Classes and Extended Courses
The following provides a sampling of some of the online learning opportunities ranging from single courses to certificate programs. Some are free, others (the majority) have an associated cost. This is not intended as an endorsement of any particular course/program but merely a taste of what is out there. Try various forms of internet search terms to find others that may be of interest.
National Genealogical Society (NGS)
NGS offers two different online, independent learning opportunities: American Genealogical Studies and Continuing Genealogical Studies. These courses have no set times for attendance (though all have a generous completion time period) and are intended to provide a detailed, but flexible learning experience. Course costs are less for NGS members than for non-members.
American Genealogical Studies (AGS): AGS consists of four separate offerings: AGS-The Basics, AGS-Guide to Documentation and Source Citation, AGS-Beyond the Basics, and AGS-Branching Out. AGS-The Basics and AGS-Guide to Documentation and Source Citation are pre-requisites for AGS-Beyond the Basics, which is in turn a pre-requisite for AGS-Branching Out. Within each course are modules providing instruction, examples, web links, self-correcting quizzes, bibliographies, glossaries, and written graded assignments. Upon satisfactory completion of the components, students receive a certificate.
Continuing Genealogical Studies (CGS): CGS consists of stand-alone, topic-specific courses. Current courses (as of Nov 2020) are: African-American Roots: A Historical Perspective; Transcribing, Extracting, and Abstracting Genealogical Records; Reading Old Handwriting; Federal Land Records; Effective Use of Deeds; Researching 17th and 18th Century German Ancestors; Understanding and Using DNA Test Results; Genetic Genealogy, Autosomal DNA; Researching Your Revolutionary War Ancestors; War of 1812 Records; Introduction to Civil War Research; Researching Your World War I Ancestors. Within each course are modules similar to a chapter. Each module has instructions, examples, web-links, readings, and a module quiz.
National Institute for Genealogical Studies
NIGS offers a large selection of courses in categories of Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and Electives. Courses are grouped in specialty areas (e.g. American Records, German Records) leading to a certificate of completion in that area, but may be taken as stand alone courses as well.
Family Tree University
Family Tree University offers a selection of courses (15 as of April 2024), generally directed at the Beginner to Advanced Beginner skill levels. Courses are online and at your own pace, but must be completed within a specified total time period – usually 4 weeks for general classes and 1 week for workshops.
Brigham Young University
BYU offers a set of free online genealogy courses that fall into three groups: Introductory classes, Record Type classes, and Regional/Ethnic classes. These classes are targeted to the Beginner to Advanced Beginner level genealogist.
Boston University
Boston University offers two learning opportunities in the form of their Genealogical Principles Course (7 weeks) and their Certificate Program in Genealogical Research (15 weeks). Genealogical Principles is targeted to the Beginner to Advanced Beginner level genealogist who are looking to advance their general skills – it is the foundation class for the Certificate Program. The Certificate Program is directed to those looking for more advanced genealogical education and professional genealogist looking to advance their careers.
Webinars
Webinars are a good way to extend your genealogical education regardless of skill level. Some webinars are free and some are paid. Webinars may be offered for viewing after the initial presentation for some period of time for those who were unable to attend at the scheduled time.
What is a webinar? A webinar is a presentation/seminar presented live over the internet. Most begin with an introduction of the speaker, followed by his/her presentation, followed by a Q&A session. Webinars can be conducted through a variety of host sites, but from the perspective of the end user the process is usually fairly simple. After registering, you will receive an e-mail with the log-in information and link to the webinar. Depending of the hosting site, a piece of software may need to be installed to your computer - a process that they have made very painless and usually just requires a click of a button from you. Sound can usually be handled either through your computer speakers or over the phone, depending on your equipment. Questions are usually handled by the typing the question into a dialog box in the webinar tools - the speaker and/or webinar host will then handled the questions as they come in or at the end of the presentation.
Legacy Family Tree Webinars and Family Search Webinars are two big providers of genealogy webinars, though many other groups and local societies also provide webinars. These latter are usually easiest to find be checking genealogy webinar calendars (see below) or searching "webinar" and any specific terms of interest.
Legacy Family Tree Webinars
The current catalog of post-presentaion webinars at Legacy now tops 700 with topics appropriate for all levels of genealogical skill. The home page for the webinars has buttons that will take you to the upcoming webinars and another that will take you to the library of webinars.
Family Search Webinars
Upcoming and past webinars for Family Search can be accessed through the link below. For past webinars, click the "show" text next to the topic of interest to see the full listing of webinars available. If the title of a webinar is in blue text, that is an active link to the presentation for you to watch. If the title is not in blue, the actual presentation is no longer available for viewing. For all past webinars, the "Handout" text should be in blue indicating that you can access (and download as a PDF) the handouts from the webinar.
Various Genealogy Webinar Calendars
Try searching "genealogy webinar calendar" with or without a specific topic or location or try these. Don't expect to find all possible webinars on any single calendar - check multiple calendars to find what you are interested in. Here are a few possibilities:
