Professional Credentialing

UPDATE: I received my AG® in the England region through ICAPGen on 11 February 2023.

There are two credentialing bodies in the USA – The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) which bestows the Certified Genealogist (CG) credential and the  International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen) which confers the Accredited Genealogist (AG) on those who meet their standards.  After doing a lot of research on both I decided to work on becoming an Accredited Genealogist.

The first step in the journey to accreditation is to gain more education and improve genealogical skills.  Here are a few ways to do that:

  • Join genealogical societies – from the local level to international.
  • Read the journals published by those genealogical societies.
  • Use social media and follow genealogists and others whom you can learn from
  • Set up Feedly or some other way to track the genealogy blogs you want to read
  • Watch webinars.
  • Index or volunteer in some way so that you are giving back as well as learning
  • Attend institutes or conferences, if you are able to.  I have been able to attend the last three RootsTech conferences and thoroughly enjoyed them.  Attend your local genealogy society conferences too.
  • Improve writing skills by …. writing!  Even if you are researching your own family lines, write the research report as if it were going to a client.

There is no academic course of study that can qualify you as a professional genealogist but there are university degree programs or certificate programs. BYU offers a B.A in Family History and Boston University offers a Certificate in Genealogical Studies which I completed in the summer of 2017. Read more about the BU Certificate in Genealogical Studies here. I completed the  ProGen study program in June 2019.