Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Genealogy Jamboree is virtual this year!

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The Southern California Genealogical Society Genealogy Jamboree starts this week! (I don’t know why I haven’t blogged about this year’s Jamboree, but I appreciate a comment from reader Rebecca Stanley mentioning it.) This is always such a robust conference and this year it’s even more so: There are two days for DNA topics and two days for the Genealogy Jamboree, which focuses on traditional genealogy. And it’s virtual this year, so you don’t have to travel to southern California to attend.

The Genetic Genealogy conference will be held June 4 & 5. The Genealogy Jamboree will be held June 11 & 12. Each conference consists of six live lectures that you can attend live or access the recording later. In addition, there will be 20 Genetic Genealogy and 50 Genealogy Jamboree recorded sessions. That’s a lot of learning opportunities Here’s the schedule for both conferences.

There are two levels of registration. If you purchase the Standard Registration for Genetic Genealogy ($190), you have access to 10 recordings. The Standard Registration for the Genealogy Jamboree ($175 for non-members) gives you access to 30 recordings. You can watch recordings until October 2021.

Alternatively, you can purchase the Plus Registration for each conference and have access to the live presentations plus all the recorded sessions for that conference. The Plus Registration for the Genetic Genealogy conference is $260 for non-members and gives you access to 20 recorded sessions. The Plus Registration for the Genealogy Jamboree is $275 for non-members and gives you access to 50 recorded sessions. You’ll get a $20 discount for registering for both conferences and SCGS members receive a $20 to $30 discount, depending on the package.

Again, you can access the entire schedule here.

And here’s an exciting addition: On Monday, June 7 and Wednesday, June 9 several live presentations are being offered free of charge in a program called JamboFree. (These sessions are not recorded.) You simply have to complete a free registration (or log in with your SCGS login) to get access.

There’s lots of information available on the website. This page is a good place to start if you’d like to learn more.

I attended the Jamboree in person back in 2015 and was really impressed by the professionalism of the whole event. I’m confident the virtual event will be equally well done!

 

Amazon Prime Day sale on AncestryDNA test

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If you’ve been thinking about buying an AncestryDNA test for yourself or a relative–and you’re an Amazon Prime member–today might be the day to buy one.

As part of Amazon’s Prime Day sale, you can purchase an AncestryDNA genetic ethnicity test for $49. The price on Ancestry’s website is $99. Of course, since you’re by definition an Amazon Prime member if you’re taking advantage of the special, shipping is free.

Personally, I chose AncestryDNA’s autosomal test when I was looking to take a DNA test years ago. It has not opened any magical doors yet in my genealogy research, but I remain hopeful! I have exported my raw DNA data and uploaded it to Family Tree DNA and My Heritage, so I’ve received several ethnicity estimates. My understanding is that while the other services accept raw DNA, Ancestry does not. So if you want the benefit of testing with the largest service (where you’ll reach the most potential cousins), you have to an AncestryDNA test.

Today may be the day to do that! The Prime Day sale ends tonight (July 16) at midnight Pacific time.

Ancestry DNA updates its ethnicity estimates

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On September 12, Ancestry DNA debuted its “enhanced” ethnicity estimates based on a much larger reference sample (16,000 versus 3,000 reference samples) and improved algorithms. Blaine Bettinger, The Genetic Genealogist, has a great blog post explaining it.

Comparing my own older and newer ethnicity estimates, fewer ethnicities are represented. My percentage Irish/Scottish has gone up and my percentage Scandinavian has gone down (and the Scandinavian countries are now mentioned specifically). If I’m reading it correctly, ethnicities that represented 20% of the estimate are now gone. Interestingly enough, the new estimate much more closely resembles the MyHeritage estimate I received when I transferred my DNA data there recently (free of charge).

Here is a summary of my old estimate, taken from Ancestry’s site today:

And here’s the new estimate:

And, just for kicks, here’s my MyHeritage ethnicity estimate:

If you’ve tested your DNA through Ancestry and haven’t checked your ethnicity estimate in the last week, I encourage you to hop over there and check it out! (And, if you haven’t already, you can transfer your raw DNA to MyHeritage here.)

By the way, I found this support page on Ancestry that explains how to make the most of your ethnicity estimate. It was news to me, so I thought I’d share.

Health reports from raw DNA

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My friend, Shannon Wilkinson, passed along to me an email from Promethease, a company that generate health reports based on your autosomal DNA results. For the next couple of days you can create a free account and receive a free, downloadable report. If you’ve already done a DNA test, as I have, you can upload the raw data and find what your genes tell you about your health risks, good and bad. This offer expires Thursday, May 10, 2018. (Here’s a review of Promethease from last October on the blog DNAeXplained.)

I appreciate Shannon telling me about it, but I’m going to ponder it for a day before submitting. In order to even enter the site, you have to agree to some legal terms and the last one is, I accept the risk of learning that I may be at high risk for a debilitating disease. That gave me pause. I’m not sure I want to know that I’m at a high risk for a debilitating disease. My rational mind says that knowledge is power and if I know that I’m at risk perhaps I can do something to reduce the risk. My emotional side thinks it’s easier not to know.

Last year, I did submit my DNA to VitaGene, which provides health information with an eye toward taking appropriate nutritional supplements. I had no problem with that and found the results of passing interest.

So I’ll ponder for a day, but I suspect I’ll take advantage of this free offer. What about you? Have you received health information from your DNA data and are you glad you did?