For 250 years, Americans have sought independence, opportunity, and belonging—while also facing hardship, exclusion, and change. This course looks at the nation’s history through the everyday lives of families and communities, showing how their choices were shaped by shifting social, political, cultural, and economic forces.

From the Revolution to today, we’ll follow people on the move—seeking land, work, and new futures. We’ll hear the voices of women, workers, immigrants, and others too often left out of the story, and see how reform, war, innovation, and recovery reshaped family life and community ties. Together we’ll uncover how ordinary people created, endured, and redefined what it means to belong in America.

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.

There’s no doubt that researching female ancestors can be difficult. The records genealogist’s use doesn’t always include women by name. Women’s marital name changes coupled with the fact that women’s historical legal rights precluded them from activities that leave a record trail, make finding her story seem impossible. Adoption is a vital and intricate part of many family histories, presenting unique challenges for genealogical research. This course is designed to equip genealogists with the knowledge and tools to approach adoption cases with sensitivity, accuracy, and ethical responsibility.

We will introduce the history and impact of US adoption practices on family history research. We will explore the differences between open and closed adoptions and discuss some historical events that drove many families to adopt. We will also discuss legal and ethical considerations, including privacy laws, the rights of adoptees and birth parents, and the complexities of contacting biological relatives. We will uncover and access various records, helping the student understand where to find them and how to record them properly. Ethical considerations surrounding contact in adoption cases will be thoroughly examined, ensuring that genealogists understand the potential emotional impacts and respect the boundaries of all parties involved; case studies will be used to illustrate the success and challenges of adoption research, offering examples of how to integrate biological and adoptive families into a coherent family tree. Finally, we will address some psychological and emotional aspects of adoption, emphasizing the importance of empathy and ethical storytelling in sharing these stories with family.

You’re a good writer and a great researcher—but sometimes your work doesn’t land the way you hoped. “Assemblage” helps you refine your writing skills and master the craft of editing. This course focuses on shaping, splicing, dicing and piecing together your writing—whether it’s constructing a meticulous case study, fine-tuning an article for submission to a journal, refining a client report, or assembling family tales into an inspiring narrative. Learn to refine your voice, structure your ideas, and transform drafts into compelling, polished pieces.

Stories that are not shared become lost. As family historians we have an obligation to share our research in forms that will endure. We also have an obligation to share our family stories in forms that will appeal to our non-genealogist family members, so they understand the remarkable heritage our ancestors have left us. Writing these stories can seem like a daunting task, but with instruction and coaching, researchers can learn to be not just guardians of the family history, but tellers of those family stories.

Every research project is unique—challenging us with its own twists and turns. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. The genealogist relies on tried-and-true genealogy principles to inform an efficient research process. Disciplined genealogists avoid time-sucking rabbit holes that rarely lead to credible conclusions. They are wary of AI-produced hints and resist rapid and frenzied short-cut clicking. Rather, disciplined researchers recognize decision-making junctures and carefully consider the various options before choosing the next best steps.

These hands-on workshops will provide the opportunity to participate in real-time problem solving for a variety of common research scenarios that benefit from genetic evidence. Each workshop will teach the principles that inform decision-making under uncertainty, before a solution emerges. The emphasis is on the reasoning process that leads to credible outcomes.

Day one of the two-day workshop encourages participants to engage in live-action research on a typical research problem using DNA. Day two will reinforce the principles from the previous session as the class collaborates on working through a dynamic research plan on two selected student-submitted problems.

The goal of this course is to help students understand the genealogical research process in order to be able to research efficiently and effectively 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.

Church and civil records are the primary resources used to trace one’s ancestry. Many of these records are available online. This course teaches how to find available church/civil records for their German hometown and use them to their fullest. If the records are not available online, students will receive guidance on hiring someone to do that research. The course will introduce other resources available online. Some basic handwriting and language skills will be taught. Students will be given resources for expanding their knowledge.