The Family History Guide website is a free, educational, structured training and reference website. No matter what level of genealogical research you have obtained during your lifetime from beginner to expert, The Family History Guide website can help you increase your knowledge and skills. I have been working with The Family History Guide for many years now and I have seen it continue to increase in its resources. When an "expert" reaches a certain level of expertise, he or she usually feels like their time for intensive learning is over. That is not the case in today's rapidly evolving world of genealogy. We all need to keep learning. But how do we know where we stand in our overall learning?
The Family History Guide has directly addressed the issue of determining your individual level of competence and knowledge through an extensive online Project Tracker system of support for your learning activities. Here is a screenshot of the starting page for this valuable resource.
What is the Online Project Tracker?
The Family History Guide website is organized into Learning Paths, Projects, Goals, and Choices. For example, if you need to learn about the FamilySearch.org website, you can choose the FamilySearch Learning Path. This screenshot highlights the various parts of a page on the website.
If this seems confusing, there are several video options on the website to introduce and explain how the website works. Here is a screenshot of the startup page.
Now, the purpose of the Online Project Tracker is to give you a place to record your progress in learning the information contained on the website. For example, here is a screenshot of the Tracker page for the FamilySearch Learning Path, Project 1, Goal 1 shown above.
The link to the Online Project Tracker is located in the main menu bar.
Each entry in the Online Project Tracker is sequenced to take you through every Goal on the website. As you finish each goal in each Project, you will find a link to an exercise that will help you review and evaluate your progress in learning the concepts presented.
Here is a screenshot of this particular Exercise section.
You can then go to the Online Project Tracker and keep a record of your progress. I have spent many hours and days working through The Family History Guide page by page and line by line and I can attest to the fact that by working through the website, you can learn a lot of things you did not know despite your assumed level of expertise.
Now, what about learning about the Online Project Tracker? Of course, the website has a Help Section with detailed, step-by-step instructions about how the Tracker works to help you learn.
Here is another example from the Online Project Tracker that shows your potential progress for learning about the Project for Scandinavia: Denmark.
If you are trying to teach someone about genealogical research, there is no better way than to help them get started learning in a systematic and step-by-step. You might also start to see other genealogy companies copying and using this same system to teach their own users.
The Family History Guide is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) public charity organization that depends entirely upon donations to continue its work of support and education to the genealogical community. The website is supported by The Family History Guide Association. You may wish to read about our website and consider donating to keep this great work going on into the future.
Excellent overview, James - thank you!
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