 Organizing genealogy education can streamline professional reporting and unlock new insights into your learning journey As a professional genealogist, ongoing education is crucial to stay current with research methodologies, technological advancements, and the tons of records becoming more accessible each year. For many years, I’ve accumulated a massive amount of genealogy education through conferences, webinars, courses, and self-study. However, I recently realized I had been significantly underreporting my continuing education for my Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) membership requirements. The reason? Lack of organization. So, in the past few weeks, I took the plunge to fully organize my genealogical education history, and the results were definitely eye-opening. Here’s what I learned and how this process helped me not only stay on top of my education reporting but also manage my professional development more effectively. The Need for Organization: A Revelation Like many genealogists, my continuing education consists of various formats: live webinars, virtual conferences, in-person events, self-paced courses, and even independent study. I was doing what many of us tend to do—taking scratch notes, saving digital files here and there, and quickly logging attendance at conferences and workshops without creating a comprehensive record. This made tracking and reporting my education hours an overwhelming task at the end of each year. It wasn’t until I started going through old emails, registration confirmations, attendance certificates, title slide screenshots from webinars (that I take to help remember the presentation, date, and instructor) and even paper notes that I realized how much I had missed. Some educational experiences were completely undocumented in my official reports. I discovered a substantial gap between what I had reported and what I had actually accomplished. This discovery led me to dig through every possible source of educational material I had collected—paper notes, digital files, conference handouts, downloaded syllabi, and more, since the beginning of my educational journey. It wasn’t just about fulfilling my reporting requirements; it was about honoring the investment I had made in my professional growth. The Outcome: 684.75 Hours and Counting After combing through years’ worth of genealogical education, I tallied an impressive 684.75 hours from numerous organizations and institutions, including:
This extensive list includes conferences and webinars from 2014 onward (couldn’t find old handouts before then-must have thrown them away 😉), though my education truly accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. With so much online, I could attend a wide range of events, sometimes at no cost due to being a speaker, and I had the rare gift of time this past year and a half as I recovered from a work injury. Looking back, the pandemic period allowed my professional development to flourish in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Lessons Learned: The Importance of Tracking Genealogy Education The biggest takeaway from this experience is that organization is key to staying on top of continuing education, particularly when you’re juggling a variety of events, both in-person and virtual. My underreporting was simply a result of poor organization—not a lack of dedication. Here’s what I plan to do moving forward to ensure I stay on top of my genealogical education:
ExampleI have created spreadsheets for each year since 2014. Here are a couple of example pages, from 18 and counting, for 2024.  Organizing Genealogy Education with a Spreadsheet- Example 1  Organizing Genealogy Education with a Spreadsheet- Example 1-2 A New Perspective on My Educational Journey One surprising realization during this process was how much I had grown as a genealogist since 2014. My education truly evolved, particularly when so much went online during the pandemic. The ability to participate in conferences and webinars from the comfort of home expanded my horizons significantly. I also saw how much I had learned through self-study, which often goes unrecognized but is equally valuable. Going forward, I’m committed to keeping my education organized, not only for reporting purposes but also to help me find handouts, syllabi, and materials more easily when I need them. This organization will also serve as a resource if anyone ever asks about my educational background or if I want to reflect on particular subjects. Final Thoughts: Get Organized Now, Not Later If you’re a professional genealogist—or even a dedicated hobbyist—it’s never too early to start organizing your genealogy education. You may be surprised by how much you’ve learned and accomplished when you start documenting it fully. Don’t let disorganization hold you back from accurately reporting or leveraging your hard-earned knowledge. Trust me, the process will make your life easier in the long run and allow you to continue growing as a genealogist. So, take a few hours to go through your old notes, emails, and certificates. Your future self will thank you! © 2024 Diane Henriks @ Know Who Wears the Genes in Your Family More Organization and other Genealogy ResourcesLearn about more organization tips and other family history and genealogy resources under the Organization and Genealogy Resources categories and on my dedicated Genealogy Resources page.
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 Ancestry Tips: Why You Should Organize Your Managed Trees! Ancestry Tips: Why You Should Organize Your Managed Trees! Do you have a long list of managed family trees on Ancestry? That list can get fairly long with more than just your personal family tree; you may have DNA match trees, client trees, test trees, family trees for friends, and volunteer case trees, and more! If so, it may be time to start organizing them! Organizing your managed trees on Ancestry may be a lot more important than you may think. If your managed trees aren’t organized, you may not be able to use some of the tools and features on Ancestry with them. Some Ancestry Tools/Features That May Not Work
 Ancestry's Save a Person to Another Tree Feature  Ancestry's Save a Record to Someone Else Feature If you have more than 100 trees, you may not be able to use these features for some of your trees. Ancestry cuts the drop-down lists (shown in the above examples) for these features off at 100, so any trees after the first 100 will be affected. My main/personal family tree starts with an “S”; therefore, it was near the end of the list, and I couldn’t use the “save a record to someone” else feature, which was very frustrating and time consuming. This feature is meant to make things easier and save valuable time. You will want to make sure that any trees that are no longer important, such as archived clients, etc., are moved to the bottom of the list. You can think up any clever naming/labeling system that works for you. I quickly chose a temporary system, for the meantime, that allows me to use these features for the trees that I need to use them on. It is simple, but not only does it let me use these important features, but it also helps me stay organized, by knowing what types of trees they are. I may need to give it a lot more thought in the future. 😉 My temporary Naming/Labeling system
All my personal trees are scattered between, but still fall in the drop-downs. Where to Change Tree Names
 Ancestry's Individual Tree Settings-Example 1  Ancestry's Individual Tree Settings-Example 2
 Ancestry's Create & Manage Trees Example 1  Ancestry's Create & Manage Trees-Example 2 *Note: Your labeling system can be changed at any time, as well as removing a name for syncing or reports, then renaming again. *Note: You can also do this for any trees shared with you, as editor. More Ancestry, Organization, and other Genealogy ResourcesLearn about more Ancestry tips, tools, and features; organization; and and other family history and genealogy resources under the Ancestry.com, Organization, and Genealogy Resources categories and on my dedicated Genealogy Resources page.
 Genealogy/Family History/Family Tree Organization Help, I Can’t Find My Family History/Genealogy Stuff!Does this hit a chord? The past 2 weeks, I have spent my spare time renaming and organizing all my hard drive folders, including my business stuff and family history/genealogy stuff because I couldn’t find a thing when I needed it! Sound familiar? 😉 I am now in the process of backing everything up to new SSD drives, as my old portable HDD drives are too slow when it comes to backing up a whole hard drive and/or cloud backup, even the one I just bought last year. My HDD drives could take hours to even a whole day! So far, I have backed up just my business folder and family history folder, with the former taking about 15 minutes to back up, and the latter taking about 20. I’m not one for reading up on genealogy/family history/family tree digital organization, as I believe everyone needs to organize things the way that feels right for them, and everyone has their own method for doing things. I pretty much have this belief system for anything and everything, but I do like to learn new tips, just not follow someone else’s method for doing something. What I Did To Organize:
I am still not 100% happy with the way I organized everything, but it is WAY better than the mess it was! 😉 I must have renamed and reorganized folders over 10 times, each, before I was somewhat happy with them, especially my family history! Why did I feel the need to have to spend the last 2 weeks doing it all at once? It was time to back it up again! I’ve learned my lesson about renaming and moving folders, and then trying to back them up on the same portable hard drive! It takes LONGER, much longer, and it will stop repeatedly, asking you to confirm almost each and every thing, so you can’t just walk away, come back, and expect it to be done! Not only that, but it will miss copying many items. Like I said, lesson learned. Examples: Overall Documents Folder My Documents Folder Organization Example  A Documents Subfolder Organization Example: Lifestyle Business Folder My Business Subfolder Organization Example  My Business Subfolder Organization Example, Continued Family History/Genealogy Folder My Family History/Genealogy Subfolder Organization Example  A Family History/Genealogy Subfolder Organization, Level 2 Example  A Family History/Genealogy Subfolder Organization, Level 3 Example  A Family History/Genealogy Subfolder Organization, Level 4 Example Things to keep in mind:No matter how messy or hard it is to find something, you can always search for something in the search bar, but keep in mind that you would have to remember what you named something, at least ballpark, to find it. 😉
Back in the day, well over a decade ago, I had just saved my downloaded, scanned, etc. family tree stuff as named into just my general family tree folder, and sometimes to a surname folder, so searching for things is extremely difficult, for the old stuff that is. I do not want, nor do I have the time, to go back and rename ALL the thousands of old family tree files, so renaming and reorganizing the folders was the best I could do, for now. |
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