A Genealogist’s Secret Advantage: Creating Ancestor Resumes

Genealogists face a common challenge: how to transform a wealth of facts, records, and documents into a coherent, credible, and shareable family history. This presentation reveals the powerful method of creating “ancestor resumes”—a secret advantage that brings professional structure and narrative clarity to any family history project. An ancestor resume arranges chronologically documented life events, achievements, occupations, skills, military service, migrations, community involvement, family relationships, and related information into a single, professionally organized family history document. By adapting the familiar format of the resume to genealogical research, participants will learn to identify information gaps, highlight unique achievements, and create documents that serve simultaneously as analytical tools and storytelling vehicles.

Sponsored by the National Genealogical Society