Our assignment this month was to read Chapter 14 in ProGen PPS and Genealogy Standards 76-80. Then we were to create a Locality Guide for an area of specialization or an area in which you are researching. The assigned report could not be more than 10-pages in length.
I chose to create my Locality Guide for Buffalo, NY as both sides of my family had branches that lived there. We were provided with some examples of Locality Guides and I was able to find more online at the Internet Archive as the Wayback Machine has a copy of the ProGen website from back when they posted many different examples of Locality Guides.
I didn’t really take anything specific from the examples besides just getting the idea that I wanted mine to be attractive in it’s formatting. I found myself drawn to ones that used color and included maps and images. So when I started to format my Locality Guide, I chose a newsletter template versus a blank word processing document to help make mine look pretty.
I enjoyed putting this Genealogy Locality Guide together! Once I created a general outline of what I wanted to include, the rest of the time was having fun doing internet searches tracking down online resources. I wanted to do more on-site research, but many places are still shut down due to the Corona Virus.
I found that I could have easily made this document to be 20+ pages long. I wish that I would have had more space to include detailed lists of newspapers, churches, and cemeteries. I also wanted to have an area for Organizations and expand of the local histories that are available.
I was the first of my ProGen Group to submit the assignment. I’m curious to see what my group will say and what their Guides look like. For this assignment we aren’t required to give feedback but are encouraged to send comments.
The Genealogy Standards that we were assigned to read say that there are 7 different categories in which genealogists prepare written products:
- Reports
- Lineage-Society Applications
- Source Guides
- Methodology Guides
- Compiled Abstracts
- Reviews
- Database Programs
It’s interesting to think about that and to reflect that I have now, at some point in my genealogy research, completed over half of those 7.
- I have written Reports for my NGS course.
- I have completed a Lineage-Society Application – particularly the First Families of Pennsylvania as I did that one all by myself.
- I have now created my first Locality Guide which, I think, qualifies as a Source Guide.
- I may have completed a Methodology Guide if a lecture syllabus or newsletter article counts.
- I do not think that I have ever written a Compiled Abstract or a Review.
- And, lastly, I have printed reports from Database Programs.
Looking forward to seeing what next month’s ProGen assignment will be!