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Certified Genealogist (CG)

 Those who hold this credential have demonstrated their competence in research, analysis, kinship determination, and reporting skills.

Certified Genealogist Lecturer (CGL)

Those who hold this credential have demonstrated their competence in selecting and organizing lecture contents, providing accurate and effective presentations, and using written and visual learning aids.

Certified Genetic Genealogist (CGG)

 Those who hold this credential have demonstrated their competence in using genetic evidence to solve complex genealogical problems while meeting standards for using DNA evidence.

BCG - Why I Became Certified — On Being Denied — Michael Hait (transcript)

 

I'm Michael Hait. I live in Harrington, Delaware. I've been a board-certified genealogist since 2011. My successful application in 2011 was actually the second time I applied for certification. My first application was unsuccessful, and many of the reasons why were rather silly mistakes on my part that honestly could have, you know, prevented me having to apply twice.

One of the biggest mistakes, I think I ran into was was not really following the instructions and really not understanding the instructions for the kinship determination project when I tried to in my first application. It was definitely not what I would describe as a compiled narrative genealogy. It was a series of genealogical summaries, basically with with no explanation or analysis of documents other than what I included in the footnotes. It was just not understanding what they wanted, what the application called for.

Another mistake that I made that caused some problems with the judges was I didn't label the dividers in my notebook, so the at least one of the judges had trouble knowing which part of my my portfolio was supposed to meet which requirement of of the application that causes problems if if you are then expecting them to judge that requirement based on, you know, the standards that are supposed to be judged.

You know, a lot of a lot of mistakes, like I said, they were just very, very silly mistakes.

But the number one reason, I think that my first application was unsuccessful, the most important one was that I rushed through it at the end. We have one year to while you're on the clock to complete and compile your portfolio, and at the end, in that last two three weeks, I tried to finish all of the work in two or three weeks at the end. And it, and it was because I didn't want to pay the $50 to get an extension. What the price was in back in 2007. I guess had I just paid $50 I would have saved myself $250 for the second application, because I just put, did not put together my best work.

The second time I applied, I did get an extension. I still ended up rushing towards the end, but at least I had more done before I rushed through to the end. And it was, it was a better quality of work. So those are my tips on you know how not to make some of the mistakes I made.