Assessment has been the theme of the past few weeks of my life.  Both in my ProGen group, in one my classes at school (I got to create a rubric for a project) and at work at Starbucks (where my store got a 98:-D).  One of the most important parts of any plan, but often the most overlooked.

The most thought of forms of assessment tend to be surveys and focus groups.  The best way to assess how well something worked is by using a rubric, which gives concrete standards along a scale.

If you are like me, you often wonder whether your genealogy reports are up to the proper standards.  Even if you use reference books, articles or websites while writing them, it can still be hard to tell if you have the correct information in it.  For our March ProGen assignment, we used the BCG rubric to edit everyones research report from the prior month.

Used for genealogists applying for certification, this rubric gives standards for nearly every genealogy report you could need.  It is very simple, but you have to remember, it is very black-and-white.  There is no grey.  Either you have the indicator or you do not.

Let’s look at an example.  You have written a research report for a client or yourself.  Looking at indicator “CR6″, what is the quality of the sources you used?  BCG wants you to have mainly used original sources and primary information.  Did you?  If yes, then you meet the standards.  If you used some of these sources, you partially met expectations.  If your sources are derivative, with secondary information, you did not meet the standard.  If you can’t even tell what type of sources you used, or didn’t use any, you need to go back to your genealogy reference books and learn more about sourcing your work and the importance there-of.

I was pleased to see I had hit most of the standards and now that I have this rubric, I believe all of my reports will be meeting or exceeding standards in the future.

Do your research reports meet the BCG standards?  Is there another set of standards you use instead?

If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, you probably know about the multitude of wonderful plugins available to customize your blog.  These are my favorite plugins for genealogy-related posts/blogs.

1. Footnotes for WordPress: By adding a simple tag to your posts, you can add footnotes to your posts ^[1].  This makes citing sources much easier than trying to add the footnotes yourself.
2. WordPress Related Post: By using categories and tags, this plugin will give related posts at the end of each post to make it easier for visitors to explore your blog.  For example, if you post about your Smith family, others posts on the Smith’s will be linked.
3. WordPress Editorial Calendar: This is a great plugin for any blog writer.  You can plan ahead and create a schedule to add structure to your blog.  This can be useful for the wide variety of weekly blogging prompts many geneabloggers follow.What are your favorite WordPress plugins?

1. ^[1] such as this ↩

Provenance, or the origins of an item, is a term commonly used in museums and archives.  In order to protect themselves from fraud or other illegal activities, it is important for these institutions to have a list of who has owned an item since it’s inception or founding.

An example of this, from http://www.hepguru.com/monalisa/introduction.html, for the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is

Acquired by François I, either directly from Leonardo da Vinci, during his stay in France, or upon his death from his heirs, the painting remained in the royal collections from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the creation of the Central Arts Museum at the Louvre in 1793. We know that it was kept at Versailles under the reign of Louis XIV and that it was in the Tuileries during the First Empire. Since the Restoration, the Mona Lisa has always remained in the Louvre Museum, a key piece of the national collections.

How does this relate to genealogists and family historians?  Genealogists look at both original and derivative sources and the provenance shows which of these it is.  Original sources are always preferable, but depending how how and by whom a record became a derivative source changes how much trust you would have in it (for example, a microfilm of a church record by the FHC would be considered more trustworthy evidence than a transcription of the same record by an unknown person).

Additionally, there are many items that genealogists own items that we received from others, such as family bibles, letters and diaries or artifacts like jewelry or china.  Where did these come from and how did you get them?  This can be particularly important for an item such as a bible which will give birth, death and marriage dates of ancestors.  Was it passed down in the family from the original owner?  Was it found on a site such as eBay?  How do you know who wrote the names and dates in it?

This information can and should be included in your source for the item.  If you are citing a family bible, after the source for the item itself you would include a sentence such as “The Jane Smith Family Bible was passed to her daughter Sue Smith Jones, to her granddaughter Jean Jones White, to her niece Amanda Perrine.”

For further information, please consult Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

It is important to remember that when you are looking at the information on a delayed birth certificate, that it is secondary information, not primary.  Even though there usually needs to be a witness who was present at the birth, the fact that the certificate was not made in a timely manner, means it is still secondary information.  Plus, considering how long after the birth a delayed certificate might be made, it can be doubtful the witness was actually there.

One example of an interesting delayed birth certificate is that of my great-grandfather, William Herbert Whitehead.  Born 29 Sept 1896, his birth certificate was not created until 1940, 44 years later.  The witness is Albert E. Smith, uncle.  However, he was not his uncle, but rather his family friend… and bookie (according to my grandmother, William’s daughter, who knew Al).  As such, this is not the most reliable record source.

In a case such as this, it is important to confirm the birth date with other sources.  One of these sources I looked at was his baptism.  This took place in 1904 and the birth date listed was the same.

I also checked the 1900 census, taken even closer to his actual birth date and this had his birth as taking place in September 1896, which is also consistent with the birth certificate.

Sources:

1900 U.S. census, Erie, New York, population schedule, Buffalo, enumeration district (ED) 53, sheet 9B, p. 7-224 (stamped), dwelling 133, family 258, household of Charles Whitehead; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Feb 2011); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T623, roll 1026.

New York Department of Health, birth certificate 366803 (1940), William Herbert Whitehead; New York State Department of Health, Albany; Birth certifcate was created 44 years after his birth.  Reported by Albert E. Smith, Uncle.  He was actually a family friend (and bookie).

Whitehead baptismal entry (1904); issued 2004 by Archives of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York, St. James Episcopal (Buffalo, New York), citing p. 108, number 3497; privately held by Amanda Perrine, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE].

I attended my first ALA official conference other the weekend in Boston.  I had an amazing time, attending meetings, manning the SU booth, looking at exhibits and hanging out with my fellow students.  Overall, the conference was a stunning success for me and I have a few tips on what one should do for their first conference.

First, try to attend a workshop on Friday if you are interested in any of the topics.  They are of very low cost to the students and you are able to meet librarians in the field you are interested in.  Additionally, you get training that is not offered in school.  I attended the Genealogy Reference Desk Institute and my discussion of it is on my other blog, A Tale of Two Ancestors.

Second, make sure you plan what you want to attend in the way of meetings and exhibits.  The Event Planner is located on the conference page and, while slightly difficult to use at first, allows you to print out your schedule, which is much easier than trying to figure it out when you arrive with the huge book you receive.

Third, try to join a committee.  It is important to remember committee appointments are for 2 years and you are expected to attend all ALA conferences in that time.  I joined the membership committee of the International Relations Round Table.  This allows me to meet librarians in one of the fields I am interested in, help to build my resume and learn more about the inner workings of ALA.

Forth, work at the SU booth if possible and spend time with your fellow students.  The SU booth gives you opportunities to meet SU alumni and network.  Hanging out with your fellow students allows you to learn more about the people who you take classes with and will be your network in the future.

Fifth, walk around to all the exhibits.  There are free books and swag, author signings and all sorts of things you have not yet thought about in your classes, such as insurance and ways to furnish your library.

Sixth, read Cognotes every day.  It is the newsletter of ALA conferences and is published daily.  It tells about events, author signings and any changes in the schedule.

Last, but not least, remember that Midwinter is business meetings, not workshops.  It is not as “exciting” as Annual is, but if you are interested in how ALA committees run and to network, it is a fantastic event!

One of our major assignments for my information resources: users and services class was a lesson plan, focusing on information literacy. As I have recently been highly considering academic librarianship, I was quite interested in this assignment. I read through a multitude of lesson plans online and we had a lecturer on instructional design and information literacy standards.

Networking is an important part of a career path. In my introduction to library and information science class, we were given our first opportunity to practice this skill by interviewing a library manager, administrator or department head in order to learn more about the profession.

I was fortunate to interview the director of the local history/genealogy department of the Onondaga County Public Library. Our discussion focused on her job, the change in libraries due to digitization and the things I can focus on while receiving my degree.

Our discussion on digitization brought up many fascinating aspects to librarianship in the computer age. What used to be a long search for an obituary, covering a microfilm search of the death date and four days after, is now a quick online search of digitalized newspapers. The difficulty in deciding what fee to charge patrons has been created due to this new search. Instead of a 25 cent copy, a librarian can easily attach an image to an email. I found her idea of adding “This information is provided by a public library, financed with public funds and donations” to the bottom of the email to be the most logical, particularly since many people will make a donation, often of more than the library would have charged them.

Another problem caused by the digital age is deciding what information to put online. Should the library focus on content and narrative driven data, which will be used frequently or images, which are glamorous and showy? Finding the right blend is a difficult decision.

The majority of the department’s patrons are retired, with a stable source of income and high educational level. They are high demand researchers, knowing what they want or at a difficult point in their research. Their high-end research means that librarians in this field need to be constantly coming up with new and more specialized answers to reference questions. It is important to stay up to date in the field, by being active with the local genealogical society and reading professional publications and listservs in the field. She also recommended conferences offered by the New York Library Associationand the New York State Archives.

After our discussion, I was more convinced that I am following the proper career path for myself. I look forward to learning more about archival procedures, genealogical reference and the digitization of information.