Learning Genealogy Round Up: February 2013

This Learning Genealogy Round Up is the first in a new series of monthly genealogy education previews presented by The In-Depth Genealogist. Each month I’ll feature an assortment of news, events, and announcements to highlight upcoming opportunities to learn more about genealogy.

 

GRIP Registration Opens February 7

The Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP), will open registration for its 2013 courses on Thursday, February 7, at 12:00 noon Eastern Time (11 am Central Time, 10 am Mountain Time, 9 am Pacific Time). The institute will be held July 21-26. Six courses, led by the following coordinators, are being offered:

• Intermediate Genealogy: Tools for Digging Deeper (Paula Stuart-Warren, CG, FMGS, FUGA)
• Determining Kinship Reliably with the Genealogical Proof Standard (Thomas W. Jones, Ph.D., CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA, FNGS)
• Bridging the 1780-1840 Gap: From New England to the Midwest (D. Joshua Taylor, MA, MLS)
• Your Immigrant Ancestors’ Stories: Writing a Quality Narrative (John Philip Colletta, Ph.D., FUGA)
• Advanced Land Research: Locating, Analyzing, Mapping (Rick Sayre, CG, CGL, and Pam Sayre, CG, CGL)
• Military Records: From Cradle to Grave (Craig R. Scott, CG)

You’ll find full course descriptions on the GRIP website.

GRIP welcomed its first students in 2012. The institute is held on the campus of LaRoche College in Pittsburgh. Private and shared dormitory rooms are available for students, and all meals are included in the on-campus price. Directors Deborah Lichtner Deal and Elissa Scalise Powell, CG, CGL, head a dedicated and distinguished faculty. In addition to the coordinators listed above, the faculty includes Michael Hait, CG, Angela Packer McGhie, and Debra Mieszala, CG. The small campus environment is ideal for student-faculty interaction, and a variety of free evening classes complement the daytime sessions.

Tip: Some courses at GRIP are expected to fill quickly—possibly within minutes—so you may want to have two choices ready on registration day. If one of your choices is full, you can elect to put your name on the wait list for a spot that might open up later. I attended GRIP last summer and felt it was well worth the time and money spent. I enjoyed the chance to improve my research skills in a challenging week-long course, as well as the camaraderie of others with a passion for genealogy.

Webinar Watch

DearMYRTLE, creator of the GeneaWebinars blog and calendar, has announced she will begin offering “Trend-Driven” Workshop Webinars. As she observed in a recent post, “there is no one presenting webinars on ‘trending’ topics within a week or so of the observed need.” To fill this need, she announced she “will schedule trending-driven content webinars perhaps no more than a month out, based on ‘trends’ I notice among genealogists using a variety of social media services.” You can read her full post here.

Among DearMYRTLE’s first offerings are webinars on the new Evidentia software program, meta-data, and the use of facial recognition with ancestor photos on Picasa. She is also planning to do a series of webinars based on Tom Jones’ soon-to-be-released workbook, Mastering Genealogical Proof. The series is tentatively scheduled to begin March 17, subject to the book’s publication date. She will keep those who register for the sessions informed about any schedule changes.

For more information on these webinars—as well as a wide variety of webinars presented by genealogical societies, companies, and individual speakers—check the GeneaWebinars blog.

Tip: There are a number of promising webinars scheduled for February, so check the GeneaWebinars calendar to see if some of them interest you. Watch for an overview of 2013 webinar offerings in the “Gen Ed” column in the March issue of  Going In-Depth, the new monthly digital magazine from The In-Depth Genealogist.

On the Conference Circuit

Registration is now underway for a number of local, state, regional, and national genealogy conferences. Thomas MacEntee recently announced that Geneabloggers has formed a partnership with Conference Keeper, a new online conference directory service created by Jen Baldwin of Ancestral Journeys. (Jen is also the newly announced Director of Operations for The In-Depth Genealogist.) Conference Keeper lists state, regional, national, and international genealogy conferences in one convenient location.

The “Gen Ed” column in the February 15 issue of Going In-Depth magazine will highlight three upcoming conferences in detail:

• RootsTech: coming up March 21-23 in Salt Lake City, Utah;
• New England Regional Genealogical Consortium (NERGC): scheduled for April 17-21 in Manchester, New Hampshire; and
• The NGS Family History Conference: to be held May 8-11 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

 

Other major March and April genealogy events include:

• APG Professional Management Conference: scheduled March 19-20 in Salt Lake City, Utah;
• 2013 Forensic Genealogy Institute: to be held April 11-13 in Dallas, Texas; and
• Ohio Genealogical Society Conference: coming up April 25-27 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

 

Call for Papers

The Ohio Genealogical Society has issued a call for papers for its 2014 Conference, “Genealogical Expedition,” scheduled for April 30-May 4, 2014 in Sandusky, Ohio. Deadline for submissions is June 30, 2013. For details, see their website.

Tip: If you’re interested in attending one of the large conferences and want to stay in the conference hotel at a specially negotiated rate, try to make your hotel reservation early, as the rooms can sell out. Also watch the pre-registration deadline if you’re interested in signing up for luncheons, workshops, or special events.

 

Until next month, enjoy learning genealogy!

Shelley Bishop