Training for the National Genealogical Society

This past week I met online with 50 leaders from the National Genealogical Society, through their OrgConnects! program. OrgConnects is a new venture that enables their leadership to meet and discuss important topics across organizations. Thursday evening was a presentation on how training tools in The Family Histgory Guide can help leaders and members accelerate their training and learning efforts...

New Practice Exercises Are Here

Recently we have added more Record Search Practice Exercises to The Family History Guide, mostly for U.S. states. You can see the entire list of exercises here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G8YRrJXc1ofmzF2YGu1FL1plt0qzTG4o-rW4RBvS5lc The tab for U.S. States at the bottom of the spreadsheet gives you a handy look at the states and record types that have practice exercises available (links are noted in blue)....

Becoming a Patient Genealogist

As the well-known saying goes, “Patience is a virtue”—and that is certainly true in genealogy research. But is patience in genealogy only about enduring pain? If so, that would explain why a lot of people decide not to test the family history waters. Indeed, the Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions of “patient” seem to prominently highlight the “pain” concept: bearing pains or...

Update: More Countries Quizzes

Last week we introduced eight Countries Quizzes, alphabetically from Argentina to England. Since then we have added 16 additional quizzes as follows: England Part 2: Civil Registration Iceland Part 1: Research Iceland Part 2: Researching Records Ireland Part 1: Research and Records Ireland Part 2: Researching Irish Records Italy Part 1: Starting Your Research Italy Part 2: Researching Records Mexico:...

Introducing Quizzes for Countries

For several years we have had a number of interactive quizzes in The Family History Guide, collected on the Quizzes page of the Trainers menu. These also include a number of quizzes for United States research topics, based on articles in the Choices. We are now adding quizzes for country pages, based on the QRB (Quick Research Basics) videos by...

Miles Ahead: Catching Up with Miles Meyer

Miles Meyer, our Education Director for The Family History Guide Association, is not one to let the grass grow under his feet—even in the Florida Everglades. Here’s a brief look at what he has going on, taken from recent blog post on his genealogy blog site:   1) I am finishing up my first set of classes at the International Institute...

ViewPoint with Dennis Quaid: Filming Update

This week we completed the video filming for our partnership project with ViewPoint and The Family History Guide Association. The next step will be video editing, a process that will take about five to six weeks. Then the PBS video, documentary video, and 30-second commercial will be released nationwide sometime between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Those who were interviewed...

Update: New Online Tracker Sheets

Work on the new Online Tracker Sheets continued this past week, and we now have a number of new Google sheets for countries research, as well as an update to the previously finished Platforms sheet. Here’s are the new Countries sheets, each with links to Class Outlines, Choices, Practice Exercises, and more: US, Canada, and Mexico British Isles Scandinavia Europe...