Podcasts and Genealogy

In reviewing the Board for Certification of Genealogists website, I discovered a weak link in my own preparation. They recommend 24-40 hours of classes, seminars, or other genealogical training each year! Haven’t had much time in the last five years to do that. So what’s the option? What’s the option for those of us who live away from cities where such programs are readily available? What's the option for those of us with sick family who need our care and attention? What's the option for those of us who work full time in another job? In searching for alternatives, I discovered podcasts and quickly became addicted.

I’m downloading most of my material from the FREE sites available at iTunes. To get there, just type “itunes” (without the quotes) in the address bar of your computer’s network browser. Your Windows Vista computer will do the rest. So will your Mac computer. Your XP computer should, too. I haven’t plugged in my XP machine to try it. You can listen to the podcasts on your computer, or you can download to a portable mp3/mp4 player (like an iPod or your music-playing cell phone) and listen on the go. That’s the option I prefer.

Once in iTunes, click on STORE in the very top left-hand corner of the screen. In the new screen that appears, find the POWERSEARCH box. Scroll down to PODCASTS. Now move to the box labeled DESCRIPTION. Type GENEALOGY here. Move your cursor to SEARCH and click.

Here are two that I particularly like. You can click on the links to go directly to the websites. Explore to find presentations that please you.
· http://www.familyrootsradio.com/ Family Roots Radio Genealogy Hour. This is a series of 24 programs each dealing with a separate aspect of genealogy research. Although the material is not too difficult for a novice researcher, I have learned something new in each episode I’ve listed to. There is a podcast Archive on the website.
· http://www.genealogyguys.com/ The Genealogy Guys podcast This is an ongoing podcasts with new episodes still being added. Easy to listen to. I don’t see an easy way to download previous programs from the website, but you can listen to the current broadcast from the website.
· I have just added TRACING YOUR ROOTS, produced by BBC Radio to my subscription list. It should focus on British genealogy – England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Haven’t listened yet, so can’t say.

Next I’m going to try the HISTORY podcasts, on the premise that knowing the history of a place or time will help me understand the people I’m researching who lived there.
Please add your comments and sites that you’ve found helpful!

Meantime, keep searching!

P.S. One of the Genealogy Guys actually read this post and sent along specific instructions how to download previous podcasts! Check the comment for this post for details. Thank you, Drew Smith!