Articles with Genealogy

Celebrating Student Success

Celebrating Student Success

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies encourages family historians and researchers to expand their skills, not only for research, but in many areas. Our online courses cover a vast array of topics related to documenting our family history. We strive to assist our students in the development of new skills, while providing the knowledge and practical application for the material covered in their selected studies. We love to celebrate the achievements of our students and share their successes. Today, we want to share a testimonial from our student, Carol Walsh, in her own words as she shared her achievement with her fellow students: I would like to share with you a great thing that comes from these courses. After attending the Roots Tech conference earlier this year, one of the presenters talked about writing stories to share genealogical events with our younger family members. Having completed a segment of work on my Grandfather, I did just that…started to write a book around this event. I am so excited to share that this book has been published. Thank you for all the lessons learned through my experience in this program. This project all started from a couple of photographs, studying the elements in the photographs, investigative research, and bits of retained knowledge from family stories – put this all together. Not only does this book retain the story, but provides some insight into teamwork, dreams, boats, and dreams coming true. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the training…

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Writing Our Family Stories

Our Family History is filled with names, dates, places, and the discoveries of our families’ involvement in historical events. Most importantly, it is filled with STORIES! Stories that need to be recorded and preserved, and then shared, not only with our own family members, but also with others who may have similar connections, or just want to learn the history of their communities. Many of our stories involve the social history of our ancestors. They tell of countless everyday lives and the activities that they participated in, as they interacted within their neighbourhoods and family relationships. We uncover mysteries and heroism, courage and perseverance, tragedies and triumphs, love and loss – stories stranger than fiction, and stories we have never heard before, because they were never passed down. These stories are the real reason we continue researching – to find the why, and the where, and the how of our ancestors’ lives. We must find…. the rest of the story! We become the caretakers of those stories, and we have a responsibility to ensure they are preserved. They are our Heritage. At The National Institute for Genealogical Studies, it is our goal to provide genealogical-related educational materials to assist family historians and researchers to expand their skills, not only for research, but in many areas. Methodology is foundational; and knowing where to locate essential documents is absolutely vital. However, our online courses cover a vast array of other topics related to documenting our family history. One of those areas is…

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Keeping in Touch

Do you have a question about your courses or your research? Communication is so important in genealogy in order to keep abreast of constantly evolving information. The same is true within The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. As a student of The National Institute, there are various ways you can communicate with us and your fellow students (see below). We want all of our students to enjoy their learning experience. Please do not worry or fret over your courses by yourself. We are here to help you! **** NOTE: Our social media accounts are NOT monitored regularly. If you need an answer quickly, please call us on the phone. We can be reached at 1-800-580-0165, ext. #1 (North America) or 1-416-861-0165. Please leave a message. If no one answers, we will call you back. #1 By email to The National Institute **** NOTE: When contacting us, please INCLUDE your FIRST & LAST NAME, and the full COURSE TITLE (including the COUNTRY, if it is a records course). It is also helpful if you include the module number and section that title you are referring to. **** i) admin@genealogicalstudies.com–  for general questions; ii) alert@genealogicalstudies.com– to advise us of broken links in your course materials and assignments — Please GIVE SPECIFIC DETAILS; i.e., provide the COURSE NAME, MODULE NUMBER, WEBSITE NAME, and URL. iii) exam@genealogicalstudies.com – questions pertaining to your course exam. #2 By email to a fellow student When you view a fellow student’s public assignment SUBMISSION/ANSWER, and you would like to contact them about something in…

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Transcription Tuesday

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies offers 230+ online courses on a wide variety of topics, providing genealogical education for those interested in beginning to research their family history, as well as professional genealogists. One of the foundational research skills to develop is Transcribing. For this reason, we have created a compulsory Basic Level course to equip all of our certificate students with this vital ability. However, all family history researchers, no matter what their level of expertise, should strive to acquire this core skill. Skills: Transcribing, Abstracting & Extracting This course teaches students the transcribing, abstracting and extracting skills to enhance their genealogy research. Practicing these skills form a large part of the course work, with examples and exercises to assist the development of these skills. We have also created an Advanced Level course to cover the broader topic of Palaeography, where the primary goal involves transcribing the unfamiliar writing in old documents into easily readable transcriptions to use in our research. Palaeography: Reading & Understanding Historical Documents Topics to explore include: Writing Materials, Handwriting Scripts, Roman Numerals, Currency, The Calendar, The Religious Calendar, The Church, The Manor & Social Life, Weights and Measures, Origin of Family Names, and an Introduction to Latin Terminology. The course material includes a detailed workbook, designed to reinforce the material covered, with exercises to practise new transcription skills and gain experience with reading and interpreting a variety of types of documents. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As researchers, we have found that there are many skills we…

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New Seasons – New Opportunities

Our students at The National Institute for Genealogical Studies are preparing for a new season of learning and new opportunities to hone their genealogical research skills. The beginning of a new month brings another rotation of online courses starting on September 6th. Check our current Course Calendar here. As we head into the last Quarter of 2021, it is time to look back to the goals we set in January 2021. At the beginning of a brand-new year, we are ready for new genealogical opportunities! We make a plan and step forward with confidence and optimism. What did you discover? Were your genealogical goals realistic? Which goals did you choose to work on this year? Have you accomplished some of them already? Have you forgotten some of them? It is necessary to reassess your goals often and track your progress throughout the year. Make a list of which of your research objectives are still to be completed. Then set new revised goals for the remainder of this year. You still have opportunity to accomplish your objectives, but you must plan your time wisely. Did you have educational goals for 2021? Have you covered the topics you wanted to pursue? Books and webinars are valuable resources to be educate and build your knowledge base. However, some topics require more in-depth study. Is online education required to reach that goal? Check our course list to find the courses covering that very specific topic. There is still time to register and complete your 2021 goals!…

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