Accreditation, Ohio, and Citing Sources ~ Classes on Day 1 at the BYU Conference on Family History & Genealogy

If I counted correctly, there were 151 classes and 23 tracks offered at the BYU Conference on Family History & Genealogy.

One of the tracks offered was the ICAPGen Track. ICAPGen stands for "The International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists."

The first class I took on Tuesday, July 28, 2015 was titled "Why Become Accredited?" by Jill N. Crandell.

I am not a credentialed genealogist at this time. Perhaps someday I will pursue certification or accreditation. Certification and Accreditation are two different pathways to becoming credentialed. Certification is through the Board of Certified Genealogists. Accreditation is through ICAPGen.

One of the things I learned during this class was that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had been involved in the accreditation process. In 2000 the Church transferred ownership of accreditation to ICAPGen. Peggy Clemens Lauritzen, who is an Accredited Genealogist, wrote a blog post titled "Why I Will Not Seek Certification." Regarding the accreditation process in her post she wrote that, "the testing was done by the LDS Church at the Family History Library." To read her post, click HERE.

Speaking of Peggy Clemens Lauritzen, I attended her class titled "The Firelands, the Connecticut Western Reserve, and the Ohio Territory. Peggy is an amazing teacher! She's fun and engaging and very informative. If you ever have a chance to take a class from her I highly recommend you take the opportunity to do so.

Peggy LOVES maps! She showed several to the class during her presentation.

One of the things I learned from Peggy's class is that the area in Ohio referred to as the Firelands was given this name because this area was given to people in Connecticut whose homes were burned down by the British during the Revolutionary War.

After lunch on Tuesday I attended "Fun With Citing Sources!" by Jean Wilcox Hibben.

Citing our sources is so very important. Source documentation is extremely important not only for yourself, but for those who access your genealogy research in the future.

Jean listed several different styles for writing citations including Turabian, (MLA) Modern Language Association, APA, and Chicago Manual of Style.

I only attended three classes on Tuesday. In the afternoon I headed over to the myFamily History Youth Camp. I wrote about my visit in an earlier blog post. If you'd like to read that post, click HERE.

I'll be sharing more about my experiences at the BYU Conference on Family History & Genealogy in future posts.

Thanks for reading!

Jana

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