The Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's SLIG course - Becoming an Accredited Genealogist: The Why, What, and How. She coordinated the course along with Lisa Stokes and shares all the details about how they came up with the course and how it went. Join us to learn some great study techniques you can try for yourself as you prepare to become a better researcher or seek a credential....

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about the 1950 census that will be released on April 1, 2022. Diana shares an example of finding the enumeration district (ED) of her grandparents in Cassia County, Idaho. We review the information that can be found on the 1950 census and discuss indexing efforts. Join us as we discuss how to prepare for this census release! Links Preparing for the 1950 U....

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about how to write a research report at the end of a research project. This is an underused skill and many of us need to practice! The benefits of report writing far outweigh the challenges. This is a replay of episode 119 with new commentary at the beginning. Links RLP 119: Revisiting Report Writing Research Like a Pro Resources Research Like a Pro: A Gen...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about how to use a genealogy research log. As you follow this step in the RLP process, you'll add links and citations to your log to help you stay organized and keep track of what you did. This is a replay of episode 118 with new commentary about Airtable. Links RLP 118: Revisiting Research Logs https://airtable.com Research Like a Pro Resources Research L...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about how to make clear source citations. This is a replay of episode 117 with new commentary at the beginning. Diana shares her Nancy Briscoe project and how she created citations using the five elements of a citation. We also talk about the value of citation templates that help you be more efficient. Links RLP 117: Revisiting Source Citations - https://f...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about creating a research plan. This is a replay of episode 116, with commentary at the beginning and end. We discuss Diana's plan to research Nancy Briscoe's early life and the historical context of the time period. Join us as we discuss how to make an effective research plan and share Diana's example. We also discuss research planning and client work. Li...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about locality research. This third step in the RLP process helps you understand the historical and geographical context of your research project. It also helps you find record groups that might be relevant to your research planning. This is a replay of episode 115 with new commentary at the beginning about Diana's Missouri locality guide. Links RLP 115: R...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about timelines and analysis. Learn about this second step in the research like a pro process. This is a replay of episode 114, with new commentary at the beginning by Diana and Nicole. Nicole shares Airtable timeline column headers. We talk about Diana's second great-grandmother, Nancy Briscoe, who Diana researched as part of a 14 Day Mini-Research Like a...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about research objectives. Learn about this first step in the research like a pro process. This is a replay of episode 113, with commentary at the beginning and end by Diana and Nicole. We talk about Diana's experience discovering more about her 2nd great-grandmother, Nancy Briscoe as part of a 14 Day mini-Research Like a Pro challenge. Links RLP 113: Revi...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about the book American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard. Heidi Mathis gives us a snapshot of these 11 nations so that no matter where your ancestors settled in the U.S., you may learn something about the "nation" they lived in.  Links DNA Research Plan - https://familylocket.com/product/10-hour-dna...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is a discussion of the book American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard. Heidi Mathis, one of our researchers, joins us to discuss the general idea of American Nations. The book gives us a hypothesis to understand U.S. history as we research our ancestors. Also, the book excitingly has DNA evidence to ba...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is how to use RootsFinder, a family tree building online tool, to analyze your DNA matches and create a network graph - this time, with MyHeritage DNA matches. MyHeritage is unique because it shows you which of the shared matches triangulate. Network graphs consist of DNA matches, the nodes, and shared match connections, the lines between the nodes. With MyHe...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about how to use RootsFinder, a family tree building online tool, to analyze your DNA matches and create a network graph. Network graphs consist of DNA matches, the nodes, and shared match connections, the lines between the nodes. In RootsFinder, you import your matches and then link them to the common ancestor in your tree. Then they are automatically col...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's Dillard project. For the RLP with DNA study group, she is exploring the possibility that a cluster of DNA matches from her second cousin's network graph are related through Cynthia Dillard's parents. The MRCA of the cluster appears to be Elijah Dillard. In this assignment, Diana wrote a report. She shares some of her findings. Read her report...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's Dillard project. For the RLP with DNA study group, she is exploring the possibility that a cluster of DNA matches from her second cousin's network graph are related through Cynthia Dillard's parents. The MRCA of the cluster appears to be Elijah Dillard. In this assignment, Diana followed her research plan and recorded her searches in Airtable...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's Dillard project. For the RLP with DNA study group, she is exploring the possibility that a cluster of DNA matches from her second cousin's network graph are related through Cynthia Dillard's parents. The MRCA of the cluster appears to be Elijah Dillard. In this assignment, Diana made a research plan. First, she created a summary of known fact...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's Dillard project. For the RLP with DNA study group, she is exploring the possibility that a cluster of DNA matches from her second cousin's network graph are related through Cynthia Dillard's parents. The MRCA of the cluster appears to be Elijah Dillard. In this assignment, Diana explored DNA tools to see if any would be useful in her project....

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's Dillard project. For the RLP with DNA study group, she is exploring the possibility that a cluster of DNA matches from her second cousin's network graph are related through Cynthia Dillard's parents. The MRCA of the cluster appears to be Elijah Dillard. In this assignment, Diana studied Elijah Dillard's timeline and chose two places to learn...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's RLP with DNA study group project. She shares how she made a timeline for the hypothesized brother of Cynthia Dillard, Elijah Dillard. We discuss her Airtable timeline as well as citations and FANs. Part of the assignment is to analyze the sources in the timeline as well as the DNA sources. Using the Shared cM Project, Diana compares the propo...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's RLP with DNA study group project. Diana is sharing her work to diagram Victor's matches and become familiar with his close matches. She also analyzed a network graph made with Gephi showing Victor's matches. Diana shares her research objective for the project to discover Cynthia Dillard's father. Links RLP with DNA Study Group Part 2: Organiz...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's RLP with DNA study group project. The first assignment is about analyzing your pedigree and choosing a research question. Diana has decided to study her brick wall to identify Cynthia (Dillard) Royston's father. She shares how she began by working with a cousin's DNA matches. Part of this assignment is to assess close DNA matches to help sepa...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about books that Diana has been reading to help her with African American Research. She discusses general reference books as well as locality specific references. There are an abundance of materials available to guide our research these days, and some of those materials are only available in printed books. It's great to take advantage of the writings of fe...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's experiment to see if doing surname searches at each DNA testing website could help her find matches about a research question. She then used the results of her searches to decide if she had enough matches to work on this research objective. Mary "Clemsy" Cline, born in 1818 in Missouri, is one of our brick walls. Diana talks about using the s...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is part two of Nicole sharing about her takeaways from "DNA as Genealogical Evidence - Advanced," an institute course coordinated by Karen Stanbary at IGHR this summer. We discuss targeted testing, coverage, performing and writing about pedigree evaluations, Y-DNA STR testing as a comparative test, finding the most efficient pathway to solve an objective, clu...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about "DNA as Genealogical Evidence - Advanced," an institute course coordinated by Karen Stanbary at IGHR this summer. IGHR stands for the Institute of Genealogical and Historical Research, an weeklong intensive study program hosted by the Georgia Genealogy Society. Nicole took the course over the summer and shares some of the golden nuggets she learned f...