ARA Midlands Training Event - Genealogy for Archive Staff

Are you an archive professional regularly responding to family history enquiries? Are you looking to expand your knowledge to provide a better service? Our comprehensive Genealogy for Archive Staff training is tailored just for you.

Why join?

The curriculum for training today’s archive and library staff is so jam packed with theory; digital preservation; management skills; palaeography etc that it doesn’t have space to provide much of an introduction to genealogy.

However many, many enquiries to archive services are concerned with family history research and many, many more use the abundance of information online. So we have a large percentage of users, many of whom are new to their subject area, that we often don’t feel able to advise effectively.

Course Highlights

This course aims to provide an introduction to genealogy and genealogists/family historians for archive staff. It will outline the issues, methods and resources that genealogists would encounter constructing a family tree, focusing on England and Wales. Throughout the day long course we will highlight the issues that staff should be aware of and enable them to confidently advise and guide family historians that use.

At the end of the course you will have a good awareness of how to undertake genealogical research and a deeper understanding of how to respond to the needs of family historians. Throughout the session we will investigate one family, exploring their history, what records we can find and how genealogical techniques can uncover their stories.

We will look at the pitfalls in researching an individual or family and how these can be overcome. We will also examine the key online sources for genealogy and how they work. A handbook will be provided to all participants providing information and outlining the sources discussed.

Feedback from previous course participants:

‘I think this is essential training for almost all archive staff. The course was absolutely packed with practical tips and information, so provided exactly the kind of encouragement and clear guidance I was hoping for.’

‘I really believe all archivists should have this amount of knowledge to advise researchers and archive users. The course was brilliant. It was enjoyable, friendly, accessible and incredibly useful.

‘The delivery was outstanding and the content very interesting as it was based on real life examples.’

‘Before the course I would have avoided offering any kind of advice to a genealogy researcher, but now I feel confident I could offer clear guidance and support.’

‘The public assume we have the knowledge and it forms a significant part of our enquiries, so this course is both desperately needed and essential for all archive staff.’

Your tutor

Janice Tullock has over 30 years’ experience in genealogy, more recently as a qualified, professional genealogist. She has recently achieved a postgraduate diploma in Genealogical, Palaeographic & Heraldic Studies and is about to start research into Child Emigration in Liverpool 1883-1895 to complete her MSc. Janice is also a fully qualified archivist with a great reputation in the industry. A freelance consultant since 2006, she has worked with a variety of clients in a range of industries and has also been an expert advisor and mentor to the National Heritage Lottery Fund since 2001. She was in the first cohort of Fellows of the Archives and Records Association and in 2019 was appointed to the UK Archive Service Accreditation Committee

Course Details

The course will run on Monday 11th November from 10am to 4.30pm at The Hive in Worcester. Refreshments will be provided throughout the day, so please let us know when booking if you have any specfic dietary requirements.

Tickets cost £25 for ARA members and £40 for non-members.

Course Timetable

The following draft timetable is subject to change depending on the needs of the audience. Janice will email everyone a few weeks before the course to ask if they have any areas they want to cover and then tailor the course accordingly.

• 10:00-10:05 Introductions
• 10:05- 10:45 Introducing Genealogy
• 10:45-11:15 Getting started
• 11:15-11:30 Break
• 11:30-12:30 Key sources for genealogy
• 12:3 0 - 13: 3 0 Lunch
• 13:30 -14:30 Key sources for genealogy continued
• 14:30-15:30 Other key sources in local archives Including a break
• 16:30 Finish

Don’t miss this opportunity to enhance your skills in this popular area. Place are limited so book today via the Eventbrite link below. ARA Midlands members benefit from early bird booking until October 11, after which we will release any remaining places to other ARA regions and non-members.

Host or Publisher ARA Midlands