Genealogy

The Genealogy Diploma Course is your guide on the journey; teaching you where and how to find relevant information in your search and what to do with it to keep you organised and help you find out even more.

Your Surname

Surnames are important to each and every one of us before we start researching family trees. Understanding the background to surnames will establish a good overview of genealogy.

Recording your Sources

Recording your research is vital because while it might not seem important when you first start researching your family, the larger your family tree grows the less likely you are to remember where all your information came from.

Researching your Family Tree

When you are interested in finding out more about your family tree, starting with the basics will get you ready to learn more and extend your family tree much further than you might have thought possible.

There are some charts supplied with this online genealogy course, which you can use to record your family tree information. There are pedigree charts for recording either five or seven generations, a family group sheet and a source checklist.

Computers and Genealogy

The ease of access to vast amounts of genealogy records and historical information is possible because of the use of computers, laptops, tablets, storage devices, the internet, emails, social media and software.

Births, Marriages, Deaths

Birth, Christening, Marriage, Death and Burial records are very important to genealogists because everyone who ever lived was born, many of them got married and most of the people who ever lived have already died.

Census Records

Most countries conduct a regular census, generally about once every ten years and the older censuses which have been released for public consumption can tell you a lot about your ancestors.

Other Records

The process of accumulating family information continues until eventually the trail dries up or it might take you to various little-known sources of documentation, perhaps relating to small religious orders or now outdated trades and professions.

Royals and Nobles

Your search might even take you on a journey where you find your ancestors recorded in the Doomsday Book, which commenced records in 1086 or back even further to Charlemagne and obscure medieval records.

Connecting the Sources

By the time you are this far into the course we have discussed a lot of different records that are useful in genealogy and in this section we explore ways that you can paint a clearer picture by using them all together.

Presenting your Family Tree

In this section your creativity will be used to present your family tree to others, whether that is only your immediate family or you would like to share the information you have found with even more people.

From Family Tree to Genealogy

Be warned! By the time you complete this family history course you will have caught the genealogy bug and you may never be able to stop.

Who we are and where we’ve come from are such broad questions that, while they may be answered by a certain amount introspection, just as much can be answered outwardly by learning about our ancestry and the stories of those who came before us. This course is for anyone who is interested in learning more about their family and themselves or those have watched programmes, such as ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ and ‘Long Lost Family’ and wanted to find more out about their own family history. Who knows what you will discover…