Hello! Thank you all for your patience in this year of change and innovation for Gen-Fed. We’d like to share some highlights from our first virtual Gen-Fed. There have been many questions asked of us, some we could not answer right away but we would like to now.
This year we focused on offering as much education as possible to prepare students for future visits to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Speakers included archivists Trevor Plante and Claire Kluskens, and genealogists including Angela Packer McGhie, CG, FUGA, Rick Sayre, CG, CGL, FUGA, Pamela Sayre, CG, FUGA, LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG, CGL, [now FASG!], Judy Russell, JD, CG, CGL, Timothy Pinnick, Jonathan Deiss, Marian L. Smith, Debra Hoffman, Kenneth W. Heger, Ph.D, and myself. Ahmed Johnson joined us to discuss the Library of Congress and Elizabeth Ernst gave us a virtual tour of the Daughters of the American Revolution Library.
Classes started before the week of Gen-Fed with pre-recorded lectures on a history of the Archives and how to navigate NARA and request records. Gen-Fed’s official week covered federal military records, federal land records, congressional records, African Americans and Native Americans in federal records, immigration, using the NARA catalog online, and more. To broaden the experience, archivists & subject matter experts from Archives II (College Park, MD), NARA Kansas City, and NARA St. Louis gave presentations on their repository holdings as well. Trevor Plante also made special arrangements for each student to have a one-on-one chat with a NARA subject matter expert during the week at our Learning Lunches breaks. Additionally, students were offered three hands-on practical exercises to help familiarize them with the records they had just learned about.
We are happy to announce that if the National Archives is open for in-person research, we will hold Gen-Fed in Washington, D.C., the week of August 8–13, 2022. If the National Archives is not open or not fully open for a conference-level event, we will repeat the virtual schedule in 2022.
Here are some FAQs to answer questions we have received:
- Q: When will NARA open?
- A: I wish we knew! They are doing the best they can under the circumstances. The last official word was at this page https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2021/nr21-50, however the public is not currently able to make appointments.
- Q: When will registration happen and how will it take place?
- Registration will be in February and the specific date will be announced mid-January. Registration will be a lottery-based system; prospective students will submit applications over a one-week period. Those names will be put into a random drawing and chosen by an automated system.
- Q: How many students may attend Gen-Fed each year?
- Due to the size of the room at the National Archives, we are limited to taking 50 students (including seats set aside for sponsored scholarship students). If the program is virtual, we may consider adding more seats.
- Q: Is there a waiting list? Can I be on it for next year?
- We will choose a number of people from the 2022 registration and notify them that they are on the waiting list, should any of the students need to cancel their registration. We do not hold any waiting lists over until the next year (the only exception was when the 2020 program was unexpectedly cancelled). People who held over their 2020 registration will be already registered, if they can attend. They will be contacted before the 2022 registration begins.
- Q: What are the costs and related fees for the program?
- The program cost for Gen-Fed is currently $575. There are no additional fees for a printed and digital syllabus, those are included. Attendees pay their own travel and accommodations. Gen-Fed does make arrangements with a nearby hotel for a block of rooms for students at a reduced rate.
- Q: Do I get a certificate for being at Gen-Fed?
- Yes, each student receives a certificate of participation. This is not the same as a certificate of merit from a program that tested skills, and not the same as being “certified” in genealogical research.
- Q: How about holding an in-person Gen-Fed and a Zoom Gen-Fed every year!?!
- Well…. as the new director who hasn’t had an in-person event yet, let’s hold off on that decision just yet.
Thank you and we hope to see you join us in August!
Rebecca Whitman Koford, CG, CGL
Director, Genealogical Institute on Federal Records
A’Lelia Bundles is the author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker, a biography of her great-great-grandmother. This New York Times Notable Book is in production as a four-part Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer and scheduled to air in early 2020. She is at work on her fifth book, The Joy Goddess of Harlem: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, about her great-grandmother whose parties and arts patronage helped define the era. Ms. Bundles is the brand historian for Madam C. J. Walker Beauty Culture, a line of hair care products manufactured by Sundial Brands and sold exclusively at Sephora. A former network television news executive and Emmy-award winning producer at ABC News and NBC News, she is a vice chairman of Columbia University’s Board of Trustees and immediate past chair of the board of the National Archives Foundation. She founded the Madam Walker Family Archives and is on the advisory boards of the March on Washington Film Festival and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute.