Courses

The Importance of Analysis and Skills Mentoring

By Shannon Combs-Bennett, Student If you are working towards a certificate at The National Institute for Genealogical Studies,  the Analysis and Skills Mentoring 1, 2, and 3 courses are required subjects. However, as you will read below, they are also great ways to test if your genealogy methodology and research skills are up to par. I wrote previously about Analysis and Skills Mentoring 1 in this blog post so you can get an idea about that course. This blog post takes a look at both Analysis and Skills Mentoring 2 and 3 because they have the same elements and each one builds upon the other. The main difference between Analysis and Skills Mentoring 1 and the other two courses is that Analysis and Skills Mentoring 2 and 3 require you to transcribe and abstract a document. This can be one of the more difficult assignments for students.  Many feel it is because everyone has a different style of how they transcribe or abstract.  And, while this may be aesthetically true for abstracts, a transcription is a true-to-life copy of the original.  That fact by itself means that if you adhere to the guidelines taught in the course you will be fine.  Abstractions are the ones that I feel can be more difficult.  To me, beyond deleting the boiler point information, it feels almost subjective as to what you should leave in or take out. Beyond the transcription and abstraction, your assignments  include a series of research questions that test the skills you should have learned through the intermediate level (AS 2) and advanced level (AS 3) courses.  I didn’t feel they were too difficult, as long as you take your time and read through everything.  In one instance I rushed through an assignment, but luckily I put it to the side and came back later to review my work before submitting.  There were a couple glaring errors which should have stood out to me the first time!  So big tip: read and the re-read your submissions. All three Analysis and Skills Mentoring courses have a National Genealogical Society Quarterly journal article to read and analyze.  A lot of the students I talked with thought the Analysis and Skills Mentoring 2 reading, Organizing Meager Evidence to Reveal Lineages: An Irish Example-Geddes of Tyrone by Dr. Thomas W Jones, Ph.D., CG, CGL, was a bit harder than the Analysis and Skills Mentoring 3 article,…

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Do you use Panoramio?

If you’ve taken the Google for the Wise Genealogist course you are probably familiar with the mapping/image website Panoramio. Panoramio was a great mapping website for finding images of places and events. Unfortunately, like many great Google products it is closing. Recently, Google sent out an email to those using Panoramio. It reads in part: Back in 2014, we announced our intention to retire Panoramio in order to invest our efforts into improving photo-sharing experiences directly inside Google Maps. In response to your feedback, we postponed these plans and worked to add features to Maps that better support the level of engagement that you have enjoyed with Panoramio. Today, with photo upload tools in Google Maps and our Local Guides program, we are providing easy options for you to share your photos with an active and growing community. As such, we’ve decided to now close down Panoramio. To make this transition easier, we’ll provide several options to continue sharing photos through other services. If you choose, you can also export all your data and take it somewhere else. So, what does this mean if you have an account on Panoramio? Panoramio will be closed in November so you can choose to close your account or if you do nothing and have a Google Account, all photos will be migrated to a Google Photo Archive. Make sure that if you have added photos to Panoramio you download them. Also, go to Panoramio to learn more about this closure. You should have also received an email from Google that explains the closure and other products that take the place of Panoramio.  

New Course: Australian Health Records

What’s new at The National Institute? The course Australian: Health Records! Written by Australian genealogist and author Shauna Hicks, this course looks at how health records can help with family history research. Records for general hospitals, maternity hospitals, asylums, sanatoriums and other health institutions will be looked at together with staff records. In addition, we will explore specific epidemics and medical treatments that our ancestors might have been familiar with. The first offering of this course starts September 5th. To register for this course, please see out website.

Latin and Palaeography

By Shannon Combs-Bennett, Student The next few modules (6, 7, and 8) confused me at first. I wondered why they would be covered in a course about paleography. I mean, how does learning about the church, social life, surnames, or Latin have anything to do with the study of writing? Well, maybe Latin, but the rest I was a bit skeptical of. I did had to think about the meaning of paleography though. Remember my first blog post where I included the definition, as the study of ancient writings and inscriptions? It seems that paleography  covers a lot more than what I originally thought it did. More importantly I appreciate that our instructor went through the various documents we would find with each associated section, common words we should know, as well as basic history for a better understanding and appreciation of the bigger picture. I don’t know about you, but I love getting background information on what it was like during the times my ancestors lived. Those aspects of social history, and being able to place them in a bigger historical context, really helps with my research.  As well as making it very easy to relate to them as a real person. For instance, there is an extensive list of occupations listed which you may come across in historical records. I know I have read manuscripts before and was left totally flummoxed when I would see a word with no idea what it meant. For instance, have you ever heard a butcher called a carnifex?  I sure had not! The last module of the Palaeography: Reading & Understanding Historical Documents covered all the nuances and intricacies that come with the Latin language.  As I never took Latin in school (just a course in college for medical terminology) there was a lot I didn’t know. If you are dealing with Catholic Church records, or especially old court documents, then this is the module you should pay close attention to. We learned about verbs, nouns, names, occupations, calendars, festivals… well, let’s say if you should know it in Latin, we covered it.  I am half tempted to put this section in a binder with plastic sleeves and set it next to my computer for future use in reading documents. I know I have not digested all of the information taught, but I am sure the more I put it into practice the…

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Math and Palaeography

By Shannon-Combs-Bennett, Student Oh dear… math. I am not a math person, and the next three modules of Palaeography: Reading & Understanding Historical Documents proved it. That being said, please understand that numbers, money, and measurements are very important to reading and analyzing manuscripts. So, I muddled through the best I could. Even if it meant I consulted with my husband who has a math degree (and tutored me in several math classes in school) to get me through it. Now, don’t freak out on me. This is important information, I can just be a bit thick when it comes to numbers. You may have an easier time than me.  Especially when making change in the old English way.  You know, before they went to the current decimal system. I bow down to those of you who made change the old fashioned way! This skill, unfortunately, is one that I need to nail down. I read quite a bit of colonial Virginia documents. Guess what? They use the pound / shilling / pence model for taxes and inventories up through the first decade of the 19th century. Now, after the Revolution you can find both the English system and the American dollar and cents shown next to each other in many cases. Fascinating as that may be, I admit that I will be going back to figure out conversion rates and check the math now that I really know how. I particularly enjoyed Module 5 which covered weights and measurements. There were some unique terms I had never heard of before and others that I have read in books but didn’t understand what they meant. Happy to say, I do now! Of particular interest was the difference in miles. Yes, a mile in one place did not equal a mile in another. As an example, look at these historic numbers: 5,280 feet            1 English Mile 5,920 feet            1 Scottish Mile 6,720 feet            1 Irish Mile Can you see how it would be important to know this information if you are researching in the archives of each respective country?  Knowing how these numbers changed and evolved over time could also affect your research if you are trying to plat family areas on a map or determining how far someone traveled. As a biologist, and daughter of a doctor, I have an interest in apothecary history.  As such I have come across different…

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