A Baker's Dozen: Free Advice to Applicants for Certification

1. Don't be shy; show what you know! 

2. If you read the NGS Quarterly in hopes of finding your own ancestors, don't apply yet. 

3. If you don't read the NGS Quarterly, start. 

4. When in doubt, question every piece of information. When not in doubt, question every piece of information. Then explain. See #1.

5. Breathe deep and savor the difference between a transcription and an original record.

6. Don't sweat the petty things -- follow the GPS. If you think that means Global Positioning System, don't apply yet.

7. If you need to survey the literature, remember that not all of it is in the form of unsourced trees on Ancestry.

8. To analyze is human; to correlate is divine.

9. Get comfortable with the strangeness of the past. It is not the present in funny clothes.

10. Practice. Never, ever submit the first one you did of anything.

11. If your teachers and friends think anything goes, find new ones.

12. Read the directions. 

13. Really. Read the directions. 




Harold Henderson, "A Baker's Dozen: Free Advice to Applicants for Certification," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 6 November 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]
 

Top Eight MWM Posts All-Time

The eight most popular posts to date on this blog are not necessarily my personal favorites, but that's OK. I compiled this list, in the spirit of March Madness, after realizing that the "count" of all-time most viewed posts that Blogger offers on its Stats tab is thoroughly and inexplicably broken, i.e. its numbers are different from and lower than the numbers given for each post individually, and some posts are omitted from that list altogether.

1. Finding Ancestors in Fort Wayne, 31 March 2013.

2. Why We Don't Write, 6 May 2012.

3. State and Regional Genealogy Journals (joint post with Michael Hait), 20 June 2011.

4. Getting Serious about Genealogy, 3 June 2013.

5. Moderately Recent Blog Posts I Have Enjoyed, 15 May 2012.

6. Eight Tips for Those Considering Certification, 15 August 2012.

7. Nine Indexes and Finding Aids on the Web Site, 5 July 2013.

8. What I Knew About PERSI That Wasn't So, 22 February 2014.



Harold Henderson, "Top Eight MWM Posts All-Time," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 13 March 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Are you ready to go for a credential?

The hardest question about seeking certification (through BCG) or accreditation (through ICAPGen) is the very first one: Am I ready?

Self-evaluation is tough at the best of times, and no measure of readiness is foolproof. So I will suggest several independent measures, from various sources. Each of them has pitfalls, but if they all point the same way, then it's probably time to postpone your procrastination and get into the process. (My examples are BCG-based because that's my experience.)

Measure #1 (from Elissa Scalise Powell): If you've done serious genealogy two or three times a week for seven to ten years, you may be ready. This turns out to be close to the idea of 10,000 hours of practice needed to gain mastery in cognitively demanding fields, popularized in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers.

Pitfall of this measure: have you really had ten years of experience or only one year's experience ten times over? One way to overcome the pitfall: if you spent your ten years of experience without dealing with any land or probate records, subtract at least five years.

Measure #2: If you can pass the weighted quiz questions on the BCG web site, you may be ready.  

Pitfall: Sometimes we kid ourselves when taking quizzes of this sort.

Measure #3: The easier you find it to read and understand NGSQ articles, the more likely you are to be ready -- especially if you started out not understanding them at all.  

Pitfall: Reading is not always the same as doing.

Measure #4: If you have published in a peer-reviewed journal, you may well be ready.

Pitfall: Sometimes you're not -- especially if you make the plausible but false assumption that an article is the same exact kind of job as the required portfolio materials.

Measure #5: If you cannot stay awake during a lecture by Elizabeth Shown Mills or Thomas W. Jones, then you're definitely not ready. [No pitfall here.]

Measure #6: If everybody you know says you're really good at genealogy, then you might be ready.

Pitfall: The people you know may be extremely polite. Or they may be telling the truth, but have no idea what serious genealogy involves. As in chess, there are more levels of expertise than we can easily imagine.

If you find most of these measures are favorable, then I say go ahead. There is additional generic help available once you are "on the clock."

Don't forget -- some of us learn by doing (which is a polite way of saying that we learned to swim by jumping into the deep end of the pool). As a result, some of us had to go through the process twice in order to succeed. There are worse fates, such as never trying . . . and hence never knowing whether you really had what it takes.



Harold Henderson, "Are you ready to go for a credential?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 11 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

The Top Five MWM Posts for August 2012

Once again it's time for the monthly popularity contest, listing the most-viewed blog posts made during August. Once again, #1 was far in the lead. I'll report on September in early November when the dust of that month will have settled.

1. Eight Tips for Those Considering Certification (August 15)

2. Is an Obituary an Original Source? Does It Matter? (August 2)

3. Writing: The Ten Suggestions (August 7)

4. Book Review: How History and Genealogy Fit -- or Not (August 24)

5. Why Ambitious Genealogists Need Credentials (August 14)


Least viewed:

Halfway home: map of the 46 Indiana counties with marriages indexed on FamilySearch (August 25)


Harold Henderson, "Top Five MWM Posts for August 2012," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 30 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

BCG portfolio Q & A

Some folks have asked questions about my recent BCG portfolio posts. They may be of interest to others who don't go back and look for comments!

Please observe my usual caveat: read the rubrics and the 2011 edition of the Application Guide, ask the authoritative folks on BCG ACTION list once you are on the clock, and don't take my unsupported word for anything. When necessary consult the key underlying document, the 2000 (current) BCG Standards Manual as well. In other words, use your research skills to get the best information available on certification just as you already do in genealogy itself.

Q1: In the Kinship Determination Project (requirement #7), is the applicant required to name every child -- for instance, if a record states that a woman had eleven children, two living, but information cannot be found for most of them?

The rubrics and the Application Guide appear to disagree on this point, but my non-authoritative opinion is that if you explain the situation and show that you consulted a wide variety of sources and correlated and analyzed them, and convincingly concluded (for instance) that the woman did have nine children but names of only five can be ascertained, then you would be meeting standards. In such a quest one would not limit oneself to direct evidence either.

Such a sub-problem in the KDP would certainly allow the applicant to display ability to locate, correlate, and analyze a wide variety of relevant sources, perhaps including business accounts, military records, and siblings' vital records among many more (some Cook County, Illinois, birth records gave the number of the birth to that mother). If an authoritative answer to this question were not forthcoming, however, I might choose a different family or a different set of generations in the same family. The point is to show what you can do (reread the rubrics!), not to tread on gray areas that might prove to be quicksand.

Q2: Does the Case Study (requirement #6) have to be a solved problem, or could it be "a no-stone-unturned study that did not answer the main question as to the end of a person's life-path"?

My answer: You have to solve the problem. The Application Guide asks applicants to "supply a case study (proof argument) drawn from your own research that (a) demonstrates application of the Genealogical Proof Standard and (b) resolves, in your opinion, a problem of relationship or identity that cannot be resolved from uncontested direct evidence."

Note that determining a date or place of death or burial, in itself, would not constitute a problem of relationship or identity IMO.

Note also that you can define the problem's scope. For my case study I defined the scope so that I was able to solve it. I sought the mother of a child born out of wedlock, not both parents. (It was still plenty hard.)

Finally, be wary of thinking that "no stone unturned" refers to a search only for direct evidence (that tells you the answer). Most hard problems require indirect evidence (clues) in order to resolve them: either there is no direct evidence at all,  as in many NGSQ articles blogged about here earlier, or you have to use indirect evidence to get to the unindexed, unmicrofilmed, undigitized direct evidence. Often consultation with a more experienced researcher (or reading an article on a similar problem) will open up additional possibilities for building such a case. For portfolio purposes, I personally prefer to select cases where there is conflicting direct evidence to start with.

Harold Henderson, "BCG Portfolio Q and A," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 26 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 5 of 5: Kinship Determination Project

The kinship determination project is often the longest single piece in a BCG portfolio. Strictly speaking, it doesn't have to be. The specific requirements are to prove the two connections between three generations of the same family, and to place them in historical context. My second KDP was 71 pages long; a friend's was 13. We both passed.

The KDP can be deceptive, because we tend to identify it with the Complete Family History many of us aspire to write. In fact, a KDP doesn't have to encompass all of a family's children [NOT QUITE ACCURATE, FOR CORRECTION SEE JUDY RUSSELL'S FULL STATEMENT IN THE COMMENTS] and it doesn't have to contain all imaginable information about the family. (It is supposed to be a narrative -- in other words a story, and not a great pile of facts.) When you choose a family in your own direct line, however, the temptation to throw everything in is very great!

Another temptation is to put far more effort into it than into any other part of the portfolio, on the implicit assumption that it must be the most important item. But it's only just as important as any other.

Choosing a family for a KDP should not be as hard as some other choices. While we are required to connect generations, those proofs do not have to involve conflicting evidence (as does the case study). They do need to involve good-quality evidence of various kinds. This is the main thing the KDP has in common with the complex-evidence case study and even the client report: ideally they will all show off our skill at finding the relevant information, and analyzing and correlating different kinds of information from different kinds of records. That's what it's all about. Check out the work samples on the BCG site; just don't think that you have to do everything exactly the way those authors did it.


Harold Henderson, "Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 5 of 5: Kinship Determination Project," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 4 of 5: Case Study

The complex-evidence case study may be the hardest piece of the portfolio to choose; it was for me. We have to pick a non-trivial problem and solve it -- and the problem has to involve either conflicting direct evidence or conflict between direct and indirect evidence, or only indirect evidence. I personally recommend finding a problem of the first two types. (There are plenty of problems for which there is no relevant direct evidence, but you cannot tell which they are at the start.)

If you think that the problem is finding conflicting evidence -- as I did four and a half years ago -- you probably aren't ready to submit. As I was told at the time, "If you haven't found a conflict, you haven't done enough research." Just make sure the conflict is significant. A straightforward simple census error or a disagreement of one day over a date would not normally qualify (in my opinion).

For many of us, doing this part of the portfolio is an important step in our journey from what Craig Scott calls "people doing genealogy" to "genealogists." Part of it is learning how resolving conflicts is fundamental to genealogy, not just an annoying thing that happens sometimes. Another part is learning and displaying how to put the Genealogical Proof Standard to work and in particular how to gauge when we have conducted reasonably exhaustive research.

Yet another part is learning how to structure the argument so that our case for the conclusion makes sense and is convincing. This may be hard because it's unexpected. Genealogists are often very detail-oriented people, and that's good. It's a necessary condition, as the philosophers would say, but not a sufficient condition.

Nit-picking has great value, but it can't substitute for being able to present a convincing case to the jury of our peers. If this is hard for you as it is for most of us, check the work samples on the BCG site; check any issue of the NGS Quarterly over the last 20 years or so; and try writing some up from research you've already done just to get a better feel for what it demands.

So all we need to do is choose a case study that is difficult enough to show that we can meet a challenge, and easy enough for us to solve it. Again, the rule of "Never Use Your First" rears its head. If you have done a few projects involving conflicting evidence, you'll be able to choose the one (quite possibly the most recent!) in which you feel you finally began to "get it." Among other things, that will be one that you can put away in a drawer for a month or two, and then pull it out and reread it and still like it.

Don't hurry. The time saved will soon be gone; the flawed work that results will last.


Tomorrow: Requirement #7, the kinship-determination project.


Harold Henderson, "Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 4 of 5: Case Study," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 17 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 3 of 5: Client Report

The client research report is a unique part of the BCG certification portfolio in that it must be presented exactly as it was sent to the client -- no cleaning up typos or anything else! -- and it must be accompanied by the client's permission for use and the client's statement of the question to be answered.

In theory it should be easy to choose which report to include, because we can't tinker with it or improve it. And in practice that restriction should emphasize the most important portfolio piece of advice after "follow the directions": Never, ever, submit the first one you did of anything. (Well, it's important to me. If I had followed it I would have been certified two years earlier!) In other words, we want to have enough client reports on hand so that we can choose the most appropriate, not have to hold our nose while choosing the least inappropriate.

Ideally the client report will show what we can do; an impeccably conducted and typo-free lookup in a published index is not going to impress. But success at answering the client's question is important too. There's nothing against submitting a well-done, on-target, thorough report that did not reach an answer. But we do have to say whether we think the client's objective was met. It's probably easier to show what we can do with a report where we were, um, able to do it -- but that is not a requirement, and there could be a report that showed great skill but didn't succeed in reaching the research goal. A particular concern here is that we do in fact direct our research to the client's actual question, not some nearby question that proved easier to research. (That only seems like a funny sort of mistake to those who haven't faced the temptation yet.)

There are plenty of options for those who haven't had any clients, including lurking on surname or locality lists and offering to do research pro bono for inquirers, in exchange for their allowing us to use the report in a portfolio. So why have it as a requirement? (As in all these posts, these are my personal opinions with no official sanction of BCG -- or anybody else, for that matter.) It's valuable because it shows how we deal with being dropped into a family that we've never studied before, and having to get oriented quickly and formulate reasonable plans. Trust me: it's completely different from working away on your same old own family!

Tomorrow: Requirement #6, the proof argument AKA complex-evidence case study.
 

Harold Henderson, "Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 3 of 5: Client Report," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 16 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 2 of 5: The Document

Requirement #4 in a BCG portfolio is to do a document. We get to choose it, and then we have to cite it, transcribe it, abstract it, analyze it, identify a focus person in it, and make a brief research plan based on it.

The word is "document," not deed, but most deeds are a handy size. A will or a marriage record would do fine.

I had trouble making this choice because I'm not used to looking at records from this angle. My first inclination was to choose a deed that had something cool in it that most don't have, like a description of the building on the lot, or a statement of relationship. But eventually I realized that what I wanted was a document that would be interesting to analyze and that would lead to interesting research, not necessarily one that told me something unusual. For a while I was tempted to use a very long deed from central Indiana that included metes and bounds (just because that surprises people and it provided a chance to deal with both major kinds of land description), but it turned out to be Really Long and thus a major transcription headache. In the end, for my second portfolio I chose a deed that had been part of a larger project (not used anywhere else in the portfolio), because in that case I had a clearer idea of how I had used it and where the research plan should go. There is no requirement to pull a document from thin air. The equivalent of that is requirement #3, where BCG supplies their choice of document for you to work up.

Compared to the other parts of the portfolio, this task may seem like an afterthought. It is small, but only in size! Analyzing and using documents is basic. Failing to meet standards on this portfolio item is at least as serious as on any other. Check out the "skillbuilding" articles on the BCG site, and the work in the sample portfolios at the BCG booth at major conferences. Note how much explaining goes on in them -- explanations that an instructor might give a class, but not explanations that would normally appear in your own notes to yourself, or in a quality genealogy journal (where readers are expected to know the basics). So explain! A portfolio in many ways is a unique animal.

Tomorrow: the client report (requirement #5).



Harold Henderson, "Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 2 of 5: The Document," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 15 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 1 of 5

When we start thinking about seeking certification from the Board for the Certification of Genealogists, one of the first things that comes up is our choices for the five items on which we choose to be evaluated: one document, one client report, one case study or complex-evidence proof argument, and one three-generation kinship determination project. What should we choose for each one? How can we even decide?

This intermediate level of thinking and worrying comes in between the decision to go for it or not and the level of generic tips and thoughts. And it's harder than it may look.

My thoughts here and elsewhere are unofficial, neither endorsed nor condemned by BCG as far as I know. And if you read anything here that contradicts the standards or the application guide or the judging rubrics, believe them and not me. (There is no surer guarantee of failure than to think you know more about what BCG wants than it does, or to think you're above following basic directions.)

In general, most of us want to choose the hardest problems that we can deal with well. Of course, that's tough to calibrate. If we already knew exactly what we could do well, we might feel less need to test ourselves against an objective standard!

There is an alternative view, based on the fact that BCG evaluation is pass-fail. If we meet the standards and rubrics, we pass. So we could just submit our regular work, not something "special." I have no quarrel with this, but I think it works better for those of us who are going through the process for the second time after having been turned down once. I had a much better grasp of the meaning of the requirements the second time around! Trying to calibrate just what meets requirements could also be difficult. We could fail by trying only to pass.

Another way to think about it is that a certification portfolio does not just reveal how many record types we know about, or whether we know what to do with them once we've got them. It also shows our underlying mindset, or disposition, or orientation. Do we care as much about how we get there as what we find out? Can we remember, and do, the right research thing at the end of a long day or a long project as surely as at the beginning? Professionals are people who can.

Tomorrow: the document (requirement #4).


Harold Henderson, "Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 1 of 5," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 14  September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Eight Tips for Those Considering Certification

(If you think becoming a CG or AG isn't worth the trouble, check out yesterday's post.)

Since I chose to go the certification route rather than accreditation, these tips apply to the Board for the Certification of Genealogists' portfolio and requirements. These are my notions and have no official sanction of any sort -- and are no substitute for BCG's own suggestions and work examples. But having been through the process twice (not succeeding the first time), I suggest the following.

(1) Use your research skills to learn BCG's standards and procedures. Rely on the published Standards Manual, Application Guide, and the rubrics used by judges. If hearsay tells you something dubious, check it out.

(2) Recognize that the five key portfolio items – two pieces of document work, a client report, a case study (AKA proof argument), and a three-generation kinship determination project – are each equally important demonstrations of your skills.

(3) Be detail-oriented and remember the big picture. The judges will note mistakes, but (as the judging rubrics make clear) a single misplaced comma or an omitted footnote will not ruin your chances. Nor will letter-perfect citations save your illogical and unconvincing case study!

(4) Don't hurry. Never submit your first attempt at anything. You're probably not ready if you can't fathom NGSQ articles, or if you can't bear to reread your draft submissions with a cold eye.

(5) Don't procrastinate. Meeting standards is the goal; perfection is not.

(6) Recognize the value of the research/writing/finishing experience itself, and enjoy it. And yes, I did intentionally put "finishing" in there. Certification requires us to finish several pieces of work, an opportunity we don't get as often as we need.

(7) Take advantage of educational opportunities, including BCG's free skillbuilding articles; BCG's on-line list for those on the clock; APG's webinars, discussions, and members-only mailing list; the Transitional Genealogists Forum; week-long institutes like IGHR, NIGR, Salt Lake, and GRIP; Elizabeth Shown Mills's web sites HistoricPathways and Evidence Explained; Angela McGhie's blog, Adventures in Genealogy Education; and of course the five top-line genealogy periodicals.

(8) Remember that becoming certified is not the end of the process, it's just one more step on a ladder of learning with no visible end. More on that here.



Image from Rick Payette's photostream  per Creative Commons, at 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/catzrule/5734939050/sizes/z/in/photostream/.