The first step to learn genealogy faster and avoid years of frustration
Your next research breakthrough might start with only an hour of the right learning just when you need it.
For decades, genealogy has been marketed as easy to do.
Click a leaf, click the attached record, and watch your family tree build itself. Or spit in tube, wait two months, and find out you’re related to George Washington.
But as you know, it’s just not that easy.
Real research requires skills no one tells you about at the start. Things such as:
Reading old handwriting on poorly imaged microfilms
Figuring out historic boundaries on maps that don’t align to today
Understanding old federal laws and local laws (citizenship, property, marriage rules)
Knowing which churches or traveling ministers existed in an area and where their records are now
These skills take time to learn, and most of us pick them up the hard way— fumbling through problems until we’re forced to figure it out. None of us got a list of “what to learn, in what order” so we could do our research well. I’m not even sure such a list exists.
Why genealogy education feels so scattered
Last week, I discussed the current state of genealogy education and why it fails genealogists:
Here’s the core issue: 99% of genealogy instructors never do a needs assessment of their students. They pick a topic, tell you what they think you need to know, hand out a PDF, and move on.
And it’s not just instructors—there’s no clear training program for anyone in genealogy.1 We’re all expected to “just figure it out on our own.” That’s why genealogy education often feels so frustrating. There’s no guidance on what topics are available to take and what you personally need to take next.
If genealogy researchers could clearly identify their own learning needs, they could:
Complete research at a higher quality (because they would have the knowledge to find and interpret records)
Request education programs that meet their goals (tailored to the locations, time periods, and methods to solve their research problem)
Right now, genealogy education is mostly random scattershot events. But it doesn’t have to stay that way for you.
Start with a quick self-assessment
Instead of guessing what you need to learn, or signing up for whatever pops up on your feed, take 30 minutes to do a quick self-assessment:
What’s your goal and timeline?
What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Why does it matter? Do you have a deadline (like a family reunion or book project)?
What’s your current experience and biggest challenge?
How would you describe your skill level? What’s stopping you right now? What have you already tried?
What resources and constraints do you have?
How much time and budget do you have for learning? What tools, archives, or subscriptions can you access? Do you already have family documents or photos you need to analyze?
How do you like to learn and what does success look like?
Do you prefer videos, guides, or hands-on practice? What would success feel like? (Finishing an ancestor story? Finally breaking through a brick wall?)
Write down your answers, even if it’s just a bulleted list. You’ll immediately see where your strengths are, where your gaps are, and what to learn first to move forward faster.
This is the first step to just-in-time learning what you need to make progress in your research.
For paid subscribers, I have an AI prompt at the end of this post that will do this needs assessment with you. It will tell you exactly the skill gap you have right now compared to what knowledge you need to be successful for your personal research goals. It will also calculate an approximate number of minutes or hours it will take to build each skill (it’s way less than you’ve been lead to believe).
Example: Italian immigration research
Let’s say my goal is:
“Find out when and where my Italian ancestors immigrated, and trace them back to their hometown.”
Here’s how doing a needs assessment and applying the framework of just-in-time learning flips the usual script:
My goal outcome: Identify passenger list, locate naturalization records, and determine hometown in Italy
M current knowledge: Comfortable with census research but new to passenger lists and Italian records
My gaps:
Which U.S. ports handled the most Italian immigration
How to search passenger lists with name variations and handwriting quirks
What hometown clues to look for in U.S. records
How to use Italian civil registration once I find the town
JIT learning steps found by AI with approximate learning time:
Quick overview of Italian immigration waves (5 min)
How to search passenger lists (15 min)
Where to locate naturalization records (10 min)
How to read Italian place names (10 min)
First steps in Italian civil registration (20 min)
That’s less than an hour of focused learning before diving into records versus the way most of us actually do it:
Don’t write down any goals
Skip assessing what we really need to learn
Randomly stumble on a webinar, article, or YouTube video and think, “Well, maybe this will help?”
Sign up, spend an hour or two listening, realize 50% of it you already know, and another 30% doesn’t apply to your research
And the part of the webinar that is vital to your research? You took notes on it, set it aside for later when you get to that family line, and now you can’t find your notes. (Sigh)
That kind of accidental learning leaves us with folders full of handouts and half-remembered tips, but rarely a clear next step.
Just-in-time learning starts with your needs, your goals, and a direct path to what you actually need to know to move forward.
The way forward in genealogy education
Genealogy doesn’t need more one-way webinars and PDFs. It needs a system that:
Helps researchers figure out exactly what they need to learn
Delivers it when they need it
Makes it easy to request and find the right educational programs
That’s what just-in-time learning is about and it’s finally possible because of AI tools and independent experts who you can consult with as needed
I’m building exactly this JIT approach. and next Sunday I’ll tell you all about it.
Happy Learning!
—Denyse
P.S. If you are a paid newsletter subscriber, thank you! Here is an AI prompt for your prompt library to help you build your genealogy research skills.
