Thanks to Pam Sayre for her great guest blog post!
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I gave my husband Rick a new
iMac for his birthday recently. As a Mac convert, I cannot stop proselytizing
about Apple products and their ease of use. Still, there was a learning curve
for me, and Rick is now experiencing a totally different way of doing things.
So we did what new and experienced genealogists alike should do—we took a class.
We went into a very busy Apple store staffed by enthusiastic knowledgeable people.
With equipment and questions in hand, we grilled them for the entire scheduled hour
and a half. Rick learned his way around the new interface and how to access
some fairly complicated tools that lie buried. I learned easier ways to do things
I had been doing the hard way.
Genealogy is a lot like this. We
struggle along on our own and spend inordinate amounts of time gathering
materials. We measure our experience in years, not in what we actually know. I
once heard someone say she had been doing genealogy for twenty years, and in
the next sentence she marveled at learning that she didn’t have to search every
single deed in a book—if she used the index instead.
SLIG is to genealogists what the
Apple Store is to Mac users: a place to come and sit down and feel comfortable
watching the experts and geniuses show you how easy something is, or how a difficult
problem might be resolved. It’s a friendly place where
you’ll talk to the person next to you and commiserate over brick walls. It’s a
happy place where you’ll make new friends and quickly find someone to share
lunch or dinner with and maybe even a hotel room at next year’s institute.
Every single course at SLIG will teach you something you didn’t even know you
needed, and you’ll go home each night with your head full of new knowledge and
possibilities for how you can rethink your research projects.
Who among us couldn’t benefit by
learning some intermediate skills from a master like Paula Warren and her
extraordinary instructors? And who could resist the wit and wisdom of John
Colletta, a joyful collaboration of a course where students will learn to work
with original records beyond those found in a library. There are still a few
openings in the above courses and Kory Meyerink’s Midwestern United States
course or Welsh Research with Darris Williams or Swedish Research with Geoffrey
Morris. Come snow or shine, we’ll be absorbing knowledge all day from top-notch
instructors. Toward the end of the day, just as we are beginning to tire, we’ll
be freed from class to dash right over to the Family History Library. No matter
how tired a genealogist is, when given the opportunity to go on a treasure hunt
in the records the exhaustion evaporates and he somehow finds the endurance to
close down the library.
Like that Apple store, there’s
an excitement and a sense of urgency and just plain fun at Salt Lake Institute
of Genealogy. The youthful demographic is represented ably by Josh Taylor,
coordinator of the New England course. Apple’s Genius Bar concept is present at
SLIG, too, in Judith Hansen’s Problem Solving course where students work on
their own research issues. For those with more experience who are ready to
really dig in, advanced courses such as Tom Jones’s Advanced Genealogical
Methods, Angela McGhie’s Advanced Evidence Analysis Practicum, and Rick and Pam
Sayre’s Land Records offer in-depth knowledge.
You’ll learn a lot at SLIG, and
you’ll leave with a happy satisfaction and excitement at the prospect of using
your new tools. And if you missed the course you wanted this year because it
sold out early, get ready to register for the 2013 institute as soon as
registration opens. See you at SLIG!
