One of the lectures is sponsored by GRIP: “Baptism: Sacrament, Ceremony, Practices, and Records, ” on Thursday, 9 May, 8:00 a.m., T203, presented by Rev. David McDonald, CG.

When John T. Humphrey, CG, died 12 August 2012, (see related post) he left a large hole in our genealogical community. Well-known for his German research expertise, John’s final public appearance, just two weeks prior to his death, was teaching a week-long German genealogy course at GRIP. Not only did his class enjoy his presence and knowledge that week, but students and faculty from other courses were able to sit with him for a meal or have conversations with him on campus.

John was also known for the Pennsylvania Births book series in which he indexed church baptismal records for southeast Pennsylvania counties. His roots were deep in that area and it is where he was raised and has been laid to rest. Many people can claim being a cousin with John due to those early German roots, including GRIP co-director Elissa Scalise Powell, CG, CGL, who is related to each of John’s parents.

It is quite fitting that GRIP sponsor this memorial lecture and that David McDonald, CG, a pastor in his “day job,” present it at an NGS conference, a society for which John worked as education director. In areas where civil birth records do not exist, church baptismal records, if kept, may be the only direct evidence of a child’s birth. John was aware of their importance and dedicated years to compiling his books. He probably would be pleased that David is making this presentation on the same subject.

Our thanks to Dave for doing this presentation.

Look to JAMB-Inc.com for audio CDs of lectures taped at NGS and other genealogical conferences.

Various circumstances have opened one seat in the Advanced Land Research course which was previous closed to new registrants. Who will be the lucky person to snag this seat?! Just go to the registration page and click on the link to register.

There are a few seats in the Military Records course with Craig Scott, Rick Sayre, and Debbie Mieszala as well as the Writing Your Immigrant Ancestors’ Stories course with John Colletta and Michael Hait. Please check out the schedule of all eighteen classes under the “Courses” tab for 2013. Click on the course title for a full schedule.

Those who elected to share a dorm but don’t have a roommate will be assigned one after May 15. There may still be a chance for a private dorm room for those who request it through the waitlist on the registration page.

Twelve weeks and counting!

To see each of the eighteen lecture titles and a description of the lectures, click on the course title at in the “Courses” tab along the top black ribbon. This should give you hour-by-hour details of what you will learn in the one course that you choose. Please also see the posts series ”Spotlight on” individual courses done by each course coordinator.

This is a special year for La Roche College, celebrating its 50th year. We learned that Martin Sheen will be their commencement speaker on May 4. No, I don’t think he will hang around until July for GRIP although you might be able to say you walked where he walked. See http://www.laroche.edu/commencement/speakers.htm.

As you think about your transportation to La Roche College this summmer, please review the schedule details in your registration confirmation email. Registration is Sunday, July 21, from 3 to 5 p.m. with dinner at 5 p.m. At 6:30 p.m. we will have an orientation and announcements. Classes are done on Friday, July 26 at noon with lunch after.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us.

“Advanced Land Research: Locating, Analyzing, Mapping” has just a couple of seats left and the other courses are filling as well. [Note: The Advanced Land Research course is now full and taking requests for a waitlist on the Registration page.]

Let your friends and society members know that they can join the students who so far hail from 29 different states for a week of networking and camaraderie. You don’t have to be experienced in a week-long institute: 41% of registrants said they had never been to one. 35% of registrants came to GRIP last year and 24% have experienced a week-long institute elsewhere.

We are pleased to have Maia’s Books from Columbus, Ohio, return for the week with a sales display of genealogy, history, and other books of interest to genealogists. Other activities include evening lectures on “What is a Reasonably Exhaustive Search?,” historic newspapers, and divorce records on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, respectively. The public is welcome to browse Maia’s Books and attend the evening lectures at 7 pm.

Hope to see you this summer!

1.) Choose a course. Review the course blog spotlights and the schedules which detail each class content to help in your decision.

2.) Choose whether you will share a dorm room or have a private room. Sharing a room for the five nights is a wonderful way to get to know a friend better or make a new friend. If you don’t have a roommate, one can be assigned. Last year several happy roommates told the GRIP co-directors how much they enjoyed their new found friend. Shared dorm rooms also allow us to house more students on campus.

3.) Decide if you will purchase a GRIP polo shirt (or two). There will be a day during the week when class photos will be taken. Wearing your shirt that day makes for great pictures. See the 2012 courses for class pictures.

[Please be patient with the system as it tallies your final bill.]

4.) Enter your contact information. If you are a previous student, the system may recognize you and skip this step.

5.) Answer the six questions on the questionnaire:

• How did your hear about GRIP? (Please tell us where you first learned of the institute.)
• How will you get to GRIP? (Drop-down menu so you don’t have to think much on this one!)
• Tell us about yourself in 50 words or less. You can have a prepared text that you copy and paste into the text box.
• Give us your roommates name or if you want one assigned, just state “male” or “female.”
• If you purchased a shirt this is where you say what style (men’s or women’s) and what size. See size chart at bottom of GRIPitt.org Registration page.
• Is this your first week-long institute? If you came to GRIP last year, let us know or if you are new to the institute experience.

That’s it! Make sure you do proceed through the summary page (where you can include a second email for the confirmation) and go to the checkout page with the “REGISTER” button.

***You won’t be able to claim your classroom spot without hitting ”REGISTER” and getting a confirmation screen. ***

On the confirmation screen you can print the invoice that you send in with your check. You should also get a confirmation email.

Good luck! Any problems, email us.

Bridging the Gap
by D. Joshua Taylor

Many genealogists become stuck in the “gap” between 1780 and 1840 when tracing families from New England to the Midwest. This unique course combines strategies for research in states between New England and the Midwest (including New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and others) within the historical backdrop of the United States between 1780 and 1840. Course topics combine major record types with methodologies, such as migration, military service, and tracing land records.

How much experience do you need? Enough to know you are stuck! Throughout the week you will have opportunities to engage in class discussions, share your own research problems and develop potential ways to overcome your personal gap. Several of the course’s activities are designed to solicit – and encourage – ideas from students. To ensure you are “ready to research” after the course, the optional project provides the chance to build a research plan encompassing methods and records covered during the week.

We are honored to have the couple at GRIP again this year, this time teaching a hands-on course all about land research. Last year GRIP audiences got just a taste of this dynamic duo’s instructional methods in the popular evening lecture on Google Earth. This and more awaits their students in this July’s course. Check out the exact lecture titles, descriptions, and schedule (including computer lab time) to see if this is the course for you this year.

Advanced Land Research: Locating, Analyzing, and Mapping
by Pam Boyer Sayre, CG, CGL and Rick Sayre, CG, CGL

Land genealogy is equally as important as people genealogy if you hope to solve those family mysteries. Until the twentieth century America was primarily an agrarian society, and most of our ancestors bought, sold, leased, inherited, or otherwise touched land at some point in their lives.

Don’t be fooled into thinking a deed will merely provide a name, a date, and a boring description of a piece of land. In fact, investigating the land records of your ancestors can yield rich details about their lives and relationships, migrations, wealth (or lack thereof), and occupations.

Should you take this advanced land research course? If you have a good foundation knowledge of basic genealogical principles, you should be ready. Perhaps you’ve taken Pam Sayre’s Techniques and Technology course at Samford’s IGHR, Paula Stuart-Warren’s American Research and Records course at Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, the NGS Home Study Course, or Boston University’s Genealogical Research Program. Any of these courses or their equivalent should have prepared you to succeed in this advanced land course.

Register now while there’s space available, and then roll up your sleeves. We’ll work hard learning the history of land in the United States, how our ancestors might have acquired theirs—from the “40-acres and a mule” small dirt farmer to the greedy developers who lapped up thousands of acres to the soldiers who received bounty land as partial payment for their service. We’ll meet them all and get to know them well, and you’ll learn how to do the same kind of research for your ancestors.

The half-day hands-on computer lab reinforces classroom learning. You’ll learn to use websites and programs such as DeedMapper platting software, Google Earth, and Earthpoint to visualize land plats and see the terrain and surroundings where ancestors lived. Students will share lab computers for these structured exercises.

Please come join us in Pittsburgh. We’ll work hard and have a lot of fun! (Enrollment limited to 30 students.)

Military records are one of the places where it is well to use the F.A.N. principle (looking to the Friends/Family, Associates, and Neighbors) to break down brick walls. It is in studying all the records pertaining to our subject that we can uncover who he is and how he fits in our family picture.

As Craig states below, this course is unique because it will talk about the records and how to wring every last detail from them. Along with Craig, other instructors include Debra S. Mieszala, CG, and Richard G. Sayre, CG, CGL. Please review the course description for lecture details.

Military Records: From Cradle to Grave
written by Craig R. Scott, CG

 Most military genealogy lectures have titles like, “Researching Your ___[Fill in the blank]____ War Ancestor” or some catchy title that means the same thing. I know I have taught enough of them over the last 22 years of standing in front of people talking about wars and our ancestor’s involvement in them. It is not that they are boring, but after a while they all begin to sound the same, even to me. There are sources, there is evidence, and there is fact. Most lectures focus on how to get to the sources not on what to do with them once we actually touch them, other than read and transcribe.

Records speak to us. They tell us things that are not written in the ink on the page. In order to hear, you will have to know how to listen. In order to listen you have to know the history of the record. Why did it come into being? What was its purpose? Whose voice are we listening to? What does the record say and then what does the record tell us? Is this the same person that we are interested in, or just another of the same name? Are the two people the same person or different people of the same name? What is said and what is left unsaid?

If you think that these are interesting questions than this course is for you.

We will examines the types, uses and functions of military records and the organizations that created them. Records that exist outside of compiled military service records and pensions that must be searched for to get a full picture of a soldier, sailor or marine’s military and post-military life. We have to be very careful not to stop too soon.

It is a course that I would want to take.

For those of you who love a good mystery or a well-told story, look for Dr. Colletta’s narrative, Only a Few Bones: A True Account of the Rolling Fork Tragedy and Its Aftermath. One can read this on many levels: for enjoyment of the historical story, for the puzzle of the evidence supporting the twelve hypotheses possibly explaining the tragedy, for the education of the skillful interweaving of source-cited facts. 

Before his narrative family story, Colletta was already an established author of immigration resources. They Came in Ships and Finding Italian Roots are both guides to their topics that have been helping generations of genealogists unite with their ancestors from “across the pond.”  

John describes the course content and activities (see link for more info): ”Vivid examples and case studies from colonial times through the early twentieth century demonstrate how to compile the material you’ve gathered; narrate life stories; maximize ship passenger lists, naturalization records, and information found in other immigrant sources; choose a numbering system; document, edit and proofread your text; and publish your work on paper or electronically. Classes explore how to weave oral family lore and treasured heirlooms, as well as pertinent local history, into your ancestors’ stories, and how to incorporate maps, charts and illustrations to enliven your prose. An in-class writing exercise (with follow-up in-class critique) helps you improve practical writing skills, share your special talents, and exchange ideas with the instructors and fellow students. Solid genealogical scholarship and narrative family history writing are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary.”

John wants his potential students to know that ”there are no prerequisites for the course. Genealogists at any stage of their research, from beginner to advanced, will benefit. They just need to be open to the idea of committing the stories of their immigrant ancestors to writing and publishing those stories either in electronic format or on paper for future generations.”

And isn’t that why we really spend our time and resources on genealogy? To link the past to the future and preserve what we can so that future generations will know the stories of those who have come before.

NOTE: Dr. Colletta’s books are available through a variety of sources including Maia’s Books which will set up a bookstore during the week of GRIP for public browsing.

The genealogical world is very excited at the upcoming new book by Dr. Jones that will be utilized in this new course as described below. Its spring publication date should allow time to purchase it before the July course. Those who do not take the course will find that the book can be a self-instructive text with exercises and an answer key. Congratulations to Dr. Jones for providing this type of resource to the genealogical field!

Determining Kinship Reliably with the Genealogical Proof Standard
by Thomas W. Jones, Ph.D., CG, CGL, FASG

Everyone tracing a family’s history faces a dilemma. We strive to reconstruct relationships and lives of people we cannot see, but if we cannot see them, how do we know we have portrayed them accurately? Is determining ancestry that predates living people’s memory just guesswork? Or do we blindly trust every source we examine and ignore inconsistencies? Should we perhaps do the opposite—mistrust sources to the point that our conclusions are mostly tentative? Can we not determine reliably which findings reflect the past? If we can make that determination, how can we show others its credibility?

“Determining Kinship Reliably with the Genealogical Proof Standard” aims to help experienced family historians address this dilemma and apply respected standards for acceptable conclusions. The course will be both interactive and activity based, with at least twenty-five in-class exercises using real records, real research, and real issues. Content will be presented in digestible chunks. Although the course will have an American focus, its principles apply across chronological, ethnic, geopolitical, and religious boundaries. The instructor designed the course’s explanations and exercises to help family historians portray accurately the lives and relationships of people they cannot see. It applies directly to family histories, reports (for self or clients), genealogical articles, and portfolio elements for certification applications.

Course content and activities will follow Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Va.: National Genealogical Society), scheduled for publication in spring 2013. The textbook is strongly recommended for this course. It includes a glossary and more in-depth explanations than are feasible for handout material. Besides this text, many of the in-class activities will use two case studies, which the instructor will e-mail to registrants a few weeks before the course begins.