Summer 2022: still room in virtual genealogy courses at GRIP

Some courses for the July 10-15, 2022 Virtual Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) filled when registration opened in February. Others still have some openings including the one described below.

Each year, I coordinate the “Digging Deeper: Records, Tools, and Skills” course. Cyndi Ingle, Debbie Mieszala, and Cari Taplin join me in this online course as instructors and consultants. We are busy preparing an extensive syllabus, class content, hands-on exercises, and some other tools. Let me know if you have any questions about the week. View the course details at https://www.gripitt.org/courses/digging_deeper/. As it says on the course page,

Have you progressed past the beginning stages of researching your family history?
Maybe you have researched online but know there must be more elsewhere or that you have missed some online resources?
Do you need a stronger foundation before taking advanced or specialized courses?
Are you not yet comfortable with in-depth evaluation of documents and setting up research plans?

We teach about some specific records, how to find and use them, and the background details on how some came about. Tools and techniques for the “Digging Deeper” run through the week. Analysis of individual records is a big part of the Monday morning sessions and pertains to many of the week’s sessions. Then the students are broken into small online groups to work together on a project involving such analysis, research planning, and some research based on that. The virtual format of GRIP works well for this process. Your small group stays together at times during the week. On Thursday, each group reports on the analysis, planning, and research. The kicker? Each group operates based on the same document that is provided on Monday. It’s a sort of competition between groups to see which one does the best analysis and uses their best knowledge and methodology to find the best, surprising, shocking, or intriguing information on the individual or family related to the document. You will surprise yourself at what you do know and what you glean from working with others in your group.

We interact with the students all day, even at breaks and during the lunch hour. Bring your questions, ask them after each class, at breaks, or type them into the chat box. The chat box is also where students love to suggest additional records and websites for us all. When one instructor is teaching, another may add something in the chat box for all to see. We have a tech support person assigned to us and I highly approve of this person. I don’t think the names of the support personnel have been released yet. This person keeps us on time, arranges for break-out groups, and lets us know what is going on in the chat box.

The course has an extra 45 minutes at the end of the day on Monday-Thursday to review and discuss student submitted genealogy problems. In early April, registrants in this course will receive an email describing how to submit one of their genealogy issues that needs some additional eyes and minds. The submitted issues are included in the syllabus. The other students and the consultant of the day review these before the day it is presented live. Then the consultants will provide tips, websites, record ideas, and other things to direct the student to finding answers. This time is also open for other students to suggest ideas. In past years, a way to solve an issue has come from other students, a consultant, and some people have recognized common ancestral families!

Go sign up today and join the hundreds of past students who have benefitted from this course. Please let others know about it.

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