Last week I had the pleasure of "virtually attending" one of the largest family history conferences in the world. Through live-streamed and recorded sessions, I was able to continue my genealogy education in the never-ending quest to improve my research skills and stay on top of trends. In addition, by downloading the RootsTech app and filtering
classes of interest, I saved close to eighty other session handouts for reference. All for FREE!
After earning my certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University, I knew I needed to formulate my own plan for continuing education. After all, I believe there has never been a more exciting time in this field of study. Genetic genealogy is evolving extremely rapidly, with exciting capabilities of what we can do with data from DNA testing. New record sets are being digitized and added to online collections every day, making more information accessible than ever before. However, these digitized records still only represent a small percentage of total records, meaning serious genealogists must always keep learning traditional methodology and techniques to uncover those harder-to-find original records.
I am using the simple spreadsheet below to log my continuing education for 2018. As you can see, I was listening to about one webinar (mainly through Legacy Family Tree Webinars) or lecture (two at my local library with the Lititz Genealogy Club and Lititz Historical Foundation) per week until I hit RootsTech. I live-streamed a few sessions and am still trying to catch up on the recorded sessions. As a free source of education, you cannot beat it!
The webinar and lecture section of my continuing education log for 2018
(I have been busy for the last week!)
Check out the selection of recorded sessions from RootsTech. Professional genealogists will find many topics of interest. Even hobbyists or those who enjoy the PBS series Finding Your Roots will appreciate the Saturday keynote by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
At the end of Dr. Gates' lecture, he profiled a newer initiative that immediately struck a chord with me when I first learned about it in late 2017. As a teacher, I would love to eventually develop a program like this in my local area. All three episodes of Finding Your Roots: The Seedlings are available to watch online. They are brief (about 10 minutes each) and inspiring!
Webinars and lectures are just a part of my continuing education plan. I’ll share some other great resources in my next Tuesday Tip!