SLIG 2025: Advanced New England Research: From the Colonial Period to the Early 1900s

Join D. Joshua Taylor, MA, MLS, FUGA in his course during SLIG 2025.

Beginning with the colonial period and moving to the 1900s, this course offers an in-depth look at New England research, specifically focusing on advanced methodologies and underused sources. Individual sessions will provide a deeper historical and social context for those tracing New England families, providing specific resources for each Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Other Instructors

• Scott Andrew Bartley
• Catherine B. W. Desmarais, CG
• Diane Florence Gravel, CG
• Janice Lovelace, PhD

Advanced New England Research: From the Colonial Period to the Early 1900s will be held virtually during SLIG week January 27 - 31, 2025.

View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other SLIG 2024 courses opens at 10:00 a.m. MDT on June 22, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or login to view your account here. 

Dr. John Philip Colletta Returns from Retirement to Help Students Memorialize Their Family History!!

 

(Salt Lake City, UT 1 June 2024) -- The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) is thrilled to announce that the esteemed Dr. John Colletta will briefly come out of retirement to teach alongside Karen Stanbary and her faculty in Karen's new SLIG Fall Virtual 2024 course, "Memorializing Your Family History--From Intimidation to Empowerment!!!"

Dr. Colletta, renowned for his passion and energetic teaching style, captivates audiences with his vivid storytelling! Despite official retirement, he has graciously agreed to participate and lead several sessions, bringing his enthusiasm for teaching and writing to this exciting new educational course!   About John Philip Colletta, Ph.D. For 40 years John Philip Colletta, Ph.D., has been helping family historians discover and write the stories of their ancestors. After working at the Library of Congress and teaching programs at the Smithsonian Institution and National Archives, he became a popular lecturer at NGS and FGS national conferences and a faculty member of the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (U. of Georgia) and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. His publications include many articles, both scholarly and popular; two manuals, Finding Italian Roots and They Came in Ships; a murder mystery/family history, Only a Few Bones (the second edition includes instruction on how to write narrative family history); and a great course titled “Discovering Your Roots” available from The Teaching Company. The recipient of professional awards and honors, Dr. Colletta resides in Washington, D.C., where he earned his doctorate at the Catholic University of America. Seats for this course will sell out quickly! Click here to secure your seat today! Click here to secure your seat today!

SLIG 2025: African American Genealogy Methods and Strategies

Join LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG, CGL, FASG  in her course during SLIG 2025.

This course is designed to be a skillbuilding experience that will take researchers to the next level by focusing on both methodologies and strategies for meeting the Genealogical Proof Standard when researching families that survived slavery. In-class exercises and a focus on case studies will arm students with the conceptual tools needed to overcome the challenges of researching during the antebellum period.

Other Instructors

• Deborah A. Abbot, PhD
• Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL
• Richard G. Sayre, CG, FUGA
• Diane M. Warmsley, MS
• Scott Wilds, CG

African American Genealogy Methods and Strategies will be held virtually during SLIG week January 27 - 31, 2025.

View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other SLIG 2024 courses opens at 10:00 a.m. MDT on June 22, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or login to view your account here. 

Congratulations to Cierra Grove, Winner of the SLIG Foundations Scholarship!

 

As the scholarship recipient, Cierra will be enrolled in SLIG Fall Virtual Course 5: Foundations: The Research Process, coordinated by Annette Burke Lyttle, MA, CG.

Cierra is an aspiring genealogist from Spokane, Washington. She discovered genealogy while she was homeschooled, and spent most of her free time researching her maternal family line. While she made many mistakes in the beginning of her genealogy journey, she is now rigorously applying her research skills, creativity, and analysis to her family history.  Now in her 30’s, Cierra is finishing her BS in Biology and BA in English at Eastern Washington University. While in community college, she was selected as an awardee for the Transforming Lives award. In 2024, she received funding from the NIH as one of four MARC (Maximizing Access to Research Careers) scholars at Washington State University. Her future goal is to work in higher education, become an accredited genealogist, and bring genealogy courses to the libraries and community colleges in Spokane. Congratulations, Cierra! Winners of additional SLIG scholarships will be announced in the coming weeks.

SLIG Fall Virtual 2024: Ontario and Quebec: Researching the Foundations of Canada

Join Kathryn Lake Hogan, UE, PLCGS in her course during SLIG Fall Virtual 2024.

Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Canada West and Canada East. Ontario and Quebec. These are two of the foundational provinces of the Dominion of Canada since the arrival of explorers to these shores over four hundred years ago. In this hands-on course, students will gain a better understanding of the geography, history and people of Ontario and Quebec by examining and discussing various federal and provincial records.

Student objectives include:

• identifying the religious denominations of their ancestors in Canada
• learning about the seigneurial land system, Crown land records and the Ontario Land Registry system, and determining if their ancestor owned property
• examining the colonial, provincial or federal military records
• determining if their ancestor was a desired immigrant to Canada
• discovering reasons people crossed the Canada-USA border and why they may have been denied entry into Canada
• exploring repositories, archives and websites for Ontario and Quebec research.

New skills will be gained through working with original records and participation in weekly class and group activities. Homework assignments and discussions will enhance students’ experiences and success in this course. Written feedback will be provided on weekly homework assignments. Students can expect to spend up to five hours per week on homework assignments.

Other Instructors

• Luana Darby, MLIS, AG
• Christine Woodcock

This course will be held on Thursdays from September 12th to November 14th, 2024 from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm MDT.

 View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other Fall Virtual 2024 courses opens at 12:00 pm MDT on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or login to view your account here. 

SLIG Fall Virtual 2024: Memorializing Family History—From Intimidation to Empowerment

Join Karen Stanbary, LCSW, AM, CG, CGG in her course during SLIG Fall Virtual 2024.

Genealogists value the power and legacy of the written word. We all love to research. Some love to write. Others, fueled by intimidation and self-doubt, guiltily procrastinate the writing, secretly hoping for a miracle. This course may just be the beginning of a miracle.

Karen Stanbary will share her passion for storytelling. Trained as a clinician, she will blast away your writing obstacles and empower you to finally memorialize the stories that deserve to be preserved.

This all-new course adapts the successful structure widely applauded in national writing workshops, making it a bit gentler.

Students select from the following topics:

• Document one event in the life of a recently deceased ancestor such as a beloved parent or grandparent. Employing a deep dive into documentary sources, the writing will pinpoint the event within a historical context.
• Document the oral history about a treasured family heirloom. The writing will tell the story while stressing the meaning of the piece to the family. Documentary sources will add texture to the tale.
• Document your ancestor's participation in a specific military engagement, incorporating images as possible.
• Document the historical context and the story hidden within a family photograph.

Between classes, students will engage in anonymous peer review and will edit their work with a focus on creative, but tight writing. The final piece is intended to preserve the stories down through generations.

This course will be held on Mondays from September 30 to November 4, 2024 (no class October 14th) from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm MDT.

 View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other Fall Virtual 2024 courses opens at 12:00 pm MDT on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or login to view your account here. 

SLIG Fall Virtual 2024: Introduction to Genetic Genealogy

Join Paul Woodbury, MEd, AG in his course during SLIG Fall Virtual 2024.

In this hands-on course, students will master the basics of genetic genealogy research through hands-on application in a variety of investigative contexts. They will create testing plans incorporating such elements as which individuals to test, the types of tests to take and the companies to be used. They will also evaluate chances of success and needs for additional testing for a research objective given a set of test results, develop research plans given a set of DNA test results, and learn to abide by genetic genealogy ethics and standards. Participants will practice basic interpretation of Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, X-DNA, and autosomal DNA evidence within the context of traditional document research and evaluation of Y-DNA and mtDNA.

Students will identify and evaluate likely relationships based on shared autosomal DNA and tree data, as well as explore possible sources of shared DNA for X-DNA matches. They will also interpret ethnicity reports for Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and autosomal DNA test results and formulate estimates regarding ethnic origins of the first few generations of ancestry. Additional skills participants will gain will include performing modern research, creating “quick and dirty” trees in the pursuit of an objective, collaborating and corresponding with genetic cousins, correctly citing genetic genealogy sources, organizing research to enable discovery, evaluating which approaches and methodologies would be best to utilize in a given research case, and incorporating DNA evidence into genealogical proof arguments.

Students will receive written feedback on weekly homework assignments, in-class lab assistance, and a 15-minute DNA consultation to review a DNA goal, related results, and outline a research plan. (Consultations will be conducted outside of regular classroom hours by appointment.)

Other Instructors

• Angie Bush, MS
• Melissa A. Johnson, CG
• Gretchen Jorgensen
• Leah Larkin, PhD
• Dana Leeds
• Karen Stanbary, LCSW, AM, CG
• Tanner Blair Tolman, AG

This course will be held on Wednesdays from October 2 to 30, 2024 from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm MDT.

 View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other Fall Virtual 2024 courses opens at 12:00 pm MDT on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or login to view your account here. 

SLIG Fall Virtual 2024: Advanced Evidence Analysis Practicum

Join Angela Packer McGhie, CG, FUGA in her course during SLIG Fall Virtual 2024.

This course provides an opportunity for advanced genealogists to gain hands-on experience solving tough cases. They challenge themselves as they put their research skills into practice. Participants work on five complex genealogical research problems — a new one each week. The objective is to give students experience in conducting research on complex problems, analyzing and correlating information, and writing conclusions.

Participants will practice using indirect evidence, broadening research to include the FAN club, resolving conflicts, and organizing evidence into a written summary. The research problems are varied, offering students the challenge of stretching their minds and skills in directions that their research may not have taken them. Participants will work individually on each of the cases and then gather to discuss their progress with classmates and the instructor. They will compare sources, strategies, and methodologies, discuss difficulties encountered, and receive guidance from the case study author.

This course is designed for advanced genealogists who have sufficient experience and education to work on complex genealogical problems. Most students plan 15-20 hours per week to work on the cases and write up a summary of their findings.

Case Study Instructors

• Kimball Carter, CG
• Jay Fonkert, CG
• Robbie Johnson, CG
• Scott Wilds, CG
• Paul Woodbury, MEd, AG

This course will be held on Thursdays from September 19 to October 24, 2024 from 12:00 to 2:00 pm MDT.

 View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other Fall Virtual 2024 courses opens at 12:00 pm MDT on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or login to view your account here. 

SLIG Fall Virtual 2024: Assemblage: Preparing, Writing, and Revising Case Studies

Join Jan Joyce, DBA, CG, CGL, AG in her course during SLIG Fall Virtual 2024.

You’re a good writer and a great researcher. You have been told that by mentors, instructors, peers, and probably your family! But then why does it seem like sometimes your written product doesn’t work? Perhaps it is a case study, a client report, or a family narrative. It may have been during a course, peer study group or institute setting that you struggled with putting it all together. If this sounds like you, then this course could be what you seek.

Simply stated, it is titled assemblage. It is the writing, splicing, dicing, editing, and piecing together of your case studies—and other writing—for your research. Whether your challenge lies in constructing a meticulous case study, refining a client report, or shaping the tales into a family narrative, "Assemblage" provides the quintessential environment for you writing to flourish. You will not only refine your writing skills but also master the craft of editing, which is vital in producing a polished and cogent piece. Students may want to take this course for a variety of reasons, which may include:

• Prepare for certification through BCG or accreditation through ICAPGen.
• Fine-tune articles for submissions to journals.
• Enhance client report writing.
• Craft work for sharing with family.
• Write proof of kinships and attach to online family trees.

Other Instructors

• Shannon Green, CG
• Cynthia Heidorn
• Debra Koehler
• Kim Richardson

This course will be held on Wednesdays from October 9 to November 20, 2024 from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm MDT.

 View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other Fall Virtual 2024 courses opens at 12:00 pm MDT on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or login to view your account here. 

SLIG Fall Virtual 2024: Foundations: The Research Process

 Join Annette Burke Lyttle, MA in her course during SLIG Fall Virtual 2024. 

The goal of this course is to help students understand the genealogical research process in order to be able to research efficiently and effectively and to produce reliable answers to research questions. Students choose a research project of their own to work on throughout the course, and weekly homework assignments allow students to immediately practice skills they are learning. Every step of the research process is covered: formulating a useful research question, assembling and analyzing starting point information, researching the locality of the target ancestor, constructing a research plan, understanding source citations, logging and organizing research, analysis and correlation, and writing up results. The course also includes mind mapping to visualize information, how to know when the question has been answered reliably, and what to do if the research plan doesn’t provide an answer. A session on AI tools for genealogy provides a glimpse into the future. Two workshops and the opportunity for one-on-one consultations with instructors provide students with the chance to engage with the faculty and each other about the research process. This is a companion course to Foundations: Methods and Records.

Other Instructors:

• Fiona Brooker
• Amy Larner Giroux, PhD, CG, CGL
• Shannon Green, CG
• Sharon Hoyt, CG
• Nancy A. Peters, CG, CGL
• Ari Wilkins

This course will be held on Thursdays, September 12–November 14, 2024, from 3:00 to 6:30 p.m. MDT. 

View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other Fall Virtual 2024 courses opens at 12:00 pm MDT on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or login to view your account here. 

SLIG Fall Virtual 2024: Slava Ukraini! Genealogical Research in Ukraine

 Join coordinator Joseph B. Everett and his team for a NEW course during SLIG Fall Virtual 2024. 

Students in Slava Ukraini! Genealogical Research in Ukraine will develop an understanding of the records and research methods for tracing families in this region, and learn skills in searching, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from records from Ukraine and the historical jurisdictions that became part of it. The course includes instruction and practice in the Cyrillic alphabet and handwriting, progressing to guided analysis of various source documents. Students will also learn about the historical and geographical context of the region, methods for tracing immigrant origins, and how to navigate to relevant records. This course is for those researching their own family history or who have clients or library patrons with heritage from lands that are now part of Ukraine It is also for those who are interested in broadening their research knowledge for potential future research in this area. The emphasis will be on tracing Christian and Jewish families.

Students will learn best who already possess an intermediate to advanced knowledge of genealogical research methods and standards in general. No prior knowledge of Ukrainian research or the Ukrainian or Russian language is required to succeed in the course, however participants will come prepared with at least a rudimentary knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet by completing the pre-course packet. Participants who already have a degree of Ukrainian research proficiency will benefit by reinforcing their abilities while developing new knowledge and skills in paleography, accessing resources, and research methods.

Other Instructors

• Michelle Tucker Chubenko
• Lara Diamond
• Justin K. Houser, JD
• Ellen Kowitt
• Greg Nelson
• Sandy Schilling Payne
• Tadeusz Pilat, MLIS, AG

Slava Ukarini! will be held during SLIG Fall Virtual 2024, meeting on Wednesdays, September 11–November 13, from 10:00 am–2:00 pm MDT. View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other Fall Virtual 2024 courses opens at 12:00 pm MDT on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or log in to review your account here.

Registration for SLIG Fall Virtual 2024 Begins 18 May 2024

 

Registration for SLIG Fall Virtual will open on May 18, 2024, at 12:00 p.m. MDT.   If you don’t already have an account with our registration system, please create one BEFORE registration opens on May 18. We recommend doing this at least 24 hours before registration opens – in other words, please do this ASAP! You can set up your account at the SLIG registration page by clicking the link below.

Access the SLIG Registration Page Here

Course Offerings

Course 1: An Advanced Study of Death: Cemeteries, Death Records, and Material Culture, coordinated by Gena Philibert-Ortega, MA, MAR Course 2: Memorializing Family History—From Intimidation to Empowerment, coordinated by Karen Stanbary, LCSW, AM, CG Course 3: Ontario and Quebec: Researching the Foundations of Canada, coordinated by Kathryn Lake Hogan, UE, PLCGS Course 4: Slava Ukraini! Genealogical Research in Ukraine, coordinated by Joseph B. Everett, MLS, AG Course 5: Foundations: The Research Process, coordinated by Annette Burke Lyttle, MA Course 6: Assemblage: Preparing, Writing, and Revising Case Studies, coordinated by Jan Joyce, DBA, CG, CGL, AG Course 7: Advanced Evidence Analysis Practicum, coordinated by Angela Packer McGhie, CG, FUGA Course 8: Introduction to Genetic Genealogy, coordinated by Paul Woodbury, MEd, AG

Read Full Descriptions for SLIG Fall Virtual 2024 Courses Here

Tips to Ensure Registration Goes Smoothly

Join UGA or renew your UGA membership at least 24 hours before registration. Create or log in to your SLIG registration account—this is different from your UGA account—at least 24 hours before registration. Please confirm that your information is still current (name, address, phone number, email address, etc.) and update as necessary. Review these SLIG policies you must agree to when registering: Code of Ethics and Conduct Privacy Registration and Cancellation Does your desired course have pre-requisites? Do you meet them? Learn about the prerequisites for your desired SLIG Fall Virtual course here... Have a second choice in mind in case your first choice fills up quickly.

We look forward to seeing you in one of our courses during the 2024-25 program year! Sincerely, The SLIG Committee

SLIG Fall Virtual 2024: An Advanced Study of Death: Cemeteries, Death Records, and Material Culture

 Join Gena Philibert-Ortega in her NEW course during SLIG Fall Virtual 2024. 

Death is a well-known subject for genealogists. To better understand our ancestor's lives, we study their deaths. But, like with any topic, understanding death and the records it produces is complex. Study into its complexity can help us better understand what records to expect and what not to expect. It also helps us understand and trace ancestral lives.

Unlike the typical genealogical treatment of the subject, this course takes an in-depth look at death records, social history, and material culture. We will spend time exploring records and learning more about the history of the recording of death. Students will come away with a better understanding of familiar records, the ability to identify unusual records, and how to research their ancestors beyond online databases.

Other Instructors

• KB Barcomb
• Elise Madeleine Ciregna, PhD
• Marian Pierre-Louis
• Lori Lyn Price, MAS, MLA
• Amy Urman

We look forward to seeing you in this course, which will be held on Saturdays from September 14–November 16, from 10:30 am–2:00 pm MDT. View the complete course schedule here.

Registration for this course and other Fall Virtual 2024 courses opens at 12:00 pm MDT on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

To prepare for registration, create or log in to review your account here.