RLP 215: Renewing the AG Credential and SLIG Accreditation Course with Lisa Stokes

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 215 Renewing the AG Credential and SLIG Accreditation course with Lisa Stokes. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional.

Nicole (47s):
Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go. Hi everyone. And welcome to Research Like a Pro.

Diana (49s):
Hi, Nicole, How are you doing today?

Nicole (52s):
I’m okay. Still getting over my cold or whatever flu it was. I don’t know I had fever and stuff even, but I was taking the time that I’ve had stuck at home to work on my portfolio and I’ve been working on my document work. And one thing that I’ve really have been thinking about a lot is how important it is to understand the background context of the document. So I’ve been thinking about, You know, how can I beef up my understanding of that? And of course, reading the laws of the time and thinking about all geographic and political legal, historical factors, all those things and the, the rubric. So that’s kind of what I’ve been working on. How about you?

Diana (1m 32s):
Oh, that’s so interesting that you said that before I tell you what I’ve been working on. I was just reading and I believe it’s the AG quarterly, and it’s talking about derivative works kind of the same thing, understanding why they were even created in the first place and everything that went into creating those. And the specific one was the da DIR daughters of the American revolution that their first project, when they were formed in the late 1880s, was to go out and get all the information for all the Patriot graves. And, You know, sometimes we discount these derivative works and I thought that was a really good perspective just to understand why they were made and more about who made them, because then it can help us to, You know, decide how good are those works.

Diana (2m 23s):
You know, something like that might be far better than a computer indexed reading of some, there’s so many different ways that we get derivative works and same way with original works, lots of different ways. We get those. So always good to understand the source.

Nicole (2m 38s):
Yeah. So true.

Diana (2m 40s):
Well, I’ve been reading more of the family tree problem solver by Martha Hoffman rising. And I’m on the portion of the book that talks about deeds and land records. And the part that I read this morning, I thought was so fun. I had never thought of it this in this term. And it was talking about deeds that are prenuptial agreements. And it said they’re often recorded in deed books where a woman is bringing into a second marriage property and it could be land. It could be enslaved individuals, which you’ll often see in the south or, You know, anything else that’s the property.

Diana (3m 22s):
And they wanna make sure that that is, You know, noted and indeed that she gets to retain that property or whatever they want done with that. So I never thought of that before Indeeds that you would have something that you could call a prenuptial agreement. And of course those will often state relationships, You know, talking about property, they inherited from a father or, You know, talking about a first marriage. So that was just kind of a fun little tidbit.

Nicole (3m 49s):
Yeah. There’s a lot of things that can be in documents that we wouldn’t expect or really even know existed. And that’s why it’s so good to check everything you can possibly think of to check. I used to think, oh, deeds, aren’t gonna be helpful. They don’t state family relationships, but so often deeds can tell you way more than you thought.

Diana (4m 8s):
This also points to the value of doing research on people other than your own family, because we can get kind of stuck in the records our families created and not realize that there are all these other records that other people might have. And so that’s what I love about doing client work is you get into whole new places and times and different types of records, and it really broadens your understanding. And every once in a while, you can apply that to your own brick wall and realize that there might be more for your own family research, but sometimes it takes researching somebody else to figure that out.

Nicole (4m 47s):
Yes, you just gain so much experience by diving into different families and different research questions.

Diana (4m 52s):
Absolutely.

Nicole (4m 54s):
Well, our announcements are just that the study group is going to continue registering for a few more days. So if you would like to sign up for a research like a pro, we would love to have you for our fall study group. And we do this once a year and it’s going to be nine weeks. So we hope that you’ll join us. And as always, you can join our newsletter to get coupons and different specials that we’re running for various holidays and conferences.

Diana (5m 23s):
Well, we are going to have some fun today talking about Accreditation and believe it or not, it has been five years since I accredited. And So I had to do a renewal this year. And then, so we’re going to talk about my renewal. And then we have our special guest Lisa Stokes back, and Lisa and I are coordinating the S SLIG academy course 2023 on becoming an accredited, A Genealogist professional. The why the what and the how. So we’re excited to have Lisa here to talk both about renewals and about our course. Hi Lisa.

Lisa Stokes, AG (6m 3s):
Hi, great to be here.

Diana (6m 4s):
Well, let me just do a little bit of explanation about this course and Lisa and I are both going to kind of talk a little bit to this for anybody listening, who doesn’t understand the term SLIG we tend to use that a lot and forget that new listeners may not know that that sounds for the salt lake Institute of Genealogy. And of course that’s a mouthful, so we just always call it SLIG Lisa and I ran this course in January of this year, 2022, and they asked us to come back and do it next spring in 2023. And then we’ll be repeating it, I believe every other year. We’ll see how the SLIG wants us to do that, but we’re going to do it with some differences.

Diana (6m 49s):
When we did it in January, we did it five consecutive days and it was pretty intense. We decided that this time we would break it up and we’re doing it with the extended program. So we’ll just meet for five Thursdays. And it will be all day on Thursdays from eight to four 30 mountain time. And we have a morning and an afternoon break and then a nice lunch break. And we are going to be repeating mostly the same classes, but we do have some notable difference in benefits because we asked for feedback from our class members. And then we met as a team with our instructors and it to really good brainstorming session and thought of some really great new ideas.

Diana (7m 31s):
And so we are excited that we’ve added a session on research methodology, one on the language requirements and one just on writing skills. And we also brought into additional instructors, Melissa Finley, and Carrie Meyers, who are accredited Genealogist as well. And because we will be doing this virtually completely online and they live in Texas, they will be able to join us. So we’re pretty excited to have some new classes and to have some new instructors with their perspectives. So if you’re interested in joining us for that, there are just a few prerequisites. You need to have read the guide to applying for the Accreditation Credential, and you need to choose a region of the United States.

Diana (8m 16s):
And these are all on the website, the different regions. And then you should have completed research for one of your generations and have an outline for the proof for that generation and then practice writing. So those are some of the things we found. If you have done those before you come to the course, you will just be so much more successful with it. So, Lisa, do you wanna give us a little bit more information?

Lisa Stokes, AG (8m 43s):
Sure. So we’re super excited about this interactive course. We had so much good feedback from people who loved that. We had a lot of hands on a lot of breakout rooms, a lot of, of discussion to help people as they were learning. They had a lot of questions. And so they love the interactive style of the course. We will be giving assignments. I’m excited about the assignments last time, as Diana said, it was five days. And so the participants only had one night to do their homework. It was pretty crazy for them. They were, it was a really intense week. So we’re really excited that they will have a whole week to do the assignment this time we will use rubrics so that you can evaluate your work, or we’re just using the rubrics from the guide to applying for an accredited Genealogist Credential.

Lisa Stokes, AG (9m 34s):
So that gives you experience with the rubrics. Of course, the highlight is the four hour practice test for your level three project. And we personalize these for each of the regions. And then you will have a mentor that will review that project with you along with peer review. Then, as I mentioned before, we have instructions and labs and homework. And one of the differences between this course and taking an ICAP gen study group for example, is that you will have a lot of hands on instruction and a lot of skill building. We do deep dives into all of the topics versus the study group where you’re expected to kind of know a lot of those skills already, but you do get really, really in depth feedback from a mentor throughout the whole study group.

Lisa Stokes, AG (10m 28s):
Whereas for the SLIG course, it’s more focused on the skill building rather than, than the review and the feedback.

Diana (10m 36s):
Yeah, I think it’s great that they are two different programs. If I could have taken something like this, when I was preparing for Accreditation, I would’ve done it in a minute because we had you and I both met at a BYU conference where they had an Accreditation track and we went to like 10 classes over the course of two days, but we didn’t have any hands on, You know, there was no ability to have your work looked at to see if where your skills were. Yeah. You just listened to a lecture, which was great because it gave me all the details. And then I did the, one of the very first ICAP gen study groups, which have come a long way where we did do a little bit of hands on, but man, we have really refined what you need to know to accredit and the process of giving someone some practice and some review.

Diana (11m 27s):
So it’s exciting, isn’t it Lisa?

Lisa Stokes, AG (11m 29s):
Yeah, it is. And I really had so much fun doing the SLIG course last year and it just great to get to know people. And there was so much learning. I learned stuff during the course too, and that’s always great. We’re always learning as Genealogist and when we stop learning, that’s when we, we stop growing. So

Diana (11m 47s):
Yeah, that’s such a good perspective and I think it’s something everyone really needs to understand just because you gain a Credential and Nicole, you can talk to this as well. You know, once you have your certified Genealogist Credential, I mean, you’re not gonna consider it done. Right?

Nicole (12m 2s):
Absolutely. It’s just going to be a stepping stone for all of the goals that I have, You know, I wanna publish and I wanna do more,

Diana (12m 10s):
Right. It just, basically it shows that you’ve done the work to gain that Credential, but then you have to keep doing the work to keep earning that Credential, which is what we’re gonna talk about next. And that is the renewal and both the certified Genealogist and the accredited Genealogist credentials require a renewal every five years. So if you wanna keep that up, you’ve gotta be thinking about your renewal because I tell you those five years go by pretty fast. So I just barely renewed. And Lisa, where are you in the renewal process?

Lisa Stokes, AG (12m 42s):
I just received my six month letter giving me a reminder that I’m six months out. I received a letter six months ago at telling me that I was a year out.

Diana (12m 51s):
Yeah. I, I think that’s really great that I kept, Jen does send out those letters to help remind us. And so for anyone that hasn’t heard us talk about, I kept Jen before that is the acronym for the international commission for the Accreditation of professional Genealogist, which we will here to, for a call. I kept Jen. So five years ago, I received my Credential and it was so exciting. I had worked for two years. Like I mentioned, I had done the BYU class, the summer of 2015 and started working on my four generation project, the summer of 2016. I took all the classes again because they, at that time were doing that conference every year and continued working.

Diana (13m 35s):
And then I submitted my four generation project in January of 2017 and then did my testing and then got my Credential, the very first part of July of 2017. So took me two years from start to finish. And, You know, everybody’s different. Some people get it done in more like three or four years or, or I don’t know if anybody gets it done in one year anymore. I don’t know. Lisa, how long did it take you?

Lisa Stokes, AG (14m 6s):
I spent about two and a half years. A very intensive time spent like all my spare time and I wasn’t working full time at the time. So it was a lot, I probably spent eight, eight hours a day.

Diana (14m 18s):
Right. There’s things that you have to come up to speed on and, and your different regions, You know, I hadn’t researched in Florida before, and that was part of the Gulf south region. And So I had to get 80 hours of experience researching there. So those types of things do take time.

Lisa Stokes, AG (14m 34s):
I worked on a lot of methodology that I felt like I was deficient in during that time, in addition to the hours in the states that I’d never researched before. So I did a lot of deep dives into methodologies.

Diana (14m 47s):
Oh, I did too. I read every book yeah. That I could find, know a book on the census, a book on, You know, you name it.

Nicole (14m 55s):
Well, some people might be wondering why do we need to renew credentials after a certain amount of time? And, You know, it’s interesting how quickly the Genealogy world changes. And I think a lot of that has to do with the technology advances that we’ve had. Another is the, You know, at least in the last 10 years or so, DNA availability has completely revolutionized research on brick walls by helping us, You know, find more evidence for relationships that we hadn’t known anything about before. So although, You know, for Accreditation DNA experience is not a requirement when working with clients, it’s really important to understand how to use DNA, to further their research goals.

Nicole (15m 43s):
And then, like I mentioned before, You know, DNA, isn’t the only new technology that we have access to, but there are many more record collections that are being digitized all the time and put online by family surge and ancestry. And so we need to keep abreast of new places to look for records, to use the client’s time most efficiently also for all of us, You know, as we do our research, being able to do that reasonably exhaustive research and find the records that are most relevant to our research question most efficiently also, You know, Diana and I have been working on incorporating new tools like air table research logs and using air table.com to keep track of our research and our DNA matches.

Nicole (16m 24s):
And then of course, there’s all kinds of other tech tools that can help with, with our work like zoom and Vimeo and so forth. So part of being a professional is learning how to keep on top of all the new technology, but mostly just using it to be more efficient and being able to access the records. Also part of being a professional is sharing your knowledge. So podcasting and presenting lectures online really require that we use this technology like zoom and, You know, we’re recording this podcast right now using a tool called Zencaster and there’s all kinds of tech tools that can help us in our work.

Diana (17m 2s):
Yeah, I’m really glad you mentioned Airtable because that has streamlined our work so much. And I think all of us realize we only have so much time in our day to research and so anything we can do, any tool we can use, any of those things will help us to be better researchers. And I really did wanna mention too, that, You know, the purpose of getting a Credential, isn’t always to do client work, even though, You know, Accreditation really does prepare you as well as certification to do client work. But a lot of my purpose in doing Accreditation was just to become a better researcher. I wanted to get better at the Southern regions of the United States.

Diana (17m 43s):
So I could finally figure out where my people came from and who, who they were connected to. And I was just at a standstill with what I knew before I did all the work to credit. It is just a wonderful process to become better. It’s getting back to renewal. The purpose of renewal really is to make sure that you’re continuing to grow professionally. And even though the Accreditation process tests your proficiency in your location, like mine was Gulf, south Lisa was Mid-South. And those have since been kind of, You know, the states have been rearranged a bit, but you aren’t expected to know everything for every single state in your location, but you have to have a good knowledge of the key collections, key repositories and methodologies.

Diana (18m 35s):
But then of course, you’re going to continue to learn and to grow and gain more experience. And you’re going to do more research, You know, attend courses. I just attended two institutes this month. And as we lecture and write, we continue to grow. And so accredited Genealogist professionals are expected to keep growing your skillset. So I love that we have to do a renewal and we have to prove, You know what we’ve done keeps us on our toes.

Nicole (19m 5s):
Yeah. It really does keep you on your toes. And, and especially with Accreditation, it helps you, it seems like focus on your region and really become more of an expert there.

Diana (19m 17s):
Yeah, I think so. And to be mindful about growing your skillset in your region, I love researching in any place, but You know, we do have some specific requirements and if we are Renewing a Credential in a region, we have to make sure we’re growing our skill in that region. So Lisa, why don’t you take us through the actual procedure for renewal?

Lisa Stokes, AG (19m 41s):
Okay. Well, as I mentioned before, about one year from your renewal date, they will send you an email that remind you, this is what you need to do. They send all the attachments for the documents that you need. Those documents are also found on the website. If anybody wants to go look at those ahead of time, I highly suggest looking at them before the year, mark, because several of the activities that you can do on the educational list, you might wanna start doing those through the whole five years. And so tracking those and remembering is important. And then, like I mentioned before, you’ll get a six month reminder that you’re six months out. So once you have your plan in place on how you’re going to do your renewal, you wanna start gathering those documents.

Lisa Stokes, AG (20m 29s):
And as I said, tracking, some of the activities that you’ve done over the five years is a great idea. And then once you have everything ready, you’ll email your documents to the renewal committee. If you want to go to the renewal page at ICAP gen, you can see all these requirements. First of all, you design the professional ethics agreement. This is something you sign when you first become accredited and you sign it again. So it’s really great to renew all those ethic agreements so that you are refreshed on those. So there’s a Accreditation renewal form that you will fill out and you have two options on this.

Lisa Stokes, AG (21m 10s):
There’s an option, a and an option B option a is for full-time research professionals who accrue over like 3000 hours of actual research in the region. And so many of us don’t really fit that bill because we do other activities. And our research is not quite that intense option. A you need to record and track all those hours and be able to show that, yes, you did that 3000 hours. For those of us who don’t do the 3000 hours and aren’t working in that sort of capacity, there’s an option B most people fall under option B.

Lisa Stokes, AG (21m 51s):
And so you have the option to have published an article in a peer review journal sometime in the past five years. And it has to be in your area of Accreditation, or you can submit a research report that covers at least 10 hours of original research in your region. And I feel like most of us are doing this, this approach along with that article or the report, you need to write a cover letter that summarizes all the research and all the activities that you’ve done over the past five years. And I sat down a couple weeks ago actually to start brainstorming what I’ve done over the past five years.

Lisa Stokes, AG (22m 32s):
And I was actually surprised at all the things that I’ve had my hands in. So I have an outline already written for my cover letter. And I suggest if you wanna start your cover letter right after you a credit, then you would have that every time you think, oh, yes, I’ve just done this activity or that activity. You can add that to your list and then you’ll have a good foundation for your cover letter. When you go to write it. I like to view the cover letter as all of your genealogical activity, You know, all the different things that you’ve done professionally or pro bono or anything along that line. In addition to that cover letter, you’re going to need to submit two genealogical activities that you’ve done.

Lisa Stokes, AG (23m 17s):
And there’s a whole list of 20 different activities that you can do to choose from those activities may include reading books and writing reviews, which is what I’ve chosen to do. And I also have chosen to do the activity where you do 20 hours worth of educational classes. So that can be a webinar or Institute classes or things like that. And then you summarize those on a sheet and then there’s a checklist that you fill out all the checklists that helps you remember what you need to do.

Nicole (23m 50s):
Thanks for all that great information. Lisa, Diana, how did you go ahead and tackle Renewing your Credential based on those requirements?

Diana (23m 59s):
Well, last fall, I knew that this was coming up and So I started a document and made a plan for what I needed to do. And some of the things were easy. You know, the renewal form signed ethics agreement. Those are easy. And there just like Lisa was talking about the cover letter. You know, I just went back and looked at what I’ve done in the last five years. And it really showed how much I’ve been immersed in this career. I counted, I’ve done 70 plus client projects, 200 plus episodes of this podcast, numerous presentations for different conferences and societies published two books, developed two courses and study groups and attended eight institutes and wrote a lot of blog posts.

Diana (24m 41s):
So, You know, it was fun just to kind of look at those numbers and realize how much I have been immersed in this. And that was fun. So because I do this pretty much full time, I have done a lot and spent a lot of hours, but that doesn’t mean everybody has to. All you need to do is show you’ve been involved with the Genealogy field that you are making, You know, a difference in the world. I think it’s really up to us too, after we’ve learned to share and teach and help others as well. And I think that’s part of the purpose of this. And then as Lisa mentioned, educational activities, you get a list that you get to choose from, and these are in your region. And So I chose to do the one where you do an Institute course to specific Institute courses for your region.

Diana (25m 29s):
And I had done eight Institute courses, but some of those were on DNA and other topics, but I had done two UN advanced Southern research and Texas research. So those were my two in my region and those fulfilled that requirement. And then my second one was creating and presenting two lectures specific to the Gulf south region. And I fulfilled that requirement when I did my lecture for NGS in 2020 on Texas land records. And then I also developed a class that I have done for various societies called finding that elusive Southern ancestor. And So I just had to turn in the date and places and the class description and my handout to show what I had done with that.

Diana (26m 13s):
And I was glad I’d planned ahead that I already, You know, knew what I needed to do. And I made sure I had that covered. So I think that might be tricky if you’re not thinking ahead, some of those educational opportunities,

Nicole (26m 25s):
Well, I’d love that you developed those two classes because learning and studying about something in order to present, it really makes your knowledge of that item or topic really deeper. And one thing that’s great about the national genealogical society conference is that they do accept those really specific lectures that are about individual states or record types within a, a state. So that’s cool that you got to do the navigating, the unique Texas land grant system lecture for them.

Diana (26m 53s):
Yeah, it was fun and it was great to learn. And the best part is that, You know, you develop this great handout for it. And I find myself going back and just referring to my own handout because you kind of forget sometimes along the way, some of the details you put in there. So, You know, it’s a resource you’ve developed for yourself as well. Okay. So the next part that I had to turn in was volunteer hours. And this is a new renewal requirement where you have to show that you’ve done five hours per year. So a total of 25 hours for ICAP gen or another Genealogy organization in the last five years, since you renewed or got your Credential.

Diana (27m 33s):
The first time the ICAP gen website gives you many, many ideas and opportunities. We are always looking for people to help rate projects and exams and can always use mentors in the study group. Lisa uses a lot of accredited Genealogist in her study group for, I kept Jen and we always need people doing new videos for our YouTube channel. There’s so many ways that we can give back to the organization. So this was an easy one for me because as soon as I was called into the room and given the news that I was now an AG, the testing committee chair, Lynn asked me to head up the presentation committee and redo the Accreditation process videos, which had become outdated.

Diana (28m 18s):
And so right away, I started volunteering and Lisa was part of my team and with a few other AGS, we created the ICAP gen YouTube channel. And we continue to add videos and, You know, teach people how to either become accredited or just to build your skills. So I also set to work, trying to give a lot of presentations on the process. And then as we talked about, we did the week-long Institute course, and we we’ll be repeating that. So a lot of teaching on the process in those five years, and then I also am an ICAP gen commissioner. So that means I meet every other month with other commissioners and we work on furthering the work of ICAP, Jen and Accreditation.

Diana (29m 5s):
So, You know, looking back, I thought, I’m pretty sure I have few more than 25 hours, but I remember once hearing a speaker talk about the importance of volunteering because of all the great networking opportunities it brings. And I can really attest to the truth of that because it is given me a voice in the Genealogy world. I have met so many people. It’s, it’s been great. I can’t say enough about how wonderful it’s been to volunteer.

Lisa Stokes, AG (29m 34s):
I agree with you, Diana, the volunteer opportunities have been such a huge growing experience for me. And I’ve really, really enjoyed my experience, especially with the, I kept gen study groups. I feel like I learned so much more as I helped put those groups together, helped form the curriculum. I feel like I learned so much more after I was actually Credential than I did before. And so it’s great learning experience. And we’re always looking for mentors for that. I kept gen study group. So if you are looking for your renewal and want a volunteer time, contact me and we can get you set up to help with the study groups, not just as a mentor, but we have other positions as well.

Diana (30m 26s):
Well, the final piece of the renewal that I had to tackle was the research project. And because I don’t work full time, like at the family history library, which was for option a, I had to submit a project of eight to 10 pages, or I could have published an article in the last five years. But since I hadn’t done that, I had to do the research project, but I’m totally thinking of publishing for this next renewal, because that would be so fun. That’s another topic. So the tricky part was finding a project I could turn in that was no more than eight pages is what it actually had to be.

Diana (31m 9s):
And So I took a client project I had done earlier in the year in Texas, has to be in your region. And it was originally 20 pages for the report. And I paired that down to eight pages. So that was probably the hardest part. And your project can be an excerpt. And that’s exactly what I did. I just submitted an excerpt and you all only have to submit a PDF with the report, a family group record, and a research log. So it’s much less intensive than that big 40 page four generation report that I turned in for my original Accreditation. So it’s not that hard. Just be thinking ahead about what you can use for that.

Nicole (31m 50s):
Yes. I think the hardest part would be choosing which excerpt to submit from a 20 page report, cuz eight pages is very short, but that is nice that you didn’t have to do a full-blown four generation report like you did the first time and that makes it a lot less daunting. I’m sure. And so you just did a PDF of the eight page report and then a family group sheet and a research log.

Diana (32m 14s):
Yeah, yeah. Great. Yeah. My research log was an air table, So I was able just to hide the columns that weren’t necessary and made a really nice PDF of that pretty easily. So I thought maybe it would be harder than it was, but You know, it just took a few hours to get it down to where it needed to be and still make sense. So it was all good.

Lisa Stokes, AG (32m 38s):
Yeah. So for mine, I’m actually working on a new project that I hadn’t done for a client I’m working on one of my own projects. And so I’m excited about that because I’m gonna sneak a little DNA in there after taking research like a pro with DNA a couple times I’m bound and determined. I wanna show some DNA work in there. So I, yeah.

Diana (33m 2s):
Good for you. That is great.

Nicole (33m 4s):
Well, You know that I’m putting DNA in all of my portfolio, if, if I can. That’s awesome. That’s my goal too. And the challenge with that is just how much it increases the page count and with a 150 page count limit for all of the elements, that’s kind of short.

Lisa Stokes, AG (33m 21s):
Yeah.

Diana (33m 21s):
That definitely makes it makes it tricky. Oh my goodness.

Nicole (33m 25s):
But yeah, you could totally sneak in some DNA, even in eight pages, even if it’s just like some Y DNA or something.

Diana (33m 33s):
And that’s what I had done in my original four generation. I had done Y DNA just a little bit mentioning it connecting. So yeah. That’s awesome. Lisa, well, let’s wrap up this episode was just some tips. So we’ve kind of alluded to a lot of these tips throughout this episode, but if you’re a newly accredited Genealogist or even if you’re interested, think about starting early and look at those requirements well in advance, so you can plan ahead, you can sign up for institutes, you can get a project ready, you can write an article, you can make sure you’ve got your volunteer hours and really make a plan.

Diana (34m 13s):
You know, I would suggest starting a spreadsheet or a document and planning it out, how you’re going to do that. You don’t become credentialed overnight and you don’t become renewed overnight. You still have to plan it out and figure out how to do it, but it’s great. And then you get that certificate to hang on your wall and celebrate another five years as an accredited generalist professional.

Lisa Stokes, AG (34m 37s):
Great tips, Diana.

Diana (34m 40s):
Well, Lisa, let’s tell everybody before we close this episode, how to sign up for our course at the salt lake Institute of Genealogy.

Lisa Stokes, AG (34m 49s):
So if you are interested in signing up for this SLIG course that Diana and I are doing about Accreditation, the link is in the show notes for the UGA website where you can sign up and register.

Nicole (35m 3s):
Fantastic. Yes, there’s. I think there’s kind of like two different websites. Once you go to the UGA SLIG page, they have the course descriptions, but then you have to go to the sidebar and go to registration and click register, and it kind of takes you to the special registration page. So I’ll put a link to both of those so that you can see, and you just have to log into the registration. If you don’t have an account, you have to create an account for SLIG registration. And then you can see the SLIG academy for professionals 2023. And this is course six becoming an accredited Genealogist. And, and yeah, as of the recording, there’s some seats available, but there is a limit on that.

Nicole (35m 44s):
So it’ll be good to go ahead and sign up as soon as You know that you want to do it.

Diana (35m 48s):
And I would recommend just setting that as your goal, and then you can work on those prerequisites for the next few months. It doesn’t start until March. So you’d have a few months to work on all the prerequisites and we have detailed descriptions of the classes on what will be covered in each class for those five days that we meet. So it’s not like you won’t know what’s coming up or what you’ll be doing. You can really look at it and decide if you want to take that time in the spring to take the course and really get going on your Credential.

Nicole (36m 19s):
Thanks everybody for listening. And we hope that you will work on your goals to become a credentialed Genealogist. Even if you aren’t planning on going through the whole process, it’s so valuable for your education as a Genealogist to work toward the goals of acquiring the knowledge needed to become credentialed. So hopefully that will increase your Genealogy education. So thank you for coming Lisa and good luck with your renewal.

Lisa Stokes, AG (36m 47s):
Thanks. It was great. Being here. Enjoy chatting with you guys. All

Diana (36m 51s):
Right. Have a great week everyone. And we’ll talk to you next time.

Nicole (36m 54s):
Bye. Thank you for listening.

Nicole (37m 34s):
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