Two things are true about genealogy: you’re never done researching and you’re never done learning.

Each year I put together an education plan for myself when Bill, my husband and business partner, and I do our business and personal budgets. While working on my 2015 plan, I was thinking about the difference between going to graduate school and trying to construct what amounts to my own “genealogy grad school.”

When I showed up at the University of Michigan in 1986, my program was pretty much laid out for me: these courses are required, pick your electives from these other courses, study and work hard for a set period of time, and at the end of it all pick up your M.A. and go forth.

It’s a bit of a different story, though, when I try to construct a coherent education plan that will challenge and improve my skills as a genealogist. The project requires lots of research to try to figure out how to get the biggest bang for both my educational buck and my educational time.

When I was at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy earlier this month, I talked about this with a classmate who agreed that she felt the same kind of frustration in trying to further her genealogy education.

So I thought it might be useful to blog from time to time about my genealogy grad school project and how it’s going. Perhaps I can get advice from other genealogists to help with my education plan, and perhaps I can help others who are also trying to figure out the best way to advance their genealogy education.

Cheers! Annette