Accredited Genealogist Lecturer™

This week I’ve been working on a project for my professional development. I serve as a commissioner for the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen). One of my recent assignments for the group has been to help develop a new credential: Accredited Genealogist Lecturer™. The group of us who worked together on this new credential had several benchmarks we wanted to include in the requirements for the credential. Here are the final guidelines as they appear on the ICAPGen website:

• The candidate must already hold an active accreditation through ICAPGen.
• The candidate must have given at least 20 lectures to societies, conferences, libraries, or commercial entities within the past ten years. Ten of these must have been regional, state, national, or international level events.
• The candidate will:
  • Provide a list with the name of the organization or conference, dates, and places (webinars are acceptable, but please indicate as such).
  • Provide a list with lectures’ titles.
• The candidate must have spoken on at least ten different lecture topics:
  • at least five of which must be focused on the area(s) of accreditation that cover a breadth of subject matter that includes:
    • At least one lecture on methodology in the region of accreditation
    • At least one lecture on an important record type for the region
  • For the remaining lectures:
    • At least one lecture must focus on a specialty topic that may or may not relate to the area of accreditation, e.g. an aspect of DNA research, technology tools, maps, ethnic groups, etc.
    • Lectures must include at least one presentation that is geared toward each level of genealogist: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Indicate in your application the titles of lectures, and the intended skill level of the audience, that fulfill each of these requirements.

I just submitted my application earlier today. I’ve been speaking at conferences for nearly 25 years. Many of those conferences are small societies or community groups. But I’ve also been featured at large conferences for years. This week I spent some time cataloging the classes that I’ve developed. The class recording I submitted is for Beginning Scandinavian Research, which is one of my most-requested classes, and I’ve taught it so many times.

It’s been interesting preparing materials for a peer review, especially when those peers are ones I work with closely and I highly respect. I feel the others on this committee are some of the best in the industry. So, it’s been a little unnerving to share what I’ve crafted with others that I know are so good at the same skills. At the same time, it’s exciting to be part of something big and new in the world of professional genealogy. I would encourage anyone to take time to prepare for a peer review of your work. It’s a great excuse for some self-evaluation as you prepare to show your life’s work with others who understand the effort and brain power required to compile the finished product.