the information with me. Really, she may be retired but once in the health field, always in the health field. Since I was fairly comfortable with the history and practices in Module 4 (as stated above) my personal interests and hobbies drew me to devour Module 3.  Yes, I am a stay-at-home mom. Yes, I can relate (somewhat) to my forbears who did a heck of a lot more than I do in a day but were still the primary care takers. If you think about it there is a lot of “things” that go into making a family and a home run. The instructor touched not only on the common items you could expect (food, housing, land) but also on how the environment affected our ancestors as well as drugs and alcohol. If you think that drug and alcohol…

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