Advanced Methodology

Optional Print Course Material: Methodology 6 - Professional Preparation and Practice

*Course materials will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

This course examines the specific needs of the researcher-for-hire, touching on a variety of topics including experience and education; a review of research standards; peer-body certification or accreditation; business planning and office organization; the kinds of services to offer; setting fees; and promotion and marketing ideas to heighten your profile.

Professional standards are equally applicable to the serious family historian who wishes to construct proof arguments, write articles or compile a worthy family history.

Important notice: The ME-205 Latin for Genealogists course is a mandatory Methodology course and a prerequisite to ME-302 Palaeography: Reading and Understanding Historical Documents as of 1 January 2025. All students who have not finished the full Basic and Intermediate Methodology Certificates by 31 December 2024 will need to add this course to your program. 

Required Print Course Material: Palaeography Workbook Only

*Course materials will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

Tackle unfamiliar documents spanning the past five hundred years. The primary goal involves transcribing the unfamiliar writing in old documents to the modern-day hand. As Britain had a major influence on the cosmopolitan development of North America, examples will be taken from British and Canadian resources. Introduction to the following topics:

• Writing Materials
  
• Palaeography
  
• Roman Numerals
  
• Currency
  
• The Calendar
  
• The Religious Calendar
  
• Weights and Measures
  
• Origin of Family Names
  
• Social Structure in Britain
  
• Occupations
  
• Introduction to Latin Terminology
  
• Bibliography
  

The workbook provides physical hand/eye coordination practice needed for evaluating antique documents.

Note: This course requires compulsory materials to be ordered. 

1. The book, Carmack's Guide to Copyright & Contracts: A Primer for Genealogists, Writers & Researchers, is available at GenealogyStore.com
   
2. Optional Print Course Material: Genealogy and Copyright Guidelines

*Course materials will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

As genealogists, we must be very careful how we use information or documents we find during our research. The use of certain documents or the publication of information may be restricted in some way. There are many laws―federal, provincial, state and local―that affect the manner in which we can use the information of interest to genealogists. This course covers the area of law which has the most direct impact on genealogical research, copyright law. This law affects the way that you can use copies of other's work, and ways that you can protect your own work.

This course is based on the laws of the United States with a large portion of genealogy companies based in the US, you will need to understand these laws as well as in other countries, although some of the information will not be applicable in your country, the concepts of copyright in most countries are similar. Research copyright laws in your own country to see the limitations that may be imposed upon you.

Optional Print Course Material: Genetics and Medical Family History

*Course materials will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

This course (formerly titled Genetics and Genealogy) is designed to introduce the genealogist to a different way of seeing family tree research — as a source of genetic information. It can be fun to track that characteristic chin through the family, or even lifesaving to document ancestors and cousins with diabetes or cancer. The course will cover a bit on traits (i.e. genes), pedigree drawing and describing relationships, recognizing simple hereditary patterns and the reason they occur, basic rules for ethically assembling a medical pedigree, and common sources used to uncover physical traits. Upon completing the course, the student should be able to gather and evaluate basic genealogical sources, have some knowledge of what traits are and how they are inherited, and draw a simple medical pedigree to show a physician.

Note: This course requires compulsory materials to be ordered.

1. Board for Certification of Genealogists, Genealogy Standards, 2nd edition revised (Nashville, Tennessee: Ancestry, 2021).
2. Jones, Thomas W., Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013).

Optional Print Course Material: Analysis and Skills Mentoring Part 3

*Course materials will only be sent to students who are registered in the course. Additional Optional Supplies: 

1. Mills, Elizabeth Shown, editor, Professional Genealogy: A manual for researchers, writers, editors, lecturers and librarians (2001; reprint, Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 2012).
2. Cite Your Sources Package - Includes Elizabeth Shown Mills' Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian, QuickSheet: Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images Evidence! Style, QuickSheet: Citing Online Historical Resources Evidence! Style, and QuickSheet: Citing Genetic Sources for History Research Evidence! Style.

The Analysis and Skills Mentoring Program-Part 3 is designed to prepare you for the challenges and high standards required of a professional genealogist. The term “professional” includes the serious-minded genealogist who wants to achieve a professional standard of excellence in the quality of their family’s genealogy as well as those in the profession. This course is a continuation of problem-solving skills discussed in Part 2. Constructing a proof argument and participating in a group discussion of a scholarly article are integral to the program. The reading materials covered in the previous courses, Parts 1 & 2, will be referenced as well as some new information.