About
Beyond Your
Tree
Genealogy
Mission
Welcome to Beyond Your Tree Genealogy
Beyond Your Tree Genealogy, LLC (BYTG) is committed to helping others not only find their ancestors, but also to know their ancestors. BYTG believes that knowing our ancestors is important for self-knowledge, and that knowing the challenges our ancestors faced and how they responded to the challenges is essential for self-understanding.
Current and future generations will benefit from familial emotions such as love, admiration, empathy, and forgiveness evoked from knowing and understanding the lives of their ancestors.
About
Jody Clark Jones
After teaching science and math for twenty-two years at Forsyth School in Saint Louis, Missouri, Jody retired in May 2015, to pursue a second career in professional genealogy. In addition to researching her own and her husband’s ancestry, she has provided pro bono research services for extended family members, friends, and colleagues for over twenty years.
While researching her family history, Jody first fell in love with her maternal ancestors. Great-grandparent by great-grandparent, generation after generation, they lured her into the genealogical hunt, and taught her admiration for the hardships they endured in Colonial America. It was when Jody began to research her father's ancestry that she stopped just collecting great-grandparents and began to hear the stories they were trying to tell her. While ancestors on both sides of Jody’s family endured hardship and heartache, her father’s ancestors taught her empathy for individual struggles and the desire to learn historical and circumstantial context.
Professional Development & Standards
Strict Adherence To:
Genealogical Education
Professional Memberships
2016-17 ProGen 28–Professional Genealogy Study Group
Graduate and Discussion Leader
2015 Boston University Certificate in Genealogical Research
Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP)
2020 Get Your Hands Dirty! A Workshop and Land and Property Records
2017 From Confusion to Conclusion: Writing Proof Arguments
2016 Mastering the Art of Genealogical Documentation
2015 Advanced Methodology
2014 Determining Kinship Reliably With the Genealogical Proof Standard
Institute for Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR)
2020 Researching New York: Resources and Strategies
2015 Writing and Publishing for Genealogists
2014 Techniques and Technology
National Genealogical Society Quarterly Study Group – ongoing
