Free Online Genealogy Course with FutureLearn (Week 5)

[groom]

Penultimate week. Things to be covered this session, it sounds intersting, let's hope it doesn't disappoint.

Putting your Research into Context

Week 5 sees the focus shift to sources that put the flesh on the bones of the family skeleton. It’s the historical and social context coming from using secondary and other sources that bring an ancestor to life. This week explores the sources that help genealogists provide this context; considers their quality and how to find them. Topics to be covered are:

Useful types of secondary sources: local histories, ‘regular’ books on history, historical magazines, film, etc.
Other sources of context: newspapers, maps, images
How to assess the quality of these types of sources
Finding these sources; useful online databases.

[3sillydogs]

Having a slow day so have gone quite a way through already.  Have found it interesting though and there are some new (well for me anyway) links to online resources.  The Rumsey map collection looks particularly interesting because it allows you to overlay old maps onto new ones or look at them side by side and they have maps for just about everywhere.

(Hmm wonder if he is related to my Rumsey's)

[Gillg]

This week looks more interesting and will hopefully put more flesh on the bones of our ancestors.  One very useful thing I have found is to create a timeline for my families, setting my maternal against my paternal ancestors and against that noting what was happening historically both in the country and around the world. (I have a very useful history book which shows what was going on at a certain time around the world.)  Knowing who was on the throne at a certain point and what wars were being fought and where. particularly if I know that an ancestor has been called up to join the military, is interesting, too.

Like the example given of the description of a ship's journey to Australia, I have an excerpt from the ship's log showing the journey of one ancestor and his family from the UK to New Zealand in the 1870s, which tells of an epidemic of measles on board, affecting mainly children, during which  my ancestor's baby daughter died. I also have a photo of the ship on which my gt-grandfather's sister travelled to the US also in the 1870s, which lets me imagine how life would have been for her and her baby.  I'm sure we all have this kind of stuff among our documents and doesn't it bring to life our ancestors? I'm finding this approach much more my kind of thing than DNA research.

[millymcb]

Week five?
I am so behind

Milly

[sugarbakers]

A quote from one of today's comments ...

"Also at the show [Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2016] were lecturers from the University of Strathclyde who told me that an amazing 26,000 people had signed up for their free 'Genealogy: Researching Your Family Tree' course at the FutureLearn site."

[groom]

That's interesting. Majority must be doing the course without adding any comments, as on some sections there are only about 300 posts and some of those are more than one from the same person.

[KGarrad]

I wonder what the drop-out rate is?

I'm still sticking with it, but I'm not impressed so far.

[groom]

I wonder what the drop-out rate is?

I'm still sticking with it, but I'm not impressed so far.

I suppose they don't actually know, as most people who drop out probably just stop doing it rather than actually leaving the course.

[Ruskie]

I haven't started Week 5 yet ....