Monday, July 19, 2010

England Beginning Research Series on FamilySearch.org

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A friend asked me "how can I learn about genealogy records and doing research in England?" I told her that the LDS FamilySearch "Online Classes" site had a number of easy-to-use informational and educational videos available.

They are on http://www.familysearch.org/ - you can get to them by clicking on "Research Helps" and selecting "Online Classes." There is also a "Free Online Classes" link on the http://www.familysearch.org/ home page.

The page looks like this:



There are quite a few video series now available on this site. The five English classes include:

Lesson 1: Research Overview (30 minutes) - Video ; Class outline (pdf)

Lesson 2: Census Records (25 minutes) - Video ; Class outline (pdf)

Lesson 3: Civil Registration (35 minutes) - Video ; Class outline (pdf)

Lesson 4: Church Records (25 minutes) - Video ; Class outline (pdf)

Lesson 5: Find Your Ancestors (35 minutes) - Video ; Class outline (pdf)

There are also class handouts that cover the entire series - see Finding Records of Your Ancestors England (pdf) and England Beginning Research Series Web Sites (pdf)

I found the videos and class outlines to be pretty basic, but that's what is needed for beginning researchers. I found an easy way to watch the videos and see the larger class outline simultaneously - open two windows. This does require changing the slides manually, but it kept me focused:



Or, if you don't want to listen to the speaker, you can just page through the class outline and read the information that she talks about on the slides.

If you are looking for a good beginning course on England, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Russia or US genealogy research, Reading Handwritten Records (in a number of languages), or Research Principles and Tools, these free online classes are pretty good.

They provide an excellent balance between offline research and online research methods and tools.

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