Course: 2027-04
BEYOND Digging Deeper: Sources, Methods, and Practices
Virtual via Zoom
Faculty:
- Coordinator and Instructor: Paula Stuart Warren, CG®, FMGS, FUGA
- Other Instructors: Cari Taplin, CG; Debbie Mieszala, CG; Teresa S. McMillin, CG; Amy E.K. Arner, CG; Cyndi Ingle; Kimberly Powell, AG
Tuition:
• Regular Price: $615
• NGS Member Price: $575
Description:
Requests from previous years’ students in the long-time GRIP course “Digging Deeper: Records, Tools, and Skills” prodded the compilation of a related course on U.S. research with new topics, some hands-on work, and a way to receive direct help on specific ancestors using what is taught and developed during the week. It delves into additional essential U.S. record types and provides sessions showing the research process, types of records not covered in the other course, behind the scenes details on records, and effective use of research and analysis tools. This course features hands-on creation of research questions and research reports. Application of methods learned will be put into practice throughout the week. AI and Full Text searching are a part of some of the week’s sessions.
Prior attendance in the other course “Digging Deeper: Records, Tools, and Skills” is not essential. The two courses work in tandem and complement each other no matter the order in which you take them.
Course Objectives
- Expand and understand the wider reasons for the development and differences of records across the U.S.
- Develop personal reference materials related to using basic and additional record types and other materials in research.
- Gain analysis techniques and skills that help develop research steps.
- Add tools to further refine research steps as the course week goes on.
- Observe the open and sharing interaction of students and instructors to further your own research.
Student Prerequisites:
Students should have experience in basic genealogical research. To take full advantage of all this course offers, desktop or laptop computers are strongly recommended. Using a headset and good microphone are a big plus. Access to reliable internet and at least a couple major genealogy websites is needed. If you have an auxiliary monitor, that is a plus. Mobile devices and tablets (such as iPads and similar) will not be sufficient to handle the in-class work, check reference materials you learn about, and the class project that will be assigned. Students should have access to a source-citation guide, such as Evidence Explained, The Chicago Manual of Style, or a source citation QuickSheet, for use in their class project.
This course is for intermediate level researchers; advanced beginners will also benefit.
Recordings:
Sessions will be recorded and available through July 9, 2027.
NOTE: All times are listed in Eastern Time.
Live Sessions may be subject to schedule adjustments by your course coordinator.
| Day | Session | Time | Session Title | Description | Instructor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | 10:10-30 | Welcome and Orientation | Introductions and details of the course and the week | Stuart-Warren | |
| M | 1 | 10:30-11:45 | Developing Effective Research Questions | As baby genealogists, we move quickly from ancestor to ancestor and go down rabbit holes in an effort to find more information. However, this practice leads to inefficient research and brick walls. Learning to develop effective research questions is one of the first steps toward becoming a better genealogist. We will discuss what goes into developing an effective research question and review some examples. Then students will craft research questions for their own ancestors based on the summaries prepared in advance. | Arner |
| M | 2 | 12:00-1:115 | Creating Effective Research Plans | Once we have an effective research question, the next step is to create a research plan to answer the question. We will discuss how to create a research plan, including how to determine the types of records most likely to be useful, and review sample research plans. After reviewing some examples, students will use one of their questions from the previous session to create a research plan for the week’s student projects. | Arner |
| M | 3 | 2:15-3:30 | Building a Reference Library: A Personal Research Guide and a Research Collection | Having specific information at our fingertips is a timesaver in our research endeavors. Where did we find that link to ordering marriage records for those counties? Does the state archives have indexes in-house and online? Where are the district court records for the northern counties in my state? Is that book worth ordering? Creating our own reference tool will provide such answers. Then we’ll expand into which outstanding published guides should be a part of our own collections whether in print or online form. We’ll analyze and dissect significant guides to records, localities, and research methodology. A discussion of how to determine the value of the material, the breadth or lack thereof, and the expertise of the authors will assist in whether to acquire the guides. Several older genealogy guidebooks are still extremely worthwhile. Tips for locating copies of out-of-print books will be included. | Stuart-Warren |
| M | 4 | 3:45-5:00 | Ancestral Occupations Provide Immigration, Migration, and Resettlement Insight | Did your ancestors’ occupations stay the same from their former residence or country and did that have a connection to the reason for coming to the United States? Were they taught or had to find a new trade once in the United States? Is there a familial or community tie to these occupations? Occupational records can add to your understanding of family and community and how the history of the time period affects occupations. Learn ways to follow occupation changes, family relocations, education, retirement, the effects of economic downturns, locations of records, literature on and by specific occupation segments. | Stuart-Warren |
| T | 5 | 10:30-11:45 | Overcoming Census Oddities in Population and Non-Population Schedules | What do you do when you can’t find your people in the census records? There are obstacles to finding ancestors such as language barriers and literacy issues, indexing errors with human and machine-indexing projects, microfilming and digitization errors, and so on. This presentation will present some of these issues and discuss ways to overcome them. Students will work in both the population schedules as well as the non-population schedules such as the agricultural, manufacturing, mortality, and others. An interactive portion allows the students to practice what they learned and apply it to their own census oddities. | Taplin |
| T | 6 | 12:00-1:115 | Mining the Written Words of Repositories, Societies, and their Staff | We may ask questions when in a repository but too often ignore what those staff members, their predecessors, and bosses provide for us in print. For many decades archivists, librarians, directors, department heads, and other city, county, state, and federal employees have written articles, observations, dissertations and other material. We’ll investigate what they have provided for our research, how to access these, and their cited resource material. This in-depth information might talk about cemetery laws, creation of a specific cemetery, how and why a special set of records was created, and the background of a specific set of records they held. | Stuart-Warren |
| T | 7 | 2:15-3:30 | Church and Religious Denomination Records | We may ask questions when in a repository but too often ignore what those staff members, their predecessors, and bosses provide for us in print. For many decades archivists, librarians, directors, department heads, and other city, county, state, and federal employees have written articles, observations, dissertations and other material. We’ll investigate what they have provided for our research, how to access these, and their cited resource material. This in-depth information might talk about cemetery laws, creation of a specific cemetery, how and why a special set of records was created, and the background of a specific set of records they held. | Stuart-Warren |
| T | 8 | 3:45-5:00 | The Clarifying Practice of Writing a Research Report to Yourself | Genealogists love to seek and find documents and evidence relating to their ancestors. Often more effort is devoted to the act of gathering documents than the process of evaluating evidence. Writing research reports to yourself is beneficial. The writing process forces a genealogist to review where they started a research session, to track sources checked, and encourages thorough evidence evaluation. Writing reveals research holes and evidence conflicts and prompts ideas for future research. Simple proof statements and source citations are introduced. Students will write a basic research report. | Mieszala |
| T | Extra | 5:00-5:30 | Continuing Today’s Discussions | Mieszala | |
| W | 9 | 10:30-11:45 | Beyond the Boundaries: Unearthing Family Connections in Land Records | Take your family history research to the next level by harnessing the full potential of deeds and other property records. This session will teach you how to extract valuable information from land records that may not be immediately obvious, along with methods for tracking land ownership over time and uncovering elusive records. The strategic use of land records often yields a domino effect, expanding our research to related locations and people we may not have considered. | Powell |
| W | 10 | 12:00-1:115 | Charting Family Histories: The Intersection of Maps and Genealogy | Charting Family Histories: The Intersection of Maps and Genealogy Borders, boundaries, geography, topography, and location all play a part in where our ancestors lived. They also help us determine where to find sources that recorded the events in their lives. We will discuss locating maps and using them to plot land, navigate migration paths, and reconstruct neighborhoods. | Ingle |
| W | 11 | 2:15-3:30 | DNA Practical Use: Solutions in Case Studies
|
DNA ideally follows and enhances our traditional genealogical research—until it doesn’t. DNA can help solve long-standing brick walls and may uncover family secrets and surprises. In terms of your research questions, DNA is another source, another puzzle piece to help answer those questions. Beyond the surprises, we can answer questions such as encountering two (or more) men of the same name in the same town or county or determining whether a particular child was born of the first wife or the second. In this session, we will discuss which types of DNA tests can help with particular research questions. Interactive exercises will help reinforce the main ideas of the presentation. | Taplin |
| W | 12 | 3:45-5:00 | Organizing Information: Charts, Spreadsheets and More | Organizing your genealogical information is more than just gathering names, dates, and places and plugging it into a family tree. Sometimes this data needs to be used in timelines or in spreadsheets to analyze and correlate what the evidence is revealing. We will discuss methods for filing to keep your physical and digital items at hand when you need them. We will also feature tools for outlining your information while writing things like research notes and reports. | Ingle |
| W | Extra | 5:00-5:30 | Continuing Today’s Discussion | Ingle | |
| Th | 13 | 10:30-11:45 | The U.S. National Archives: Sources, Methods, and Practices for Successful Research | U.S. family history research must include the treasures held within the National Archives (NARA). It protects records of the nation’s civil, military, and diplomatic activities. These records include more than 13.5 billion pieces of paper, 15 million maps and charts, 44 million still photos, 40 million aerial photos and more than 835 terabytes of electronic data. Those numbers are constantly growing. Do a deep dive into the myriad finding aids online and off, determine how to find what you seek, and ways to access the massive original records that hold the minutiae of life all the way to far-reaching details that provide joy, sadness, excitement, passion, turmoil, warmth, and a frenzy to find more. | Stuart-Warren |
| Th | 14 | 12:00-1:115 | Unraveling a Family Tale: Separating Fact from Fiction | George Teeling was an Irish immigrant who lived in Chicago in the 1850s. Information about him has been passed through family lore. This case study demonstrates research in a wide array of resources to document his life. It shows how to assemble evidence and resolve conflicting information to tell the real story | McMillin |
| Th | 15 | 2:15-3:30 | Beyond Basic Pension Records: Exceptional Military Holdings | Researchers desire a 100-page military pension record from the U.S. National Archives. While those are definitely desirable, thousands of cubic feet of other military records at both state and federal levels are available to add individual and family details. More are found with local, private, military, and historical organizations. Understanding the differences and complexity in wars, record levels, locations, and access is a necessary step in learning more about our family members and others before and during military service. | Stuart-Warren |
| Th | 16 | 3:45-5:00 | Historical Context: A Key to Understanding People, Places, and Records | Collecting documents and adding data to a family tree is satisfying, but to understand an ancestor’s life and actions, one must extend the research scope beyond life’s milestones. Historical context includes learning about relevant times and places, understanding why records were or were not created, studying the laws impacting people and influencing records, investigating social connections, ethnic groups, economic factors, and more. Exploring historical context promotes a better understanding of the lives of the people researched, enriches the family narrative, and aids in research planning. | Mieszala |
| F | 17 | 10:30-11:45 | Final Student Reports and Review of Student Projects | Earlier this week, we learned about crafting good research questions and determining which records will help answer the questions. This led us to creating research plans that evolved during the week based on our new knowledge, We also learned the benefit of writing research reports for ourselves. We better understand how to see the discrepancies in records and family stories and how to address those discrepancies. We will look at the student-submitted summaries, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the research questions, plans, and reports developed over the week. | Stuart-Warren and Arner |
| F | 18 | 12:00-1:115 | Final Student Reports and Review of Student Projects | Earlier this week, we learned about crafting good research questions and determining which records will help answer the questions. This led us to creating research plans that evolved during the week based on our new knowledge, We also learned the benefit of writing research reports for ourselves. We better understand how to see the discrepancies in records and family stories and how to address those discrepancies. We will look at the student-submitted summaries, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the research questions, plans, and reports developed over the week. | Stuart-Warren and Arner |