Category: Personal

ProGen and Continuing Education

On 2 March 2015

I am very excited that I was invited in to the next ProGen study group, ProGen 25. It officially starts this month but we’ve had a month to kind of get to know each other. I was excited to see many of my BU classmates on the list too!

So what is ProGen? ProGen is a study group that works with the book Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers and Librarians, edited by Elizabeth Shown Mills. Now, I actually bought this book when looking into becoming a professional, before I started the blog My People in History even. This was the FIRST step I took to becoming a professional. This book is what brought me to blogging, the NGS Home Study Course, the Boston University course I mentioned above, and the NGS Conference. Really, it helped to bring me to where I am right now. Which, funny enough, brought me back to studying and re-reading this book with other genealogists. It must be kismet!

So what does ProGen entail? Each month we read one or two chapters from the book and complete writing assignments that go along with what we read. We submit these to our peer group who then read and review them each month. This conversation and peer review is what makes ProGen the fantastic opportunity that it is! Out of everything recommended to me in my path to certification, ProGen is probably mentioned the most as being the most beneficial opportunity.

Our goal this month is to create an educational plan. Here are some of my educational goals with a rough time line:

Institutes Wish-List

GRIP: Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh – I am hoping to take this next year and will probably focus on genetic genealogy.
Gen-Fed – Genealogical Institute on Federal Records – I would love to take courses here on land records research.
IGHR – Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research; SLIG – Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy: both of these are a “one day” kind of thing at the moment. They both have wonderful courses and a lot of benefit to me, but as institutes are expensive, right now I am just focusing on the first two that I mentioned.

Conferences

Any and all national conferences! Last year I attended the NGS conference and cannot this year, sadly. But I loved every moment of it and I cannot wait to go to more national conferences!
Local conferences: For example, the Indiana Genealogical Society Conference and the South Bend Area Genealogical Society’s Genealogy Fair

Genealogy Journals

I have several subscriptions and my goal is to sit down with them and then study a case study like the NGS Monthly discusses. I plan on working on one a month right now and may up that as time goes on. This will help me with my genealogy writing and research process!

Have any of you taken an institute or participated in a conference that you feel is a must? Comment below with what and why!

Fresh Start!

By NikiMarie

On 6 January 2015

In Personal, Research

Beautiful sunrise off the coast of Cancun (taken by NikiMarie in Jan 2014)

This is kind of along the idea of the genealogy do-over that is going on over at geneabloggers (the site is down at the moment by the way).

I use two programs to keep track of my family tree: Ancestry.com and RootsMagic. My RootsMagic tree is the one I consider to be correct. When I have verified enough information, I add that person to my tree. Sometimes I do add people even though I’ve only found them listed as a parent on a death certificate but that gives me a research goal to work with (plus I make a note that I have only found them on a death certificate).

Now my Ancestry.com tree is what I call a clue tree – items aren’t verified on there. I do have a public tree now (for AncestryDNA items) and there are a LOT of unverified ancestors on there. So I do have some work to do.

This has been a rather ongoing project – something I started before taking my BU course. I went through and scanned every paper copy document I had and filed them in my computer (I use Dropbox and Backblaze as backups) so my file cabinet now matches my computer. Well, more or less. I don’t print off online sources that I find and file them in my file cabinet, I just save that in a folder on my computer. After every document was scanned in and correctly labeled, I went through and RE-CITED every document in my program (because I now know how to do it correctly.

That took A. LONG. TIME. However, it’s finished (or well, the documents I currently have in my program are finished – just ignore the growing paper file next to my desk…) and now everything in there is cited correctly. Now I’m going through and seeing if I have facts for people that don’t have a source connected to it. Normally this happens because I simply forgot to tag the source to the fact so it’s usually a quick fix. But sometimes, it takes me a bit to figure out where I got that bit of information from and yes, some items have been deleted.

Once this is complete, then I can go through and compare each person to what I have on Ancestry.com to see what I need to add. It’ll be a long process, but at least my research will be up to date and ready for a more focused research plan this year!

That is another goal this year – focus my research on specific people in a specific line. I have genealogy ADD too often! I see a name and quickly decide to follow that for a bit until it leads to another name where I follow that for a bit, etc. etc.

Anyone else going for a fresh start to their genealogy research this year? Or even going to give the genealogy do-over a try?

NGS Conference Days 1-2

By Nichelle Barra

On 8 May 2014

In Discovery, Personal, Research

Oh my goodness! I am absolutely LOVING this conference. But, I am EXHAUSTED. My brain is fried by 3pm it seems and there is still a speaker to go by that point!

One thing that I have really enjoyed is getting to know all the other genealogists that I can. It’s been great that when someone asks me how I got into genealogy and I start with “well it all started in a cemetery…” that there are no strange looks, just enthusiastic nods. It’s lovely! I get asked that question a lot actually because I’ve been told I’m one of the youngest people here and that question normally follows. To be honest, I’ve loved family history for longer than the cemetery story, that was just when I started researching, 10 years ago (so early 20’s). Funny, when I ask the same question to them, I am told that they started in their early 20’s too so it shouldn’t be surprising to see someone in their early 30’s at the conference 🙂

There are several ways to go about the sessions at the conference. You can just pick and choose classes you want or you can follow a track. Since I plan on getting certified through the BCG, I am following the BCG track. This has led me to some amazing speakers! I got to hear Tom Jones yesterday and Elizabeth Shown Mills today. I’ve heard Elizabeth Shown Mills jokingly (with admiration) referred to as Queen Elizabeth as 1) she has a great sense of style and 2) she is like royalty among genealogists. She is an amazing speaker by the way and I thoroughly enjoyed her session.

I have learned A LOT during this conference already and I can’t wait to go home and try out some new ways to look at my documents to get through brick walls. I hope to be able to do some great new things with my records that I’ll be able to talk about on here and maybe even write my own article (which makes me very nervous to think about, but I do want to do that one day) and write my own lecture! The BCG track also held a great seminar today about the certification process. I feel much better about going through the process after going to that session. I’m not “on the clock” yet but I hope to be by next year. That’ll probably happen after I take the Pro Gen class.

One thing I wish I had done before I came was make business cards! I read about making sure you have these in the conference material before I came but thought I would be fine. I was wrong. Today I went to the first-timer’s breakfast where the point was to network and ask questions. I got several cards today and had to write my information down. Not the best idea so I will be sure to have cards the next time I come.

Some goodies from the conference!

Any plans for any of you to attend an NGS conference or have you in the past?

Family Recipe Friday

By Nichelle Barra

On 8 November 2013

In Personal

I recently visited my parents home for more research time and took advantage of some of the recipes boxes my mom has from my Aunt Betty (my grandfather’s sister – she was the family cook).

She had bookshelves full of these boxes! As I said, she was THE cook of the family. Here are two of my favorite recipes of hers:

Ingredients:

3-6 oz package semi sweet chocolate morsels

1 14oz can Eagle milk

dash salt

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

In top of double boiler, over boiling water, melt chocolate and milk. Remove from heat, stir in rest, spread evenly in wax paper lined 8″ pan. Chill two hours or till set.

Peanut Butter Cups

back of peanut butter cups

Peanut Butter Cups

Ingredients:

1/3lb graham crackers crushed (11 crackers)

1/2 cup melted butter or margarine

1 cup peanut butter

1 lb powder sugar

1 12oz chocolate chips, melted in double boiler

Directions:

Combine first four ingredients till smooth. Press in buttered 9×13 pan. Spread melted chips over, refrigerate till firm. Remove let rest until room temp, cut in squares. Makes 4 doz.

Enjoy 🙂