The University of Tasmania is offering a number of free courses in Family History. The first is an introductory course, then there is a course on convicts and writing up your family tree. Even though I have been doing my family tree for years I have no formal qualification in this area. So I have decided to go back to Uni and do the free courses which are all part of the Diploma in Family History. I hope to finish the complete Diploma by the end of 2017.

http://www.utas.edu.au/arts/introduction-to-family-history

So far the introductory unit has mostly been about familiarising ourselves with the layout of the unit as it is all online. We will then be working on researching and referencing. This is an area that still confuses me after two degrees and years of family history research. When doing family history research there is so much to do, so many different places that stuff is kept, so many different people who own information and who often open up their houses, their photo albums, their family diaries and so much more plus so many people who give me their time. All of these people should be part of the referencing chain so that if I ever need to track down anything I can go back to it. But so often, particularly in the early days when I was just learning, or when others new to family history are learning, the referencing is just not comprehensive enough. I have been doing much better over the last 10 years or so but it is time to actually do it in a really comprehensive way.

http://www.utas.edu.au/

So, even though I think this course will cover a lot of what I already know, I want it to formalise what I know and to fill in the gaps with what I don’t know and should.

For the introductory unit there is a research assessment task. I need to present a research outline to research one particular ancestor. I don’t know if I should continue on with one that I am already doing like Ray Bean, Edwin, Robert of Mary Ann Gransden or if I should go for a new person. There are so many options. It would be nice to see if I can locate one of my missing ancestors, so maybe that would be the best option- while I have the help and support of the course, do the really difficult ones.

In the mean time, I have met another blogger who is also doing their family tree and a family history blog. Genealogy Boomerangs http://barbs01.blogspot.com.au/  I am sure I will meet a heap more people.

Really looking forward to moving forward and gaining more insights with this part of my life. I am sure this course will help to make take my family tree research to the next level and will hopefully figure out my best options as far as some of the research I have already done.