Digging in the Deep
Ancestor-Guided Genealogy Research
FOUR MONDAYS
BEGINNING JULY 7
4pm Vancouver | 7pm NYC | 9am Sydney (Tuesdays)
About the Course
In this four-part course, we’ll blend the grounded skills of genealogical research with the intuitive art of ancestral connection. We’ll gather family stories, learn to interpret historical records, and trace the paths of DNA to ancestral homelands. Along the way, we’ll invite ancestral guides to offer their insight and blessing. This is research as ritual and history as healing. We hope you join us as we wade into memory, mystery, and a spirit-guided inquiry of belonging.
Learn foundational skills for genealogical research, from interviewing family to reading historical records.
Discover how to weave intuition and ancestral guidance into every stage of your research.
Engage with DNA science as a research tool with the potential to connect us to deeper belonging.
Work with complex histories, holding space for what’s known, lost, and longing to be found.
Course Overview
Genealogical research, when paired with ancestral healing, becomes more than tracing your family tree—it’s a ritual of remembrance, repair, and reconnection. This course offers a grounded and intuitive approach to explore your roots, blending practical genealogy tools with spiritual practice.
We’re grateful to be joined by Erica Nunnally and Joseph B. Shumway. Erica is a modern folk medicine woman, experienced ritualist, and ancestral healing practitioner with lineages from Turtle Island, West and Central Africa, and the Irish and British Isles. Joseph is a distinguished professional genealogist of Northern and Western Europeans lineages with over 25 years of experience bringing a heart-centered and precise approach to ancestral research.
No matter where you are on the path of family research or ancestral healing, this course invites you into a process that’s research-based and soul-rooted. You’ll learn to gather oral history from living relatives, interpret historical records, build a digital family tree, and engage with DNA ancestry tools in thoughtful, culturally aware ways. We’ll explore how to involve your ancestral guides (more on this below), use intuition in your research, and honor known and unknown histories with care.
Our approach aims to be Earth-honoring, feminist, anti-racist, LGBTQ-celebrating, decolonizing, and class-aware. We invite you to bring your full self—and your ancestors—to this journey of lineage, belonging, and cultural healing.
4 live teaching calls led by Joseph Shumway and Erica Nunnally
Small breakout sessions each call with the teacher of your choice
Carefully curated genealogical resources to accompany lessons
Lifetime access to recordings and course materials
Access to a dedicated community discussion space
Course Curriculum
Lesson One: Genealogy in Support of Ancestral Healing
- Speak to cultural troubles and their impact on genealogical research
- Learn genealogical research skills to support ancestral healing work
- Practice honoring intuition and ancestral guides as research partners
- Explore how to set up a functional, aesthetically pleasing family tree
Lesson Two: Research with Living Family & Ancestral Guides
- Discuss effective ways to gather information from living family
- Learn to balance your sources (e.g., intuition, family lore, personal identity)
- Expand your digital tree to include dates, places, and historical context
- Practice deepening with ancestral guides at each stage of the process
Lesson Three: Historical Records & Weaving New Stories
- Learn new skills for locating and making sense of historical records
- Welcome ancestral support for grieving historical erasure and loss
- Explore differences between who the dead were and who they are today
- Invite ancestral help to bring meaning to often dry historical data
Lesson Four: The Genetic Record, Deep History, & Belonging
- Learn the benefits and limits of DNA science for genealogical research
- Consider cultural and privacy considerations of DNA testing
- Explore the role of land, culture, and burial places in deeper belonging
- Welcome direct ancestral support on questions of home and belonging
What’s an ancestral guide?
An ancestral guide refers to a benevolent, healed, and supportive lineage ancestor capable of serving as a supportive presence in your life. The guides are often ancestors who lived hundreds or even thousands of years ago, however, this varies from person to person and ancestors from recent generations may sometimes be quite awake. In the Ancestral Lineage Healing process, the guides oversee and facilitate the healing and home-coming of more recent ancestors who may still carry unresolved trauma or disturbance.
The process of Ancestral Lineage Healing involves establishing clear boundaries with any among the dead who are not decisively healed. By connecting first with ancestral guides, safety is prioritized and individuals systematically transform intergenerational pain into sources of strength and resilience.
How do I connect with an ancestral guide?
If you have never done an Ancestral Lineage Healing session or taken any of our courses, we strongly encourage making time for a few one-on-one sessions with a practitioner in our Practitioner Network before this course begins in July. Connecting with an ancestral guide can be a beautiful experience, and it’s often easier when guided by a practitioner.
Our close to 200 practitioners speak nearly 30 languages, and sessions are accessible to people of variable means (filter in the directory by “low-income sessions”). Connecting with an ancestral guide is not a prerequisite to take this course, although prior experience with our approach will definitely make the experiential practices and ancestral guidance element of the teachings more clear and connective during the live teachings of the course.
Register for Digging in the Deep
3 and 6 month payment plans available at checkout at 0% interest.
Early Registration | 30% Off
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Discount rate available until May 17 or while spaces last
Supporter
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This rate helps us make our work accessible to those with modest means and applies if you have investments, a retirement plan, and/or access to economic abundance.
Standard
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Our standard rate allows us to sustain our work. This typically applies if you’re employed in the Global North, and you’re able to provide for your needs in a consistent way.
Reduced
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This rate applies if you’re relatively less economically advantaged in the ways listed under “standard rate” or that cost is simply out of reach for you financially.
Course Schedule
TEACHING CALLS WITH JOSEPH & ERICA
- Four Mondays from July 7 – July 28, 2025
- 4pm Vancouver | 7pm NYC | 9am Sydney (Tuesdays)
CLASS STRUCTURE
Each 90-minute live session includes teaching, guided practice, and live Q&A with the instructors. In the final 30 minutes, the group will split into two breakout tracks: one focused on the practical skills of genealogical research, and the other on ritual and ancestral connection. You’ll choose your track each time based on whatever feels most right to you in the moment.
All calls will be recorded and available in your course dashboard indefinitely. Look for recordings in 24-48 hours after the live call.
About the Instructors
Erica Nunnally
Erica Nunnally, MA is an animist, ritualist, teacher of yogic traditions, Reiki master teacher, and a steward of Earth’s medicines. She was raised in a Christian and military family with a fluid sense of home and shallow connection to roots, and after decades of personal study and reclamation, found home with her ancestors. Erica specializes in supporting folks with limited knowledge of their family and cultural origins but who are called to deep healing and reconnection. Her ancestors are primarily Choctaw, Nansemond, West African, and Irish.
Joseph Shumway
Joseph is a world-renowned Accredited Genealogist (known for his work on the popular TV series “Who Do You Think You Are?”), ancestral healer, health coach, herbalist, and host of “The Ancestral Healing Podcast.” Much of his healing work centers on helping queer folks heal religious trauma through Ancestral Lineage Healing and Earth-centered spiritual practices. He coaches clients using a holistic approach focused on reconnecting to body, Earth, community, and the ancestors. Joseph enjoys using genealogical research to help his clients better understand the historical and cultural traumas that may affect their lineages. His ancestors are primarily Celtic and Nordic peoples from northern and western Europe. He lives on the sacred lands of the Ute and Nuwuvi People in south-central Utah with his husband where they operate a small regenerative farm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Main Teaching Calls | 90 min | Mondays
– Each Monday in July from July 7 – July 28, 2025
– 4pm Vancouver | 7pm NYC | 9am Sydney (Tuesdays)
Call 1: July 7
Call 2: July 14
Call 3: July 21
Call 4: July 28
The timing of the main calls favor participants in Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Thanks to our international community of learners for your understanding around the challenges of time-zone inclusivity. All who register get lifetime access to recordings, and you’re welcome to send in questions for our teaching team to answer during live calls or in written form.
To the very best of our ability, yes. All Ancestral Medicine offerings seek to embody an anti-racist, feminist, LGBTQ-celebrating, decolonizing, and Earth-honoring ethic. They are also class-aware and internationally conscious. We offer a heartfelt, non-dogmatic approach that seeks to honor each participant’s unique life experiences and ancestral storylines. Resources included with each lesson favor ancestrally and geographically diverse voices, and the online Community Forum includes optional BIPOC, SWANA, Jewish, and LGBTQ-only discussion spaces.
All live teaching calls will be recorded and made available 24-48 hours later in the course portal to watch and listen to at your leisure, with indefinite access.
This course directly names and creates a welcoming space for exploration of vulnerable topics related to cultural loss and recovery and different forms of violence and harm in the world. The material may stir complicated emotions for some participants. In addition to the weekly live call, additional support may be important as the course is not a replacement for personal therapy or spiritual care.
Enrollment includes access to our Connection Space – an online discussion platform for students, supportive practitioners from Ancestral Medicine’s Practitioner Network, and Ancestral Medicine staff. Sharing experiences, reflecting on practices, and making connections in this private online community can provide one form of support.
Please also consider reaching out to someone in the Ancestral Medicine Practitioner Network for one-on-one support and guidance. Most are available for private individualized sessions, and many are willing to provide low-cost sessions to support financial accessibility needs.
All of our lesson videos have automatic closed captioning, as well additional downloadable audio-only versions. If you have needs not met here, please feel free to reach out to us with suggestions at info@ancestralmedicine.org.
Should you wish to withdraw from an online course for any reason, please contact us at info@ancestralmedicine.org to request a full refund within the refund window of that specific course. For our 4-session courses, you can request a refund before the second call begins.
Have a question that’s not answered here?