The flagship pathway
Higher Certificate in Genealogy
Build serious, assessed genealogy skills through a structured pathway with expert tutor support and a British Isles specialty.
Explore the Higher CertificateThe School of Family History
Study genealogy with the Institute built on expertise.
Explore online genealogy courses for every stage of study—from your first family-history question to advanced British Isles research and professional ambitions.
The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies
Learn from experts in family history.
Since 1961, IHGS has helped family historians develop the knowledge and discipline behind reliable research. Our online courses combine expert-led teaching with specialist British Isles knowledge, practical methods, and routes from first steps to professional study.
- Since 1961a heritage of genealogy, family history, and heraldry education
- 40+online courses and recorded talks, and counting
- Research, DNA & heraldryprofessional services for complex family questions
- Global reachskills for diaspora stories from every country of origin
Online genealogy courses
From Bitesize learning to professional study.
Start with Awaken Your Ancestors or Tracing Your Roots, build a focused skill with a Bitesize Course or Anytime Talk, or take the serious route through the Higher Certificate in Genealogy.
For complete beginners
Awaken Your Ancestors
Begin your family history journey with a guided online course designed to help you research properly from the start.
Start with Awaken Your Ancestors
Build your foundation
Tracing Your Roots
Learn how to follow records, evaluate evidence, and build your family tree one properly supported connection at a time.
Start with the foundations
Focused learning
Bitesize Courses
Strengthen one research skill at a time with flexible courses built around specific records and family history questions.
Browse Bitesize Courses
Learn on demand
Anytime Talks
Explore recorded expert talks when you want focused guidance on one topic without committing to a full course.
Explore Anytime Talks
The flagship online qualification
Study seriously with the Higher Certificate in Genealogy.
For serious family historians and aspiring professional genealogists, this structured online pathway develops record knowledge, evidence analysis, and written research skills with expert tutor support.
- Study at your own pace with no fixed timetable.
- Work through 24 modules with an allocated tutor.
- Build a focused specialty in British Isles research.
A new professional direction
Could Your Passion for Family History Become a Career?
Genealogy can become a part-time profession, a flexible second career or, for some practitioners, a full-time business. Professional work can include family research, evidence-led casework, writing, teaching, historical consultancy and research support for other professions.
The Higher Certificate develops broad foundations in research methodology, evidence analysis and written reporting. IHGS expertise in British Isles records offers one possible regional specialism—not the only direction.
Explore a Career in Genealogy
Weekend and on-demand learning
Build one research skill at a time.
Fit online learning around your life with a Bitesize Course for focused, self-assessed study or an Anytime Talk for expert guidance on one topic.
Bitesize Course
Palaeography
Learn to read the handwriting that can stand between your family tree and the original record.
$61 (£45)
View course and enrollBitesize Course
Migration Records for Family History
Use passenger lists and migration records to follow an ancestor across the Atlantic and into earlier sources.
$61 (£45)
View course and enrollBitesize Course
Newspapers
Find the births, marriages, deaths, occupations, court appearances, and everyday details that bring ancestors to life.
$47 (£35)
View course and enrollExplore more focused Bitesize Courses and recorded Anytime Talks on the full courses page.
Browse All CoursesDiaspora research across borders
Find the whole family story, wherever the trail began.
For U.S. families with British Isles roots, IHGS offers specialist knowledge of the places, jurisdictions, languages, and records that can unlock the generations before migration.
But the method travels. Whether your family came from the British Isles or another part of the world, learn how to connect migration stories with the records, context, and communities that shaped them.
Explore British Isles Research Get Global Research Help
The IHGS world
One institute. Multiple ways to move your research forward.
Study the skills, commission expert help, investigate your family’s arms, or make sense of DNA evidence. IHGS brings education, research, heraldry, and genetic genealogy together in one specialist community.
Study with IHGS
Courses and qualifications
Build reliable research skills online, from beginner courses and focused Bitesize learning to the Higher Certificate and professional study.
Explore Courses and QualificationsCommission expert help
Family Research Services
When the trail is complex or time is short, work with professional researchers on family history, British Isles ancestry, DNA questions, and heraldic research.
Explore Family Research ServicesNames, arms, and identity
Heraldry programs and services
Learn how heraldry works through IHGS courses, or seek informed help with coats of arms, heraldic history, and family claims.
Explore Heraldry Courses Explore Heraldic Research ServicesGenetic genealogy
DNA advisory and research
Understand what DNA can reveal, what it cannot prove, and how genetic evidence can work alongside records and a properly researched family tree.
Explore DNA ServicesThe IHGS method
Learn the discipline behind the discovery.
IHGS teaches you to move from an interesting hint to a documented finding through a repeatable research process.
| A copied online tree | The IHGS approach |
|---|---|
| Repeats a connection because it appears elsewhere. | Tests each relationship against records and context. |
| Uses one attractive clue as the whole answer. | Weighs multiple sources and resolves conflicts. |
| Leaves the next generation unsupported. | Documents the evidence so the research can be checked. |
Student proof
What IHGS students say.
These comments are published on the Higher Certificate course page.
“The course has been of inestimable value.”
“I have found the course stimulating and interesting.”
“The comments of my tutor are always constructive and informative.”
IHGS expertise in action
See what careful research can uncover.
Explore real stories where records, context, and evidence turn a family history question into a discovery—and learn from the experts who investigated them.
US Presidents’ Royal Ancestry
What can a documented line reveal about the English royal ancestors of American presidents?
Read the discovery
Americans on RMS Titanic
Passenger records preserve individual family stories—and show how much a single record can reveal.
Read the discovery
DNA, Evidence, and Historical Mysteries
DNA can be powerful, but the strongest discoveries combine genetic evidence with records, archaeology, and a proven family line.
Read the discoveryBegin your course of study
Take the next step in your family history.
Choose the right online course, strengthen your method, and learn from the experts in family history.