Why websites and webinars don’t work for learning genealogy

Here’s why current systems for learning genealogy fail, and what we need next to make real progress in our research.

Family historians don’t need a mountain of information.

We need the right piece of information at the exact moment we’re ready to use it.

That’s what helps us make progress. And that’s what prevents another unfinished ancestor profile sitting ignored for six months (or six years).

I thought Substack could be different.

When I started publishing on Substack, I imagined it becoming a searchable, practical knowledge base. Family historians could find answers, support, and tools right when they needed them.

But it’s not designed that way.

Substack is a newsletter first platform, meaning posts are posts are pushed out into email inboxes. I, as the content creator, am left hoping the timing works out. Hoping the right person sees it when they have the exact problem the post addresses.

That’s not a learning system. It’s a lottery.

And it’s not just Substack. Every genealogy blog faces the same issue. It also doesn’t help that Google is harder and harder to use for genealogy. Search results are full of SEO-optimized listicles, ads, AI spam, and forums that don’t answer the question you asked.

Even the FamilySearch Wiki, long one of our most trusted free resources, is missing key information, uses outdated resources, or links to broken outside sources.

We don’t need more info.

We need clear, relevant, and reliable help right when we need it.

And right now, it’s nearly impossible to find.

So what is just-in-time learning, really?

Just-in-time (JIT) learning means getting exactly the knowledge or help you need at the moment you need it.

Not weeks in advance.

Not months after you gave up.

Right when the need is fresh and motivation is high.

JIT works beautifully in all kinds of learning, but it’s especially well-suited to genealogy, because:

• Few of us have taken years of advanced genealogy training courses, mastering sources and methodology.

• You never know what records or clues you’ll find that will lead us in a new direction.

• You don’t need everything, you need this next step

• You learn better when the problem is real and personal

JIT is empowering. It gives people confidence and momentum to reach their goals.

So if JIT is so great, why hasn’t it been applied in genealogy yet?

That’s a great question and I really don’t know why not. But here’s what I’ve observed about the state of genealogy education in 2025.

1. It’s hard to find the information you actually need.

Despite thousands of webinars, blog posts, and videos, most people still say: I don’t know where to start.

Even the best-intentioned directories and learning paths feel overwhelming or too vague.

2. There’s a mismatch between course content and real user need.

Say you want to research Italian immigration. You find a webinar. It sounds promising. But the examples are either too advanced, too narrow, or too scattered. You leave more confused than when you started, and there’s no Q&A or help desk to fill the gaps.

3. There’s no system to vet or verify what’s being taught.

Most genealogy education runs on reputation, not peer review. That’s fine, until I went to a course and realized a Certified Genealogist was teaching migration from an inaccurate colonial map and there was no mechanism to provide feedback about it.

Published, public feedback on course content and instructor quality would significantly raise the quality of genealogy education. I’d love to know if the course was 5 stars vs. 3 stars and what students’ feedback is.

4. The fallback option is Facebook, and that’s broken too.

Facebook groups are packed with enthusiastic people, but the help you get depends on who sees your post, when they see it, and whether the group is even active.

Sometimes your question sparks a helpful conversation. Other times, it gets buried, ignored, or flooded with conflicting advice. Or worst case (which I witness weekly), beginners get brigaded with responses that essentially say “What are you stupid? I can’t believe you don’t know that!”

5. You can’t pay for just the help you need.

Most of the best-known educators lecture, but don’t offer paid consults. You can’t pay them for 15 minutes to get unstuck. If the class you paid for doesn’t answer your question (or you can’t use the information provided to figure it out on your own), too bad. There’s no ability to get just one or two personal questions answered.

6. And the best classes aren’t available when you need them.

Some of the most useful courses—like Michael Strauss’s deep-dives on military records—are only offered every few years. Who wants to wait three years to get a full education on researching military records? If the focus of my research is researching an ancestor’s military service, I want to be able to learn everything I need to do that right now.

We need to stop pretending the current system of genealogy education works. It doesn’t.

Genealogy researchers need just-in-time learning to do the work they want to do. And JIT isn’t about flooding inboxes and hoping for the best. It’s not about one-size-fits-all lectures or scavenger hunts through Power Point slides and handouts. And it’s definitely not about posting a question to Facebook and assuming a high quality answer.

It’s about giving people real support, right when their curiosity peaks—when they care the most, when they have momentum, and when they’re actually doing the work.

That’s what Chronicle Makers is here to fix.

I’m not announcing anything new today. But if you’ve ever felt frustrated that you can’t get the help you need, I want you to know that I feel it too.

We can build a better system.