Here’s how to start a personal history and genealogy journalism business. Develop
genealogy and personal history classes anywhere. Use the course syllabus template. You’ll make history.
Here’s how to open your own genealogy, family history journalism, or personal
history business. This includes a genealogy course template and instruction on how to start and operate a home-based business
working with personal and oral histories, genealogy, family history, and life story writing.
You also learn how to interview people, what questions to ask, and how to put together a
business and/or a course or book on any aspect of genealogy around the world, journalism, writing, personal history, and life
story writing.
Start your own course using the genealogy course template to inspire you to develop your
own specialties and niche areas. Work with almost any ethnic group, and create businesses ranging from DNA-driven genealogy
reporting services to family history, memoirs writing, or personal history videography services.
Use social history to find information such as female ancestors’ maiden names that
had not been recorded using hidden and niche areas of information, including ethnic, religious, and institutional sources
such as widows’ military pension applications.
Develop genealogy and personal history classes anywhere. You’ll make history. To start,
first you need to create a course syllabus-either to teach beginners genealogy or to train professionals in other fields to
use personal history techniques to find hidden information, or organize information for the reports you generate for your
clients or family.
You’ll learn how to write social history by using genealogy journalism resources,
find hidden records, and market your own course or write your book or report in many different areas of personal history and
genealogy journalism. Make family tree charts. Start your own business, club, franchise, or course.
How to Write a Course Syllabus and Teach Online to Market Your Book
One of the best ways to publicize, promote, and market your genealogy, life stories, memoirs, oral history,
personal history or biographical book is to write a course syllabus related to the contents of your book. Write and/or design
family history newsletters. Teach an online or in-person course related to the topic of your book. Require students to purchase
the book. Teach the contents of the book in a how-to course. What’s your hobby or field of expertise? My usual full-time
working day emphasizes genealogy journalism and personal history research. My hobby combines visual anthropology and producing,
viewing, and reviewing documentaries.
If your field
relates to personal history or genealogy, here’s how to write a syllabus to teach online (or in person) a genealogy
course. You can train or teach at a variety of levels.
Starting your own
classes and reserving a conference room in a library, church social hall, or community center don’t require degrees
or credentials, only expertise. Nothing lets you learn a subject better than if you have to teach it to beginners. If you
don’t like teaching face-to-face or training employees in a work setting, teach online from your Web site. Or apply
to teach a course in something you can do well at online educational sites such as blackboard.com. Read online education publications
such as the Virtual U Gazette. Check out GetEducated.com at: http://www.geteducated.com/vug/index.asp.
You learn
more from your students’ feedback than you ever learned from books in a variety of areas related to writing and publishing.
The first step is to write a great syllabus that convinces others to hire you to teach a subject related to the information
in your book. This technique works well with nonfiction, how-to or self-help books.
If your
book is a novel, your course syllabus might emphasize plotting the novel or marketing and promotion. To sell your book in
this type of class, you’d use each chapter to teach how to write “tag lines,” emotions and behaviors in
a novel, or portions of your novel as tools for fiction writers in the genre of your book—such as plotting the mystery
or romance novel.
You’d use
passages to teach consistency and transitions that move the plot forward and show how the characters grow and change or the
romantic tension. A similar technique of “teaching the process” would be used if you wrote plays, poetry, or cinematic
scripts. A syllabus helps you get hired and/or to recruit students so you can sell your book and teach a class or train a
group of people either online or in person.
You can adapt
this syllabus plan and format to the subject of your book in nearly any field. Instead of ‘genealogy,’ just substitute
the concept and framework of your own book. Here’s how to write a syllabus.
A short course
may be taught online or arranged in any room available from a church or other house of worship basement to a library conference
room. A seminar can last a few hours. A lengthy course can be planned for an entire semester at any level in adult education,
for college extended studies programs, or at community centers. You need experience in your area of expertise, and a published
book helps your credibility. If you’re teaching a course in a community college or university for college credit you’d
need a graduate degree. For public school you’d also need a teaching credential unless your expertise level is the equivalent.
Teaching vocational education and using your book as instructional text is more flexible. You can teach in the extended studies
(not for credit) department of universities and community colleges based on experience. Credentials in your field of work
are helpful to get you hired, but without them, start your own course online or from an available room.
You can share
a rented room to teach the course with other trainers or teachers. Least expensive is to teach at your Web site and sell your
book online to students. At the end of the course, give them a certificate in the subject you’ve taught related to your
book. Require students to buy your book, and use it throughout the course.
One of the easiest
ways to get hired to teach a course is to offer one in genealogy and/or personal history, if you have done your research on
how genealogists find their information. Since you have written a book, can you now call yourself an expert?
If genealogy,
personal history, oral history, social history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, creative writing, early handwriting,
or journalism interests you, a beginner’s course in genealogy attracts people interested in where their ancestors came
from and how they lived, ate, and played. Classes often fill up quickly.
People like to
take courses where they can learn about themselves and their families’ life styles. Genealogy courses work well online,
at social, ethnic, and religious clubs, and at senior centers. So here’s how to begin writing a syllabus for a genealogy
course.
Your first genealogy
course syllabus expands the four keys of genealogy research: identity, name, date information was recorded, locality, and
kinship. How you organize, edit, and write a genealogy course syllabus often determines whether you’ll be hired to teach
a course in genealogy for beginners.
If you’re
a genealogist or want to promote your genealogy-oriented book or journalistic skills, teach a course in genealogy. Genealogy
courses rely on verifiable details. Accidental or intentional alterations by scribes can dramatically affect information.
Courses that go on year after year are evaluated by students as excellent.
Genealogists
are concerned about accurate reproduction of texts or entry of information. For generations, most public family history entries
were hand copied by government record clerks, clergy, and scribes deeply influenced by cultural, political, and theological
disputes of their day.
Your syllabus
can help students look for mistakes and intentional changes in surviving records. Can the original names be reconstructed?
Genealogy course content also includes the social history of where and why these changes were made and how family historians
go about reconstructing what might be the original names, relationships, and records as closely as possible.
Use your syllabus
as a tool to outline your course. Students want an easy-to-follow syllabus. The American Heritage Dictionary defines
the word ‘syllabus’ as an outline of a course of study. It’s a table of contents with a schedule of topics,
not a book proposal.
Your syllabus
also needs to cover how to find records of hard-to-trace people, such as clergy. How would you direct students who want to
trace nuns, priests, ministers, or rabbis?
Genealogy courses
given in churches’ social halls sometimes attract those who want to trace difficult-to-find genealogy records of clergy.
Old books make excellent genealogy sources. Other primary sources to trace clergy or religious educators include College Alumni Records , The Clergy Lists , Crockford's Directories , Fasti Ecclesiae, Anglicanae, Parish Registers, Bishop's Records, Censuses, and County Directories.
A genealogy course
syllabus for beginners includes answers to one of the most frequently asked questions: How do you find female ancestors and
solve identity problems when maiden surnames didn’t appear on the death certificates? Before you try to organize and
write a syllabus, first list topics you’ll cover in your syllabus.
Planning Your
Syllabus
List all obvious
items. Keep this list next to your blank syllabus page. Then list items often omitted from a syllabus for a beginning course
in genealogy. Compare your syllabus with other genealogy course outlines that have received great student evaluations. Your
clue is whether the course is repeated year after year. There are several copyrighted genealogy course outlines on the Internet
to peruse. Use them only for comparison and motivation. Keep your syllabus unique to your own course. Make a list of resources
to be used in your own course before you begin writing your syllabus.
Resources
List
Social History
(brief)
Genealogy sources
created by women:
Diaries, journals,
letters, postcards, family Bibles, heirlooms, artifacts, oral history, legislative petitions, atypical sources, published
family histories, cemetery records, tombstone inscriptions or rubbings, church records, censuses, military records, hospitals,
orphanages, institutions, sanitariums, passenger arrival lists, city directories, notaries’ records, voter lists/registrations,
pensions, widows’ pension applications/civil war, orphans and guardianship records, land records, marriage records,
medical records, Eugenics Record Office, (ERO), social data, midwives’ journals, doctors’ journals, asylums, divorce
records, wills, probate, court records, school records, ethnic sources, codicils, ethnic/religious hospital records, naturalization
laws.
After you compile this list, put it aside to refer to as you write your syllabus. Begin outlining the syllabus by starting
with the course information, instructor information, text or reading materials, course descriptions, course calendar or schedule,
and references or bibliography.
Each
category would get a one or two-sentence description summarizing what will be covered in the course and what assignments are
required of students. Keep your syllabus short— about three pages or less. The syllabus in a semester-long college level,
3-unit genealogy course meant for beginners and taught online or in person would look like this in its layout:
Syllabus
Course Number/Title:
Genealogy and Family History 1
Name of School
or College
Year and Month:
Department:
Credit Hours
3
Required Text
Days/Time
Instructor
Location
Prerequisite:
None
Course Placement:
Adult Education, Extended Studies, Community College, University
Undergraduate level.
Overview
In Genealogy 1,
students will learn special strategies for uncovering hard-to-find information about their ancestors. By the end of this course,
students will become more versatile in using interdisciplinary skills for researching family and social history resources.
Course Description
Genealogy 1 is
an introductory course in family and personal history research methods that includes learning interviewing and recording
skills. This survey course covers the strategies of genealogical research in North America and introduces the student to the
techniques of genealogical research around the world. Students able to read other languages may work on genealogical records
in other languages if they can translate their findings, projects, or assignments to the class in English.
Research Methods
Students are introduced
to a survey of all the methods used to identify individuals and their ancestors, including paper records, online searches,
surname groups online, and DNA-driven genealogy resources.
Learning Objectives
for Genealogy 1
At the end of
this course, students will have learned the following skills:
1. Students
will be able to research the following resources:
Original records
Family histories
Church records
Censuses
Passenger Arrival
Lists
City directories
Family history
libraries and genealogy sections of public and university libraries
Voter lists
and registrations
Military records
and pensions, widows’ pensions
Land records
and notary records
Marriage records
Medical records
Divorce records
Ethnic women
and men
African American
Native American
Jewish American
European Immigrants
Chinese and Japanese Immigrants in California
Latino Genealogy Research
2. Methods
for determining maiden names.
3. Solving
identity problems in genealogy research
4. Methods
for identifying women
5. Genealogy
as social history
a. child bearing and raising in genealogy research
b. children
born out of wedlock and genealogy research
c. women’s work and genealogy records,
d. property
tax records
e. religion and genealogy information
f. women’s reform movements, rights, and genealogy records
g. merging social and family history in genealogy research
h. documenting your own ancestor’s history
6. Unpublished
Genealogy Sources
7. Published
Genealogical Sources
8. How
to research population schedules
9. Probate
and court records
10. Slave genealogy and
schedules
11. Social history research
and biographies
12. Property, Inheritance,
Naturalization and Divorce laws for genealogists
13. Widows’ pensions
and applications-Acts and Laws, survey
14. DNA-driven genealogy,
methods, resources, matrilineal and patrilineal research, surname groups and genetics associations
15. Online research resources
16. Checklist for genealogy
research
17. Genealogical case
studies
18. Articles and Bibliography
19. National Archives
and Genealogy Research
20. How to read abstracted
records
21. How to find and read
microfilms and microfiche records
22. Military pensions—records
in the National Archives
23. Searching records
of the Veterans Administration
24. Published indexes
to pension files and other aids
25. Genealogy journalism
methods—interviewing and recording
26. Oral history, video
and audio recording—what questions to ask.
How Students will apply the newly learned
genealogy research skills:
- Use the methods of scientific
genealogical research.
- Establish lines of descent
for the person or family you select and develop a pedigree chart or family history tree of names and critical dates such as
birth, marriage, and death for each ancestor on the family tree and/or pedigree chart.
- Organize genealogy records.
- Interview and record
relatives or selected persons.
- Research the past.
- Use online technology
to research or supplement written records and develop a pedigree chart or family tree.
Six Assignments
and Projects: Due by End of 12-Week Course. (Insert Specific Due Dates) One assignment is due every two weeks.
- Write a publishable
1,000-word researched family history/genealogy article and submit it to a publication.
- Develop a list of 30
to 60 questions (chosen from a list of suggested questions to ask from the handout) to ask another person during a genealogy-oriented
or life story-oriented personal or family history recorded interview.
- Interview using critical
and creative thinking skills one or more older adults and record on audio or video tape a half-hour to one-hour life story
experience to submit to an oral history archive library. Obtain a signed release form from all persons interviewed to send
the recording to an oral history library. Give all persons interviewed copies of the interview recorded on tape or disc, such
as a CD or DVD.
- Use written records
and online resources/technology relevant to your personal interests or selected discipline. Genealogy has several areas of
emphasis including archival records research, oral history, personal history, family history, video biography/life story recording,
and DNA-driven genealogy/genetics for ancestry.
- Understand opportunities,
skills, and requirements for genealogy journalism and publishing concentrations.
- Research the diversity
of cultures in North America and other countries as related to how genealogy records have been maintained.
Course Competencies:
1. Learn
how to perform scientific genealogical research.
2. Fill
out and expand a pedigree chart and family tree--first by hand and then using technology or genealogy software.
3. Collect
sources and resource information and organize the sources using records, legacies, diaries, letters, or journals.
4. Understand
the value of journaling and archiving journals, letters, and diaries.
5. Read
an article on how to restore old diaries and photos.
6. Write
and record as audio or video a life story to keep for future generations or to put in a time capsule. One copy would be text
for reading and another recorded in any format, including text and photos, audio or video. Be aware technology changes, and
a text copy on acid-free paper is required just in case the recorded format can no longer play.
7. Learn
how to correspond with relatives or friends and what questions to ask when asking for genealogical information.
8. Fill
out family group sheets for recorded information to be transcribed or kept in text form.
9. Read
an article on genealogical identification, orphan trains, and family skeletons or hidden facts on everything from how a person’s
race or religion was listed to name changes. Understand how some pre-1948 housing laws and codes excluded certain groups from
buying property in various areas and how some records were changed so people could buy homes. Research articles on this subject
as related to genealogy records.
10. Understand the four
keys of genealogy as research tools: identity, name, date information was recorded, locality, and kinship.
11. Research the American
and/or Canadian trains when children were sent from the East to the West. These trains are separate from the orphan trains.
Records with the children’s names are in various archives. Find out where to find the records.
12. Learn organization,
documentation, filing techniques.
13. Analyze, interpret,
and present genealogy-related findings.
14. Keep a research notebook
that cites each source of documentation.
15. Look at working
files that organize genealogical documents.
16. Listen to a recording
of oral history. Read an article on restoring or preserving keepsakes, heirlooms, photos, and scrap books that document family
traditions.
17. Use oral history
as a research method. Learn to record oral history in audio and/or in video using a camcorder or audio recorder.
18. Learn how items and
traditions have been preserved by families, librarians, conservationists, archivists, or family and public historians.
19. Gather family folklore,
recipes, superstitions, or traditions.
20. Record family rites
of passage, celebrations, or traditions.
21. Search genealogy
records on the Internet
22. Read published genealogy
information online.
23. Survey genealogy
published materials.
24. Enter family information
and print-out computer-generated charts and family trees.
25. Learn how to use
vital records, divorce and cemetery records, jurisdictions records, original records, Social Security Death Index records
online, and specific localities searches of historical groups for an area. Look for transcriptions of original documents.
26. Understand handwriting
changes and how to interpret early American handwriting. Translate documents recorded in early American handwriting.
27. Find out where to
obtain court records used in genealogy research.
28. Use church data to
fill in missing information.
29. Use newspapers in
genealogy research
30. Trace ancestor’s
lives using a city directory.
31. Research information
on the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Locate the nearest Branch Family Center and research an ancestor or friend.
32. Learn to research
immigration, emigration, and migration records, ships’ passenger lists, Naturalization records.
33. Investigate the reason
why your ancestor immigrated to America. Trace the migration patterns used. Use passenger lists and naturalization records
and find out where these records are located.
34. Use land and tax
records, school records, and ethnic records.
35. Research what records
are available in the National Archives. Find out what military records are available to genealogists for research. Find out
the addresses to write to for military, pension, and bounty land records.
36. Plan for and/or attend
a genealogy-related seminar, research-oriented field trip, family reunion, or a meeting of a heritage, historical, or lineage
association. Read an article on or view a documentary on a family reunion. Research what grants are available from various
societies related to genealogy research.
37. Read an article on
how to look at medical histories and genograms. A genogram is a schematic representation (drawing) of a family's medical history.
A genogram describes the medical and/or genetic history of a family and includes family boundaries, attitudes, values, beliefs
and related psychological history of family members.
38. Look at a Web site
or surname group online researching DNA-driven genealogy for deep ancestry research. Read an article or handout on the psychological
aspects of studying one’s own family history. Start a genogram of your family. Does DNA-driven genealogy appeal more
to anthropologists or to genealogists?
Libraries
and Field Trips
Visit a library that has records related to genealogy and/or oral
history research or archives. Record in your notebook in two paragraphs what you learned from the field trip and what most
interested you there.
Method of
Instruction
Class discussion, lectures, field trips, video documentaries, class
participation, individual Internet computer research, collaborative projects, handouts, videos, and personal history recording
projects is used. This course may be taught online or in person.
Evaluation
Class participation and completion of projects/assignments is due
by the end of the course. Assignments are due by the due date specified in the handout.
Equipment
Access to the
Internet, a personal computer and printer, a tape or other audio digital recorder or camcorder using either tape or DVDs,
and a DVD or CD recorder/R/RW disk drive in your computer or other device that saves a computer file to a CD and/or a DVD.
Save your recorded projects on DVDs or CDs. Instruction will be provided on how to save any recorded material to a DVD or
CD. Technical help will be available.
Length of
Course
Adjust the syllabus
content and assignments to the length of your own course. Genealogy courses may run for a 12, 16 or 18-week semester in adult
education unified school districts or in extended studies or community college classes.
***
Questions to Ask Relatives or Friends Prior to Recording Their Genealogy, Traditions, and Life Experiences
In the process of promoting your book, if you are going to teach a course in folklore, genealogy, or
personal history, and record traditions, here’s how to talk to relatives and friends before recording their life experiences
for books, keepsake journals, or documentaries.
STEP 1: Send someone enthusiastic about personal and oral history to senior community centers, lifelong learning
programs at universities, nursing homes, or senior apartment complexes activity rooms. You can reach out to a wide variety
of older adults in many settings, including at libraries, church groups, hobby and professional or trade associations, unions,
retirement resorts, public transportation centers, malls, museums, art galleries, genealogy clubs, and intergenerational social
centers.
STEP 2: Have each personal historian or volunteer bring a tape recorder with tape and a note pad. Bring camcorders
for recording video to turn into time capsules and CDs or DVDs with life stories, personal history experiences, memoirs, and
events highlighting turning points or special times in people’s lives.
STEP 3: Assign each personal historian one or two older persons to interview with the following questions.
1. What were the most significant turning points or events in your life?
2. How did you survive the Wars?
3. What were the highlights, turning points, or significant events that you experienced during the economic downturn
of 1929-1939? How did you cope or solve your problems?
4. What did you do to solve your problems during the significant stages of your life at age 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60
and 70-plus? Or pick a year that you want to talk about.
5. What changes in your life do you want to remember and pass on to future generations?
6. What was the highlight of your life?
7. How is it best to live your life after 70?
8. What years do you remember most?
9. What was your favorite stage of life?
10. What would you like people to remember about you and the times you lived through?
STEP 3:
Have the student record the older person's answers. Select the most significant events, experiences, or turning points
the person chooses to emphasize. Then write the story of that significant event in ten pages or less.
STEP 4: Ask the older person to supply the younger student photos, art work, audio tapes, or video clips. Usually
photos, pressed flowers, or art work will be supplied. Have the student or teacher scan the photos onto a disk and return
the original photos or art work or music to the owner.
STEP 5:The personal historian, volunteer, student and/or teacher scans the photos and puts them onto a Web site on the
Internet at one of the free communities that give away Web site to the public at no cost....some include http://www.tripod.com , http://www.fortunecity.com , http://www.angelfire.com , http://www.geocities.com , and others. Most search engines will give a list of communities at offering
free Web sites to the public. Microsoft also offers free family Web sites for family photos and newsletters or information.
Ask your Internet service provider whether it offers free Web site space to subscribers. The free Web sites are limited
in space.
For larger Web site spaces with room for audio and video material and other keepsake memorabilia, purchase a personal
Web site from a Web-hosting company. Shop around for affordable Web site space for a multimedia life story time capsule that
would include text, video and/or audio clips, music, art, photos, and any other effects.
1. Create a Web site with text from the older person's significant life events
2. Add photos.
3. Add sound or .wav files with the voice of the older person speaking in small clips or sound bites.
4. Intersperse text and photos or art work with sound, if available.
Add video clips, if available and won't take too much bandwidth.
5. Put Web site on line as TIME CAPSULE of (insert name of person) interviewed and edited by, insert name of student
who interviewed older person.
STEP 6: Label each Web site Time Capsule and collect them in a history archives on the lives of older adults at the
turn of the millennium. Make sure the older person and all relatives and friends are emailed the Web site link. You have now
created a time capsule for future generations.
This can be used as a classroom exercise in elementary and high schools to teach the following:
- Making friends with older adults.
- Learning to write on intergenerational topics.
- Bringing community together of all generations.
- Learning about foster grandparents.
- History lessons from those who lived through history.
- Learning about diversity and how people of diverse origins lived through the 20th century.
- Preserving the significant events in the lives of people as time capsules for future generations to know what it was
like to live between 1900 and 2000 at any age.
- Learning to write skits and plays from the life stories of older adults taken down by young students.
- Teaching older adults skills in creative writing at senior centers.
- Learning what grandma did during World War 2 or the stock market crash of 1929 followed by the economic downturn of
1930-1938.
What to Ask People about Their Lives before You
Write a Play, Skit, or Monologue
Step 1
When you interview, ask for facts and concrete details. Look for statistics, and research whether statistics are
deceptive in your case.
Step 2
To write a plan, write one sentence for each topic that moves the story or piece forward. Then summarize for each
topic in a paragraph. Use dialogue at least in every third paragraph.
Step 3
Look for the following facts or headings to organize your plan for a biography or life story.
1. PROVERB. Ask the people you interview what proverb represents their life stories. Look at a book of proverbs,
but develop an original proverb not copyrighted or cliché. Proverbs can be found in libraries or even on tee shirts and bumper
stickers. Create your own as you work with your client.
2. PURPOSE, MOTTO, OR SLOGAN. Ask the people you interview or a biography, for what purpose is or was their
journey? Is or was it equality in the workplace or something personal and different such as dealing with change--downsizing,
working after retirement, or anything else? If your client had to create/invent a slogan or aspiration that fit that
person, what would it be? One slogan might be something like the seventies ad for cigarettes, "We've come a long way, baby,"
to signify ambition achieved. Look for an original slogan, not a copyrighted slogan or a cliché.
3. IMPRINT. Ask what makes an imprint or impact on people's lives and what impact the people you're interviewing
want to make on others?
4. STATISTICS: How deceptive are they? How can you use them to focus on reality?
5. How have the people that you're interviewing influenced changes in the way people or corporations function? How
does your client share meaning (communicate) with others?
6. What is your client’s goal in life? To what is the person aspiring?
7. What kind of communication skills does the person have and how are these skills received? Are the communication
skills male or female, thinking or feeling, yin or yang, soft or steeled, and are people around these people negative or positive
about those communication skills?
8. What new styles is the person using? What kind of motivational methods, structure, or leadership? Is the person
a follower or leader? How does the person match his or her personality to the character of a corporation or interest?
9. How does the person handle change?
10. How is the person reinforced?
Summarize and Review Your Writing
Once you have titles and summarized
paragraphs for each segment of your story, you can more easily flesh out the story by adding dialogue and description to your
factual information. Look for differences in style among the people you interview. How does the person want to be remembered?
Is the person a risk taker or
cautious for survival? Does the person identify with her job or the people involved in the process of doing the work most
creatively or originally?
Does creative expression take precedence over processes of getting work out to the right place at the
