IGS Presents...

Genealogy, as any branch of historic research, can be spell-binding! But it can also be frustrating if one does not possess a proper approach to specific topics, or questions. Moreover, research takes time, plus an understanding of events that may have occurred differently than we might have imagined.

“It is not necessary to be crazy in genealogy, but it helps a lot!”, says Dirk Weissleder who’s been engaged in family history research for more than four decades. Americans may describe this as “thinking outside the box.” Dirk is specialized in German genealogy, and German migrations worldwide. He has a specific understanding of emigration – and the transformation it brings – and the following settlement process.

Exclusively for members, and close friends of the Immigrant Genealogical Society (IGS) in Burbank, Dirk Weissleder offers what he calls “Family History Coaching” (short FHC). As your private consultant, Dirk Weissleder does not offer to undertake private research for you, but instead offers to coach you along the way in your research that is totally self-conducted by you, to develop focused strategies to reach your ultimate goal.

Coaching along the way of your research journey might include:

• Prompting you in developing a clear statement of overall goals
• Connecting you to different researchers, research communities, and institutions (e.g., archives, libraries, etc.), and requesting specific help for you
• Directing you to specific literature that addresses your research question
• Guiding you to careful and directed searching using the many resources available
• Helping you to deal with masses of information and the complexity of research, perhaps leading to new theses and suggesting next steps in a different direction
• Expanding your view to deal with historical interaction on many levels, from the international scene down to the family experience.

Dirk’s vision is to empower every single researcher to develop his own concept and strategy for pursuing research objectives. Individual coaching will start by moving you from the statement “I want to know” to “I have started to understand” — a whole program extending from first steps in research to a text outlining first, intermediate or final research results.

Consultations will be undertaken using video conference systems, with 1:1 contact guaranteed. Along the way, he will encourage you to write — everything from questions, to imagined outcomes, to findings.

Dirk Weissleder is active on the worldwide genealogical stage, having lectured on six continents. He recommends that we all “Think geneaglobally” (as he said at his opening keynote to the first ever International German Genealogy Conference, in 2017 in Minneapolis). Since then, he has been continually engaged in national and international genealogy and heraldry through international research projects and exchange, books and articles, and many formal and informal presentations to a variety of audiences.