Tag Archives: bcg portfolio

Recertification: What is it? And What Did I Do?

Certification, , , , , , ,

Once you pass your first portfolio with the Board for Certification of Genealogists, you have to submit a project every five years that shows you are not only keeping up with your skills but also improving on any shortfalls they noted in your last portfolio. This time only one project is required at minimum, but it must meet the Genealogical Proof Standard.

My recertification project this time was to identify the father of William Long, my third great grandfather. I had one starting piece of information about William’s father. His William’s son, J. W. Long’s biographical sketch in the Wood County, Ohio, county history. The sketch claims that his grandfather, George Long, came from “North of Ireland” to Carroll County, Ohio, in 1817, married there, and then had several children named in the sketch: George, William, John, Catherine, Ellen, Susan, and Alexander. It does not name his grandmother, George’s wife.

There are some problems with this statement, which I will breakdown over the course of this series. As I was researching this family, several things became clear to me. The first thing was that Carroll County did not exist in 1817. It was not formed until 1833 when it originated from land taken from five counties: Columbiana, Harrison, Jefferson, Stark, and Tuscarawas.1 When George Long arrived in “Carroll County” in 1817, it must have still been one of these other original counties.

This meant that I had to widen my search from one county to five or six, depending on the time frame.

If George arrived in Ohio in 1817, then surely he was enumerated in the 1820 census. Of the nine George Longs in Ohio in 1820, only two lived in one of the target counties: George Long in Salem Township, Columbiana County, and George Long in Brown Township, Stark County. A similar search in the 1830 census shows there were 22 households in Ohio headed by a man named George Long (or similar), four of whom were in a target county. Depending on what record sets I looked at, I found MANY George Longs in and about the correct area in 1820 to 1840.

I identified twelve (12!) candidates that could have fathered William Long. The main purpose of my project was to examine these twelve candidates and eliminate them until only one man made sense. Some were easy to eliminate, others were trickier. I will share some of my information organization tricks in the next post.

1. Acts of A General Nature Passed at the First Session of the Thirty First General Assembly of the State of Ohio (Columbus: State of Ohio, 1832), p. 8; image, Google Books (https://books.google.com/).↩

I’m Recertified!

Certification, , , ,

I’ve written in the past a little bit about a project I was working on involving George Long, my 4x great grandfather. It was for my recertification project for the Board for Certification of Genealogists. Once you pass your first portfolio, you have to submit a project every five years that shows you are not only keeping up with your skills but also improving on any shortfalls they noted in your last portfolio.

I finished the project in mid-December and shipped it off before the holidays because I did not want to worry about it while trying to relax and enjoy family time. I was told the wait could be up to six months, so imagine my surprise when I got the email informing my my project passed and I am certified for another five years!

Well, when the news came I was sick in be with the worst “stomach flu” I may have ever experienced. We assume it was Norovirus based on the symptoms. My son, who works in hospitals and medical clinics, got it first, and likely brought it home. We immediately started wiping everything down and doing laundry and trying to help him feel better. But I did not escape. I was sick next, and it put me in bed for four solid days, and I honestly didn’t feel like 100% until Sunday, so a full seven days to recover. I got the recertification news on Tuesday (day 3) of being sick. I checked my emails and gave out a very puny “yay.” My husband got a very minor version of whatever our son and I had. Thank goodness, because we needed someone to go get Gatorade and ginger ale and applesauce and otherwise hold down the fort.

I then spent the next week trying to catch up on work. So I’m only now taking a moment to share the news. Over the next few blog posts, I’m going to share some of the problems I solved within that larger project, some of the techniques I used to stay organized, and anything else that jumps out at me about it.

I do want to share this. The anticipation, the worry, the anxiety, and the imposter syndrome I think we all experience (in any field), is real. I definitely worried that some major flaw in my reasoning would be found, that they’d realize they never should have passed me in the first place. Yet, at the same time, I felt more confident on this one than I did on the last recertification. The confidence did nothing to alleviate the anxiety, but, looking back, I think that is a sign of increased skill, knowledge, familiarity with material, and having a good support system, not just with my family but my colleagues as well. It took me one portfolio and two renewals to think, “maybe I DO know what I’m doing.” Ha! If you know me or have been a participant in any of my study groups or courses, I’m sure you’re thinking I’m ridiculous. If you are a certified or accredited colleague of mine, you likely know what I’m talking about. Overall, my point is, don’t let the anxiety hold you back. Do your best and learn from it.

2014 In Review

Genealogical Goals,

whirlwind
2014 was a whirlwind, drawn by author

At the start of 2014 I posted my goals for the year. They were pretty simple:

1. Get my BCG portfolio turned in (My deadline is December 15, 2014!)
2. Write at least 3 major articles (These are aside from those that may appear in my home society’s quarterly.)
3. Gain 1 new client per month
4. Speak/teach at least 12 times this year

I only fully accomplished one of those goals: the first one, turn in my portfolio. And in hindsight, I think that’s ok. The portfolio process is huge. I am not sure that anyone can quite describe how big it truly is. It is like when we got pregnant with our first child. People said “Oh your life will never be the same.” Or “you will never really have time to yourself for the next 18 years.” (Really helpful, by the way.) We quickly found out that they were right, but I truly think there’s no way to know just how right they were BEFORE we had babies. There are just no words to describe the enormity of it. I feel that same way about the portfolio, well almost. People told me it would be a challenge, but I didn’t understand really, just how much of a challenge, until I did it. Just like babies.

As for the other goals. Here is what I actually did:

  • I did not write any articles for major publications, but I did write a new guide: Legacy QuickGuide™ “Obituaries in Genealogy: A Research Tool,” June 2014. I also wrote a new course for the National Institute for Genealogical Studies which is slated for release in 2015.
  • I gained 2 new clients, for small projects, which is ok because of goal number one.
  • I gave 7 lectures in 2014. I had at least 5 more scheduled but since we ended up moving to Texas in September, I had to cancel those.

I also moved my entire household (well the movers did most of it), husband, children, pets, belongings, and so on, from Colorado to Texas. And just to give you a little context, I had only been to Texas a total of 2 times before we decided to move! That alone has “challenge” written all over it. Just getting to the grocery store was a “challenge” for the first few weeks. Not to mention finding new doctors, dentists, boy and girl scout troops, school, favorite coffee shops (still haven’t found it), favorite breakfast spot (still working on that one too), and of course a new genealogical society to call home.

Even though on “paper” it looks like I didn’t do much this year, believe me, it has been a whirlwind!

Pray for NO DIRECT EVIDENCE!

Certification, Genealogical Education, Genealogical Goals, , , , , , ,

image from wikimedia commons
image from wikimedia commons

So, I went “on the clock” (for BCG certification) in December 2012. In the meantime a lot of “life” has happened but a lot of “life” is going to happen when you take a step like this. I’m the type of person who needs a deadline, so I went on the clock. Once I sat down and tried to locate a family/problem for my case study, I got concerned. One look at my office, my binders, my computer files, told me that I was horribly unorganized and I needed to do a lot of catching up, fixing, data entry (I have a thumb drive with scans from Salt Lake City from 2009 that I haven’t worked with yet!) and organizing, before I could even make an educated guess on the case study.

Well, in the last week, I went through a very large pile of notes with “to-do” items on them, some dating back to 2003. They said things like “find tombstone for …” or “locate obit for …” or one sticky note “I am not convinced that ––– is really –––’s father.” (Names being left out in case this REALLY is my case study.) That one sticky note sent me on a swirl of reviewing documents, notes, computer files, quick look-ups on Ancestry and FamilySearch. I MAY just have found my case study. I have a few pieces of indirect evidence but nothing conclusive that says who the parents of my subject are.

This project is so counter-intuitive for the genealogist. If you’ve never reviewed the Case Study requirements for the BCG portfolio, it basically requires that you use the genealogical proof standard to solve a problem of conflicting evidence or by using of indirect evidence. I know that I have many of these in my family research, but finding a good one can be challenging. And then, what happens when you start to work hard on it and then find that piece of direct evidence? … ah … back to square one.

I did get through my pile of to-dos and either figured out that they had been done (recycled), or if they were easy to do (just did it), or they went into my Evernote to-do list (then recycled). Now, on to some research! So pray for my project, that I find no direct evidence on this man’s parentage and instead am able to locate a lot of really good indirect evidence!