Articles by Cheryl Levy

How Are Your 2021 Goals?

Can you believe that we are passed the halfway mark for 2021? The Winter Season will be settling in for those who are in the Southern Hemisphere. Summer Vacations and Lazy Days are ahead for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere – Except for some of our students at The National Institute for Genealogical Studies! They will be opening their July online genealogy courses to maximize their time and seize the opportunity to advance their genealogy educational prospects. How are You Doing with Your 2021 Goals? Remember those genealogy goals you made back in January 2021? It’s time to stop and look back over the last six months and see what you have accomplished. Have you completed some of them? Are some goals still “a work in progress”? Or maybe you looked at the list and were surprized by some goals that you had forgotten about. Goals are important to keep us on task. They define our plan of action and help us to use our time efficiently. They must also be practical. Goals that are too big and require a long-term commitment should be broken down into doable chunks. This will give us a sense of accomplishment as we can cross them off our checklist! Evaluate Your Education Plan We must also take time to evaluate, not only what has been completed, but what is still incomplete. Make a plan for the second half of 2021: monthly, quarterly (3 months) and to the end of the year (6 months). Many researchers will make a master plan for the full year with checkpoints to show their progress in meeting their project goals. This keeps us organized and accountable to our goals. Be sure to include theme-based education as it relates to your research goals. This may be in various formats. Books, websites, webinars, and courses are only a few of the options available to us, many easily available with a simple Internet connection. You have so many opportunities just waiting for you at the click of your mouse button. The National Institute for Genealogical Studies offers quality online education with over 230+ courses to choose from. Some of our courses are topic/country-specific, or provide insight into research methodology, while others are skill-building courses to maximize your research time. The beginning of a new month means another rotation of courses have started on July 5th. Most courses feature 6 modules…

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British Empire Researcher – Legacy Tree Genealogists

A Message from Legacy Tree Genealogists: Are you wanting to put your research skills to work? Have you started your genealogical research business? This may be the opportunity you have been hoping for! Come work with us! Legacy Tree Genealogists is currently looking to hire an Advanced British Empire Researcher – think England, Ireland, and Australia, or Canada, or Jamaica. This is a work-from-home position, full- or part-time, and starts August 17th. Learn more about their career opportunities and how you can join their team at https://www.legacytree.com/apply. Legacy Tree Genealogists has been recognized as the Small Business Administration Woman-owned Business of the Year, and as one of the Utah100 Fastest Growing companies. And we recognize that our success is largely due to our greatest asset–our employees. As a company we cultivate an atmosphere of support centered around our company values of CARE—Cooperation, Accuracy, Respect and Efficiency. At Legacy Tree, we CARE for our clients, and we also CARE for our employees. At the bottom of the page, you will find which positions they are currently seeking. You also have the option to subscribe to notifications for future genealogy positions by completing the digital submission form.  For more information, visit the Legacy Tree Genealogists Blog: https://www.legacytree.com/blog  THIS MESSAGE MAY BE OF INTEREST TO OUR NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR GENEALOGICAL STUDIES SENIOR STUDENTS OR OUR GRADUATES 

Colonial Period Courses

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies offers online genealogical education for family history enthusiasts, genealogists and historians. Our courses are offered in Basic, Intermediate, or Advanced levels. You can register for courses individually, or receive a discount by choosing from a variety of packages. These are bundled either by specific theme or customized to your own interests. See the Full List of Packages here.  The Start Dates for courses are usually scheduled for the first Monday of the month, however, not all courses are available monthly. Be sure to check our Current Course Calendar for the dates when the courses of your choice are scheduled to open again. In our list of courses, there are four courses covering the Colonial period of the Eastern United States, focusing on the original Thirteen Colonies. These are valuable resources for anyone researching in this region and timeframe. Research: Mayflower Ancestors This course studies some of the very first settlers of Massachusetts. Learn how to properly document a descendant line by utilizing New England original and derivative records as well as sources specific to Mayflower research. Following their story and tracing each consecutive generation is a great way to recognize the 400+ years since their arrival in North America. Course Description for Research: Mayflower Ancestors Research: US Colonial New England Ancestors This course explores strategies for finding Colonial New England records while incorporating colonial town records, colonial census records, colonial land records and maps, the colonial wars, religious records, and court documents. Note: This is an Intermediate course. Course Description for Research: US Colonial New England Ancestors The American Revolutionary War was a major historical event which impacted many Colonial families. It is hard to imagine that any family was left unaffected. Many families were divided, with multiple factors leading to which side they eventually chose to pledge their loyalty to. If you reach a brick wall in your research during this time period, be sure to check both Loyalist and Patriot resources. Sometimes you will find family members on both sides as they navigated through this turbulent time in their lives. This was also a time of major migrations and relocations. Fortunately, there were numerous records created and preserved during the colonial period. Thankfully, various organizations have worked to digitize as many of the surviving records as possible. We just need to know how to access them to document our family’s stories and the…

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Always Learning – Always Building Research Skills

In many places, June means that schools are winding down for another year and summer vacation is almost here! In other parts of the world, winter is looming closer every day. Our students at The National Institute for Genealogical Studies know that when it comes to genealogy, we are always learning, no matter which month is showing on the current calendar. There are always more courses on our wish list. Always Learning The list of topics for our genealogical studies should always include the places of origin for our ancestors; but researching our family history soon reaches much farther than just our ethnic origins. Our ancestors’ lives were more than the dates and places of the family’s births, marriages and deaths; it included historical events, and the hundreds of people they encountered along the way. Our goal is to learn as much as we can about their lives and the things which impacted their families. Always Building Research Skills How can we accomplish our genealogy goals? We must build our research skills. We simply do not know what we do not know. If we lack basic methodology skills, our research can take twice as long, repeating the same steps over again, and still have important elements missing, such as source citations or complete transcriptions of documents. When we are unaware of special record collections, we won’t know to access the information they contain. The National Institute for Genealogical Studies offers quality online education with over 230+ courses to choose from. Most courses feature 6 modules over an 8-week period, easily adapted to most busy schedules. Many courses have been bundled into packages to provide discount options. Some of these courses started on June 7th, but every month features courses created to refine your research skills and meet your genealogy goals. Are you ready to find out what you are missing? Take a look at our course calendar. Did you notice a topic that has piqued your interest? Did you discover a new aspect of research that you were unaware of? Did you find a Skill-Building course to add to your research abilities? Time to dive deeper into that subject and explore how it may relate to your research projects. Register today for future time slots! —————————————————- Visit our website for a complete list of online courses offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. Check our Course Calendar here. Follow us on Social Media: Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. *Note: Please…

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Keeping in Touch

Do you have a question about your courses or your research? Communication is so important in genealogy in order to keep abreast of constantly evolving information. The same is true within The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. As a student of The National Institute, there are various ways you can communicate with us and your fellow students (see below). We want all of our students to enjoy their learning experience. Please do not worry or fret over your courses by yourself. We are here to help you! **** NOTE: Our social media accounts are NOT monitored regularly. If you need an answer quickly, please call us on the phone. We can be reached at 1-800-580-0165, ext. #1 (North America) or 1-416-861-0165. Please leave a message. If no one answers, we will call you back. #1 By email to The National Institute **** NOTE: When contacting us, please INCLUDE your FIRST & LAST NAME, and the full COURSE TITLE (including the COUNTRY, if it is a records course). It is also helpful if you include the module number and section that title you are referring to. **** i) admin@genealogicalstudies.com –  for general questions; ii) alert@genealogicalstudies.com – to advise us of broken links in your course materials and assignments — Please GIVE SPECIFIC DETAILS; i.e., provide the COURSE NAME, MODULE NUMBER, WEBSITE NAME, and URL. iii) exam@genealogicalstudies.com – questions pertaining to your course exam. #2 By email to a fellow student When you view a fellow student’s public assignment SUBMISSION/ANSWER, and you would like to contact them about something in their posting, simply click on the envelope icon to the right of the student’s name. A new window will open where you can type your message. For privacy reasons, you will not see the recipient’s email address. They have the option to reply or not. #3 Attend a Virtual Meeting VIRTUAL MEETINGS ARE THE BEST PLACE TO COMMUNICATE with an instructor and fellow students. Anyone can participate! You do not have to be registered in the course to attend. When attending virtual meetings, please bring questions applicable to the topic being discussed. Watch for our emails outlining upcoming virtual meetings dates and times. Or visit our website for the full schedule. #4 Follow The National Institute’s Blog Scroll down. On the right-hand side of this page, you will see Subscribe to Blog via Email. In the text box, enter your email address and click on the Subscribe button. Once…

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