Hello! This course guide has been created for students enrolled in Origins of the Modern World Since 1500 with Professor Jurdem. In this guide, you will find several resources intended to help with your family history research project.

Below is a description of the pages found in the menu above:

• Research Guides- Lists of resources when you can find sources for your research
  • History Research Guide -- Much of what you will likely need can be found here.
• Research Tutorials
  • Know the Difference Between Primary and Secondary Sources
  • Advance Search Tips
  • Search for Library Resources Efficiently
  • Find Peer Reviewed/Scholarly Articles
  • Use Reference Lists to Find More Sources
• Conducting Interviews -- Tips for how to conduct interviews with your family and others
• Citing Resources
  • Chicago Notes-Bibliography Guide
  • Use a Citation Generator Safely
  • Zotero User Guide
• Additional Primary Sources
  • Family Search for census records and other documents
  • Chronicling America, a newspaper digitization project from the Library of Congress

Your assignment:

▪ Paper: “A History of My Family” (30%): All students must write a seven to ten pages, double-spaced research paper on the topic “The History of My Family.”  One of the course objectives is to teach students how to use primary and secondary sources for historical research.  In this project, students will learn how to identify, locate, and use primary and secondary sources that will help them write a research paper regarding the topic. The main focus of the project is to find out what sources are available and how to use them.  In this paper, students should demonstrate what kinds of primary and secondary sources are available regarding the topic, what possible stories regarding the history of their family they can reconstruct by using the available sources, and in what ways these topics can contribute to our understanding of the related historical periods.

In this paper, students should not only discuss the history of their family, but also should do so in the context of a meaningful historical background analysis of the time periods they chose to write about and connect to the discussion of social justice/injustice. 

We should also think “out of the box,” exploring unconventional sources and ways of gathering historical sources.  Students must turn in an outline and annotated bibliography for the research project on 3/3/2025.  The outline must include: topic, research question(s), theme, and annotated bibliography.  Students must use at least five scholarly sources from the Library for the project.  Please do not use Wikipedia as a source.  Online sources must be from the library databases and properly cited.  The finished research paper is due  5/5/2025.  Each student is required to produce a 2-3 minute power-point presentation of his/her paper the week of 4/23/2025. If you have questions regarding the project, feel free to see me.