Sunday Morning Book Review – The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual
The BCG Genealogical Standards Manuel is a must for the professional and amateur genealogist who is striving for research which meets the Genealogical Proof Standard.
The first section of the book defines Research Standards and what it takes to make your research adhere to the Genealogy Proof Standard. It goes through Data Collection Standards, Evidence Evaluation Standards and Compilation Standards. The reading is rather textual as you might find in a college text book or manual. When I was reading and going over the material I found it helpful in my research. It was however a very boring read. It didn’t keep my interest very long and I could only read a little at a time.
The next section of the book deals with teaching standards. Since I am not a professional genealogist, I did not have a whole lot of interest in this section, but still was able to read through the section. It had the same college textbook feeling. It covered Standards for Lecturing, Instructors and Educational Writers. Another small section for continuing Education Standards follows the teaching standards section.
Most of the pages in the book are dedicated to Appendixes. The appendixes include The Genealogists Code, The Board for Certification of Genealogists, and a series or appendixes of examples for specific types of research projects. Since I have recently been contemplating getting into genealogy professionally, I found the appendixes with sample letters particularly interesting. They go through a standard of what a letter would look like to a prospective client.
————-
