learning is a never ending thing

so, in my quest to become a certified genealogist, i realized that there was a lot more i needed to know besides how to use ancestry.com. i needed to know how to properly document things as well as cite where they came from. i needed to know other places to look for information besides birth, marriage, death records and censuses. and if i am going to do this for others (eventually) i need to know how to properly write the reports. so i have taken time this last week to start doing some free online "classes" they are actually just small self study classes that were done in the 90's and therefore a lot of what they have is outdated, but the fundamentals are solid. and the paper/book/leg work is still the same no matter when the year is. so i have been doing this and applying it to my redone johnson family tree. luckily i was only 45 people into it - not like my huge tree that is over 3000 people. so here is what i have learned so far:
1. i like family tree maker much better for adding my sources over myheritage family tree builder
2. i was not adding sources correctly but am now
3. it is very important to keep records of where you have searched and what you found or you really do repeat a lot of work
4. i still want to get certified and try to make a living at this

the site i have been using for my classes is http://www.genealogy.com/university.html and other sites that have some kind of learning tools that i have found but not tried yet are:
http://www.bcgcertification.org/skillbuilders/index.html
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rwguide/
and this has a list of several sites to check out
http://www.ancestrylessons.com/

i am so glad that i found all this so that i can be sure i am learning to do this correctly, instead of just doing this for myself so it didnt matter. i have found out a lot about my family by working on this, as well as finding out that i love history and love knowing how, not only my family but others families as well, fit into it all.

i hope this helps someone in their quest as well,
until next time,
peace and luv,
laura