Do you have a plan for your ongoing education in genealogy?

Online and in real life, learning sources abound.

At a recent lecture, someone mentioned with the huge number of books, articles, websites, blogs, etc. out there, if one is interested in furthering their knowledge of genealogy, or tweaking their skills, they needed an Education Plan.

So, the first step would be to decide where are your weaknesses or gaps in your genealogy research? Are they geographical? Or for how to use certain websites? DNA?

Then, what is your preferred method of education? Attending a seminar/lecture in person, or by Zoom? Reading a book, magazine, journal, or some other printed version of the topic?

You can also sign up — free or for a fee — for various lectures online via webinars, blogs, YouTube channel, podcasts, or the like. You could get a subscription to one of the commercial genealogy magazines that are extremely helpful and promise yourself you will actually read some of the articles.

Another good option is joining a genealogical or historical society in order to be notified of the various lectures they sponsor, as well as their quarterly and other genealogy news updates they forward to members, as well as what they offer in the Members Only area.

Those are just some ways to enhance your genealogy education.

Recently I found the YouTube site GenealogyTV (genealogytv.org) by Constance Knox to be very helpful to understand DNAPainter, as she had an interview with Jonny Perl, the creator of that website.

Just one example of what you can find out there, for free.

See FamilyLocket.com for their podcasts, and other lectures, some free, some not.

Four underutilized websites

Family Tree magazine’s recent online email announcements featured four underutilized websites. The National Archives (archives.gov) where they have a new catalog, The Library of Congress (loc.gov); Library and Archives Canada (library-archives. canada.ca); and Internet Archive (archive.org) for the tons of published materials they have digitized there.

Artificial Intelligence and genealogy

To understand what artificial intelligence may mean to genealogy, or to just get your feet wet, check out Steve Little’s aigenealogyinsights. com website and the link to his recent lecture for the National Genealogical Society (NGS), free via YouTube. He is also teaching a longer course for NGS, check their website.