In Praise of Study Groups

-

Study Group, courtesy of OpenClipart

 

Desperation drove me to my first study group at university. A fellow student invited me, and the group swapped ideas about how to remember the masses of information we were given in an early-morning class. It really helped all of us, I think, and I was grateful. 

South King County Genealogical Society incorporated as "educational in character and devoted exclusively to furthering genealogical research and interest in family and local history." We offer lots of choices, and discuss other educational opportunities here in the blog. See Barbara Mattoon's series on "Your Genealogy Education Plan, Parts One and Two," along with many other discussions of podcasts, seminars, videos, books, conferences. 


Copyright 2016 Blaine T. Bettinger
Debbie Parker Wayne

When some of us found Blaine Bettinger and Debbie Parker Wayne's book Genetic Genealogy in Practice and began discussing it in our Genetic Genealogy/DNA group, the idea arose of beginning a study group around that book. So we all purchased or re-read the book, and began to complete the "exercises" at the end of each chapter, and discuss our answers. In order to keep the discussions from flooding the GG/DNA group, we created a Study-Group early in 2021. We had never had a study group before, and it worked for us!


Copyright 2013 by Thomas W. Jones
This first study was successful if difficult, so later in 2021 we chose a second book, Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones. There are other GenProof study groups going on around the county, I'm happy to say. Again, exploring each part of the Genealogical Proof Standard and finishing the exercises was challenging for all of us. I think I speak for the group, however, in saying that we are all happy that we tackled these concepts and practiced, and are all more proficient and better genealogists than when we started. 




Copyright 2007 Elizabeth Shown Mills
Writing citations, however, was still difficult for many of us. I began to see the advice to read and study the first two chapters of Elizabeth Shown Mills' Evidence Explained so I proposed this as our next study group. The first two were SKCGS Members-only, but we decided to open these two summer 2022 sessions to one and all. There are no questions at the end of each chapter, we make up our own and discussed how to apply the concepts to our own work. We had lots of visitors to these sessions and may do it the same way again.




Copyright 2018 Diana Elder & FamilyLocketGenealogists LLC

I am so thankful for those who proposed and advocated for Diana Elder AG with Nicole Dyer's Research Like A Pro. This book has forever changed the way I approach genealogical research, and deepened my friendships with those who researched, celebrated and commiserated through this six-month study. I know so much more about my second-great-grandfather William McBee now than I ever dreamed possible, although I still do not know when and where he died. Someday I will find the evidence! Many of us ended up feeling the same way - not entirely successful, but having made huge progress. 


Copyright 2021 FamilyLocket

Now, we are in the midst of studying and working through Diana Elder, Nicole E. Dyer, and Robin Wirthlin's Research Like a Pro with DNA: A Genealogist's Guide to Finding and Confirming Ancestors with DNA Evidence. Adding in DNA evidence makes the research more complicated, of course. And we're all learning how best to contact and work with our matches, evaluate the DNA evidence along with the documents and stories we've found, and more practice keeping track of the research and citing those new sources. 


Study Groups Are Treasure Maps

This has been a thrilling ride when I step back and look over all of it. All of us who participated have learned new techniques, new vocabulary, and how to use tools we would have never dared use before. More importantly, we have all strengthened our practice as genealogy researchers, and have found joy in collaborating with our fellow family historians.

If you have a chance to start or participate in a study group, take my advice and Do It! And if you have an idea of what our SKCGS group should study next, tell us.

You can see records of all the SKCGS study groups on our wiki page: https://skcgs.groups.io/g/Study-Group/wiki



Valorie Zimmerman


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Looking for a Needle in a Haystack? GAME CHANGER at FamilySearch

-
Image
Generated with Bing ImageCreator (AI), March 13, 2024 Where is YOUR Needle, Your Missing Record? Genealogical Proof Standard When we use the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) as our guide, we all know that "exhaustive research" can be both tedious and exhausting. Is life long enough to search page by page through all the counties where all the members of a family might have lived, paid taxes, bought, leased or sold property, made a will or died intestate? It is possible that the new Full Text Search at FamilySearch will  eventually  allow us to do just that. It has been estimated that 75% or more of the records at FamilySearch were browsable but not searchable; the only indexes those found in the records themselves. Those records are certainly attainable by using those indexes and browsing to the record of interest, but the process is tedious, often frustrating, and slow. And once found, the record must be read and transcribed to be useful. This new Full Text Search tackles a...
Read more

What's the Question?

-
Image
We genealogists are often told by experienced researchers how important it is to begin with a research question. I resisted doing this for a long time, but now that I use a series of questions to guide my research, the search is more focused and actually finds more of the history of the family I'm investigating. I use a Google Doc as the  research proceeds, where I keep the question(s), the plan, timelines, checklist of resources to search, etc. all in one place. I've seen others use spreadsheets in the same way, perhaps splitting up things in tabs (Excel or Google Sheets). I prefer a document because I add source citations as I find them and I can begin writing up the case right there in the doc as the hypotheses are proven. Specific Questions in Previous Successes As beginners we often have no clue how much and what details we already know about a person, event or relationship, so it's hard to specify what we want to know. But when looking back at successful research, it ...
Read more

Help Save This Abused and Neglected Cemetery

-
Image
Screen capture from Google Maps History In an exchange of emails this past week in both the main SKCGS group, and in the Washington-State-Genealogy group, many facts were revealed about the history of the I.O.O.F. Comet Lodge Cemetery, also known as the Old Burying Ground, the Georgetown Cemetery, the Graham Street Burying Ground and maybe more.  FindAGrave sums it up this way: "Since it was established in 1881, the Comet Lodge cemetery site has been whittled away to less than half its original 5 acres. Records are sketchy but it's safe to say that some 500 pioneers were buried here, atop unknown numbers of native Duwamish people. New burials ended in the 1930s. Since then, homes and streets were built on top of many of the plots as the neighborhood around the cemetery grew.  "Upkeep and ownership of the cemetery bounced between the city, civic groups, relatives of Comet Lodge residents, and nearby neighbors. For years, much of the property was allowed to deteriorate int...
Read more