NGS Introduces African American and Federal Lands Courses

NGS Announces Two New Online Courses:

African American Roots: A Historical Perspective and

Federal Land Records

The National Genealogical Society is excited to announce the release of its two newest Continuing Genealogical Studies courses, African American Roots: A Historical Perspective and Federal Land Records. 

African American Roots: A Historical Perspective is a cloud-based, self-paced course that introduces you to the uniqueness of searching for African American ancestors. A mixture of history and genealogy, it discusses the role Africans and African Americans played in the birth and growth of the United Sates from as early as the fifteenth century. Armed with this historical perspective, family historians learn where they might find information about African Americans in general and their own ancestors in particular.

Janice Lovelace, PhD (psychology)
developed the course for NGS. 
Lovelace has more than thirty 
years of experience in 
genealogical research and 
has presented nationally on 
methodology, DNA, and 
ethnic minority genealogy.





Federal Land Records is a self-paced, online course that introduces you to the different types of land entries including cash entries, donation land, homesteads, and military bounty land, and discusses how land ownership was transferred from the federal government to an individual or group. More than three million people received patents from the government in the thirty public land states. The land application files may contain valuable information for genealogists including details on family members, neighbors, citizenship status, and land improvements. This course teaches you how to access these federal land records.

Angela Packer McGhie, CG developed 
this course for NGS. McGhie 
is a professional researcher, 
lecturer, and instructor. 
She has been working 
with federal records at 
the National Archives for 
the last decade, and specializes 
in federal land records.



These courses are just two of a number of online NGS courses that offer the convenience of completing a genealogy course over a period of months at any location and at any time. They are available for $45.00 for members and $70.00 for nonmembers. For further information or to purchase the course, visit NGS Continuing Genealogical Studies or the NGS Store.