A week or more in Salt Lake City this January?

Think about it. What else do you have on your calendar for January 2010? How about setting aside time for a whole lot of learning and networking in the genealogy capital of the world? The annual Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy is set for 11-15 January 2010. Online registration is easy!

You pick a course, sign up, and arrive at the Radisson Hotel to begin an entire week of learning. Choose from twelve courses and you attend sessions in that same course all week. Each course registrant receives a comprehensive syllabus for that course, an orientation breakfast and the Friday night banquet. Look over the evening classes that are extra. (You do not have to be registered for SLIG to register for an evening class.)

I coordinate and teach in Course I which is an intermediate level course on U.S. resources titled American Records and Research: Focusing on Families. This course assists researchers in learning about and using sources and methods. The 2010 classes focus on topics related to researching individuals and families in the 19th-21st centuries. Sixteen informative classroom hours on significant U.S. records and strategies take you beyond basic research tools. In addition, for this course only, 6.5 hours of help in the Family History Library during the Institute week provides hands-on assistance and guidance. This totals 22.5 hours for your one fee. Click here for the list of specific classes for this course.

This course helps extend your research skills with light homework assignments to immediately apply the classroom information to research on your own families. Class work is in the morning on five of the days, one afternoon, with hands-on library assistance on three afternoons from three of the instructors. There is ample time for open research in the afternoon and evening. This course alternates every other year with another Institute course with resources related more directly to localities.

The top-notch instructors represent a wide variety of states, credentials, education, and expertise: Paula Stuart-Warren, CG, , Cath Madden Trindle, CG, D. Joshua Taylor, Debra Mieszala, CG, Kory Meyerink, AG, Craig R. Scott, CG, and Elissa Scalise Powell, CG.

Participants in this course should have advanced beyond the “bare bones” beginner. We suggest rereading one or more basic genealogy guidebooks and being familiar with the Family History Library Catalog. (Online at www.familysearch.org). It will help if you have taken a basic level genealogical class or two and attended at least one genealogical seminar. Students should bring along some of their own family research materials including ancestor charts and family group sheets (computer or paper) to use in immediately applying what they learn in class. These will also be helpful during scheduled one-on-one consultations.