Last week was my final institute for 2022. Yes, I did four of them, only because I wanted to take advantage of the virtual offerings and everything aligned with my 2022 educational goals.

This time around I took Land Records: Using Maps in Genealogical Research, with Melinda Kashuba through the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR). I’ve been wanting to take this course since I first learned about it (and institutes!) some 13 or so years ago. And of course, I was not disappointed.

I LOVE maps and use them a lot for genealogy (especially for problem-solving), but I had a few goals in mind before class started. I wanted to:

  • Learn more about topographic maps, since I hadn’t used them since college.
  • Explore different types of maps that I’d never thought of to use for genealogy or had never even knew existed.
  • Discover new places/ways to find maps.
  • Strengthen my map skills overall.

I got all of this and more! Melinda, Jerry Smith, Kimberly Powell, and Michael Strauss were all incredible instructors. Even in the virtual environment, there was still hands-on and small group learning, which I appreciated. I learned about all sorts of other maps that I wasn’t familiar with (or not very familiar with), such as migration maps, statistical maps, and military maps. I got more training in plotting metes and bounds parcels (and learned about a program I can use for free to make life easier). And I simply had fun playing with and learning more about maps all week.

Overall, if you want to learn more about maps, this is the institute course to take!

P.S. I’d also like to say that the IGHR staff and volunteers did an excellent job behind the scenes making the week an enjoyable one.

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© Julie Tarr. This article was first published at Julie’s Genealogy & History Hub; appearance of this article elsewhere, without my permission, violates copyright.