Skip to main content

Associates

BCG Menu

Associates

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 — Jay Fonkert (transcript)

 

I'm Jay Fonkert, a Board Certified genealogist from Saint Paul, Minnesota. I was first certified in 2007 and just recently have been going through the renewal process. Like most of us. I started out in genealogy as a raw beginner, just just a hobbyist, interested in my family history. After several years, I had the good fortune to attend a lecture by another board certified genealogist in Minnesota at one of our local family history centers. And he was talking about methodology. It was a real eye opener. I said, this, this is the kind of genealogy I want to do from that point forward. It was a matter of learning about BCG, attending more classes, attending my first national genealogy conference in Kansas City, and after hearing people like Alyssa Powell and Elizabeth Shown Mills speak, I knew for sure I had to go forward.

It was with some trepidation.

It's hard to know when you send in your send in your portfolio, if you were going to pass muster. But I had the good fortune several months later to receive an email from BCG telling me that I had been certified. And it was a very, very proud moment for me, being certified has given me entree to a community of professionals that I greatly admire who are role models for me and for me, that really has been the single greatest benefit of Being certified. So I encourage all of you who aspire to be professional quality genealogists to take that step, make the effort, put together your portfolio and join our professional genealogy community. You.