What is Pharos Tutors?

Pharos Tutors is a British genealogy tuition company which offers online courses for those looking for an introduction to family history, or to improve their existing skills. It runs ‘Anytime’ courses which you can start any time and do at your own pace – ‘Foundations of Family History Part 1: Getting Started’, ‘Foundations of Family History 2: Next Steps’, ‘Climbing Trees – Inspiring children with family history’, ‘My British Isles Origins – Crossing the Pond’, and ‘Parish Registers of England and Wales’. It also has a programme of tutor-led courses, with new ones starting every week. In partnership with the Society of Genealogists, they run a two-part qualification programme for professional genealogists, ‘Family History Skills and Strategies – Intermediate Certificate’ and ‘Family History Skills and Strategies – Advanced Certificate’. Passing the Advanced Certificate grants you exemption from some aspects of the membership process of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives, the professional association for genealogists in England and Wales.

Pharos Tutors has now launched a new-look website. The key features are:

• An updated look and feel
• An easy to navigate website featuring the brand new Course Finder, which shows all courses but allows you to order them by start date or course title, filter them by course type or level of difficulty and search by keyword
• Updated and modernised platform and technology
• A single login for all Pharos Tutors systems
• Technology used to run the courses brought ‘in house’ to run within the Pharos Tutors website
• A totally redesigned Student interface, known as the Student Area, in keeping with a modern LMS (Learning Management System). The Student Area is organised by course, Lesson notes and other course documents are now located in the Course materials area. Messages from the tutor are in the Messages area, There is a brand new forum and chat room system. Times for chat sessions and the links to them, as well as links to tutorials run on Zoom, will appear in the Chat / Zoom area.

Rosemary Collins is the features editor of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine