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Program Overview

Currently accepting registrations for autumn 2008 Register now >> Next program starts: Autumn 2008 Program location: UW campus, Seattle Sign up to receive e-mail updates >> Contact a program representative >>   Program at a glance >>

This unique program not only gives you skills and tools to unearth new information about your ancestors, but also teaches you to relate that information to the political, economic, and social changes and forces that shaped the community and time in which they lived.

The centerpiece of the program is a project in which you focus in depth on a selected individual or group of your ancestors and on their times, work, challenges, and opportunities, to better understand the course of their lives and of the lives of the family members who would follow them.

To develop your project, a collection of program lectures, discussions, readings, and field trips will teach you:

• how to locate genealogical and historical resources (including governmental and religious records, databases, letters, photos, newspaper clippings, and oral history interviews) that describe family members and their surroundings
• how to use specific research methods to interpret the information that you find and understand the life and times of your ancestors
• how your ancestors were affected by migration of ethnic groups, differences in urban and rural lifestyles, population shifts, economic opportunities and obstacles, and political and historical changes and upheavals

At the end of the program, you will have preserved a vital part of your family's individual and collective past and will know how to use a range of research tools. Individuals, teachers, librarians, and others interested in family history are welcome.

Contact a Program Representative

If you have questions about this program, please call 206-685-8936 in the greater Seattle area, or 888-469-6499, or e-mail us.

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