“Going to the Next Level” means you have covered topics suggested in “Getting Started” and are actively engaged in using your new-found knowledge to build a good foundation as a family history researcher.
In this next stage of educational offerings, you will be challenged to learn more skills to help you identify and collect information on your ancestry, and also to evaluate it. Your individual progress as a family history researcher will be unique depending on how you personalize your learning program. Additionally, each researcher will be dealing with different access and availability to online and repository records affected by: municipal and governmental laws, different time periods, geography, ethnicity, and more.
NGS’s pathways Getting Started, Going to the Next Level, and Building Advanced Skills are flexible so each researcher may review the suggestions and follow them exactly, or move between the lists to build genealogical skills—choosing where you need to learn more to personalize your learning plan. In this suggested list, you will note we emphasize learning more about source documentation and the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS)1. Both critical elements for family history research.
