My Professional Genealogy Goals

I expect to retire from my current profession within the next few years. Even though I don't anticipate taking fee-paying clients, I won't rule it out at this time. I do want to lend authenticity to my work, volunteer in a genealogy society, and teach genealogy; and so I would like to become a certified genealogist. ProGenStudy offers a 19-month study course with a mentor. I have signed up for the waiting list and am excited to study with others who have the same goal.

In the application process for the ProGenStudy group, I included the following genealogy goals:

– to attain one or more credentials in professional genealogy, lecturing and/or instructing.
– to complete eight professional quality family studies for my own family: one for each of my children's great-grandparents.
– to work and/or volunteer in one or more of our local historical societies: the Minnesota Historical Society, the Minnesota Genealogical Society and the Dakota County (MN) Historical Society are all nearby.
– to teach and/or lecture especially to those who are just beginning their family research, either through a local society or through community education classes.
– to continue to visit local, national and international libraries and research centers.

I will add one more:

- to build a genealogy reference library with print and ebooks to support my learning and research. 

I list them here because I have found that keeping my goals visible inspires me to work toward them.

The reference library has been difficult to research as there seems to be no single point of reference for high-quality genealogy reference books by topic or locality that I can find. So I have been using bibliographies, blog posts, and other finding aids to determine which books will be helpful to my research.

I'm not sure which certification I will work for, but I anticipate that the study group will help guide me in the right direction. I hope to use this blog to document my progress when I am accepted into the GenProStudy group.

Any comments guiding me toward a certification decision are certainly welcome!