NGS 2012: Final Day

It is hard to believe how quickly Saturday came.  The three morning classes this day were the ones I had most been looking forward to. 

First, I went to Railroad Men and the Records They Left Behind by Patricia Walls Stamm.  My paternal grandfather, his father and his grandfather all worked for the railroad, as did others in his line, so I was looking forward to learning more about the records available for them.  What surprised me the most is that railroad papers traveled with the person in charge of them. You have to look everywhere to find out who currently holds the archives for a particular railroad.  Most railroads have historical societies which can also help with these records.

My second session was Research Reports for Ourselves:More than a Research Log Presented by Paula Stuart-Warren.  I think everyone was surprised by the packed house for this lecture.  It was quite apparent that I am not the only one who does not, as Ms. Stuart-Warren said, treat her work as well as I would a client.

My number one takeaway from this class is to follow the BCG report standards, using proper citations, for all research done.  This will ensure that both I and other researchers know what has been done and what needs to be done in the future.  This class led perfectly into my last session of the morning, Information Overload? Effective Project Planning, Research, Data Management & Analysis by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

This was the best class of the entire conference, in my opinion, and I highly recommend purchasing the CD recording.  The premise of the class was that when genealogical programs came into being, researchers stopped writing research reports and good research logs and instead just entered data into the program and stopped.  Actually, data entry should be the last thing we do, only after all research and analysis is complete.  For more information on what our reports should look like, look on the APG website.  While sitting through this class it was made crystal clear that I need to stop researching and re-enter all of my data into a research log and a genealogy program, making sure all events are caught, that the citations are perfect, that I am looking at FANs and that I am analyzing the data, including writing down further research plans.

After this class I made one more loop around the expo, where I met Katie Chapman, one of the creators of Geungle.  To begin with, Katie is tremendously sweet and very knowledgeable about organizing ones genealogy.  I am very excited for this site to come live in the next few months, as I feel it will be the type of genealogy “program” that will pull together all that Paula Stuart-Warren and Elizabeth Shown Mills spoke of, which helping genealogists collaborate in a much fuller way.

After this, my husband and I headed out of Cincinnati, skipping the afternoon sessions, as I had to work Sunday and it is a long trip back to Syracuse.  I had an amazing time at this conference and cannot wait to attend the 2013 conference in Las Vegas.  I am also hopeful that I will visit Cincinnati again soon, as there is much of the city I have left to explore.

Report Assessment

Assessment has been the theme of the past few weeks of my life.  Both in my ProGen group, in one my classes at school (I got to create a rubric for a project) and at work at Starbucks (where my store got a 98:-D).  One of the most important parts of any plan, but often the most overlooked.

The most thought of forms of assessment tend to be surveys and focus groups.  The best way to assess how well something worked is by using a rubric, which gives concrete standards along a scale.

If you are like me, you often wonder whether your genealogy reports are up to the proper standards.  Even if you use reference books, articles or websites while writing them, it can still be hard to tell if you have the correct information in it.  For our March ProGen assignment, we used the BCG rubric to edit everyones research report from the prior month.

Used for genealogists applying for certification, this rubric gives standards for nearly every genealogy report you could need.  It is very simple, but you have to remember, it is very black-and-white.  There is no grey.  Either you have the indicator or you do not.

Let's look at an example.  You have written a research report for a client or yourself.  Looking at indicator "CR6", what is the quality of the sources you used?  BCG wants you to have mainly used original sources and primary information.  Did you?  If yes, then you meet the standards.  If you used some of these sources, you partially met expectations.  If your sources are derivative, with secondary information, you did not meet the standard.  If you can't even tell what type of sources you used, or didn't use any, you need to go back to your genealogy reference books and learn more about sourcing your work and the importance there-of.

I was pleased to see I had hit most of the standards and now that I have this rubric, I believe all of my reports will be meeting or exceeding standards in the future.

Do your research reports meet the BCG standards?  Is there another set of standards you use instead?