BCG revises and updates Genealogical Standards

Thirteen years ago, the best minds in genealogy, under the aegis of the Board for the Certification of Genealogists, published a manual of genealogy standards, in which they began to wean the field away from terminology like "preponderance of the evidence" borrowed from law and not specific enough for our needs.

Now some of the same best minds have revised, reorganized, updated, and published it as Genealogy Standards. The basics -- the five-part Genealogical Proof Standard -- remain the same. And the need for standards remains the same. As editor Thomas W. Jones writes, they provide "a guide to sound genealogical research and a way to assess the research outcomes that genealogists produce. They are standards for anyone who seeks to research and portray accurately people’s lives, relationships, and histories." (More from him on the changes over at Angela McGhie's blog Adventures in Genealogy Education.)

One of my favorites is Standard 39, "Information Preference":

Whenever possible, genealogists prefer to reason from information provided by consistently reliable participants, eyewitnesses, and reporters with no bias, potential for gain, or other motivation to distort, invent, omit, or otherwise report incorrect information. At the same time, genealogists understand that some preferred information items could be proved inaccurate, less desirable items might be proved accurate, or they may be the only extant relevant information items.

This is why those who seek numerically precise degrees of certainty in genealogy will always be frustrated. That kind of certainty is not available. While some sources are on average more reliable than others, there is never a guarantee. And in genealogy it's the veracity of the particular source that we're concerned about, and the best way to determine that is not to compute averages but to compare its information with that from other, independent sources. (Think of it as an elimination tournament in sports. What matters is not your or your team's past record, what matters is its performance on that occasion.)

One other important change is that we now refer to three kinds of sources (original records, derivative records, and authored works), three kinds of information (primary, secondary, and undeterminable), and three kinds of evidence (direct, indirect, and negative). These are not academic distinctions -- they make a difference in how we evaluate and use materials. But that's a story for another day.



Harold Henderson, "BCG revises and updates Genealogical Standards," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 20 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Practicum posts in one primary place

Three of the ten courses to be offered next January at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy have sold out, but there is room in the others, including the Advanced Evidence Practicum. At her blog Adventures in Genealogy Education, co-coordinator Angela McGhie has helpfully listed several different students' impressions of the course (including mine), now in its third year.

Genealogy education news flash...

Anyone who reads or even just tolerates this blog should check out Angela McGhie's latest posts, "Unexpected Lessons from Tom Jones" over at Adventures in Genealogy Education. based on some exchanges at the APG's Professional Management Conference on Tuesday. That is all.

Genealogy Education on the Cheap

Sometimes you have to spend money to save money -- that would be the case if you're perplexed about how to learn more about genealogy and are not already a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists. The new (December) issue of the APG Quarterly -- a member benefit, not available in stores -- includes my article enumerating more than a dozen ways to learn without spending too much. (I do serve on the board, but do not receive a commission on new memberships.)

I can mention two ongoing good places to look. One is Angela McGhie's blog, Adventures in Genealogical Education. The other -- which I somehow neglected to mention in the APGQ article -- is Archives.com's free "Expert Series" with short articles with all kinds of advice and information. My latest contribution over there is on "Resolving the Paradox of Research Planning."



Harold Henderson, "Genealogy Education on the Cheap," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 January 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

The toughest genealogy course you can take?

I haven't taken every possible genealogy course, but I suspect that the Advanced Evidence Practicum is the hardest. It's being offered for the second year 14-18 January 2013 at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. (Registration opens 9 AM Mountain Time, Saturday morning June 2.) The following was published earlier this week as a guest post on Angela McGhie's blog Adventures in Genealogy Education, and benefited from her editing:

Want to spend a week solving the toughest genealogy problems, a new one every day?

That describes the most challenging genealogy course I've ever taken, the Advanced Evidence Analysis Practicum at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG). Oh, I learned more in the advanced methodology classes given annually by Elizabeth Shown Mills at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR) at Samford University and Thomas W. Jones at SLIG. I could not have functioned in the practicum without them. But the level of difficulty in the practicum is something else because I had to apply that knowledge repeatedly, and found out right away whether I had headed in the right direction or found the answer. I also had to adjust to very different record environments and kinds of problems than I was used to working on.

The course actually grew out of the 2011 session of Tom Jones' Advanced Genealogical Methods class at SLIG. He gave a couple of homework assignments involving a problem to be solved, with evidence provided. We enjoyed the challenge and wanted more of this type of assignment. One day four of us were sitting around and somehow the idea was born of trying to design a whole course consisting entirely of this kind of homework. Now two of that group are coordinating the 2013 course, one is the director of SLIG, and I'm the only one remaining with a purely student's-eye view.

The format of the Practicum course is simple. Every afternoon a different expert, usually a board-certified or accredited genealogist, presents the initial evidence for a genealogical case that they have worked on and solved but not yet published. In some cases, all the evidence and documents are provided and the students analyze and correlate it, trying to come to a well-grounded conclusion. In other cases, some evidence remains to be found, either on line or in records at the Family History Library. Where off-line records are required (as they were in four of last year's five cases), the information is available in digitized files on request if the student can figure out exactly what s/he needs (since even the Family History Library can't be expected to create two dozen copies of those particular microfilms everyone will be wanting). The following afternoon, the group reconvenes to discuss their research and evidence-evaluation adventures with the expert and find out how they approached and solved the problem. And then it's time for the next case to be introduced.

The format differs from most genealogy institutes in that there are five faculty members (experts), so you deal with a new personality every day as well as a new problem. The 2013 lineup of instructors is mostly different from last year, but my main sense last year was, “I had no idea there were so many different ways to be equally excellent!”

Compared to the usual SLIG class schedule, this course looks light. So few hours in the classroom! But few of us had time for anything else. (I had invested in some evening lecture sessions but ditched most of them because the problems were so tough, and one of my main approaches to such problems is to spend a lot of time fussing.) Most participants found it both educational and humbling. Questions of research strategy arose that I'd never heard discussed so specifically anywhere else. If you've been through an advanced course or the equivalent, and want a truly challenging workout in a friendly setting, this is the course for you.

If you're still wondering whether this course is a good fit, name three of your favorite articles from the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. If you can't think of any, or if you don't enjoy reading the Quarterly, maybe you're not ready. Because this course is like being dropped down the rabbit hole into the middle of one of those articles, and having to claw your way out.

[Also now available: Melinda Henningfield's take on the same course.]


Harold Henderson, "The toughest genealogy course you can take?" Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 28 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Adventures in Genealogy Education, the blog

If you're a genealogist and think you don't need to learn anything more, check your pulse -- you may be dead.

For the rest of you, check out the blog by friend, colleague, and ace networker Angela McGhie: "Adventures in Genealogy Education." Since June it's been dedicated to sharing news and information about "conferences, classes, webinars, books, web sites, institutes, tutorials, articles and other resources."

I myself am such a fan of institutes like Samford and Salt Lake that I have not made anywhere near enough use of on-line videos and webinars, both of which have recently been featured in "Adventures."

Beginner, intermediate, advanced? Transitional or professional? You're pretty much guaranteed to find something here you wish you had known about earlier, and isn't that part of what blogs are all about?