Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

DNA Test: A great Mother’s Day gift

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Mother’s Day is coming up here in the U.S. I have a friend who is eagerly anticipating an Ancestry DNA test as a Mother’s Day gift. Her husband and two sons are being tested too. I think that’s a wonderful gift!

My mother, Betty Brown Adams, passed away two years ago, on 17 June 2015. In February of 2015, when I was at RootsTech, I purchased three kits from Family Tree DNA for my parents. I had each parent do an autosomal test (Family Finder) and I had my father do a Y-DNA test as well. (Those choices were based on a terrific RootsTech presentation I’d heard, given by Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide.)

I’m the administrator for my parents’ tests (no computer at my parents’ condo!) and I’m so happy to have the information to play with, though I have a lot of learning to do about making good use of the results. (That’s a whole different post.)

When I had my mother take the test, I had no idea she would only be with us for four more months. (She had Parkinson’s Disease, but her passing was pretty sudden.) I am so grateful that I didn’t wait to ask her to take a test.

If your parents are still alive and haven’t been tested, I urge you to consider ordering the tests for them. My folks had literally no interest in it, but they were happy to do it as a favor to me. Depending on your folks’ level of interest, it could be a wonderfully unique Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day) gift!

How They Do It: Diahan Southard

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I’m so happy to present the fourth installment in my How They Do It series, in which I ask well-known genealogists how they organize their own research. The series runs the first Tuesday of each month, though this week I forgot! (Yes, even professional organizers mess up their schedules sometimes.)

This month I interview Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide. Diahan is an expert in genetic genealogy and is a regular speaker at genealogy conferences. She manages to make the confusing topic of using DNA in genealogy understandable, no small feat, in my opinion. I’ve  had the pleasure of doing a consultation with her about my own autosomal DNA results, which was a very valuable experience! For this interview, we focused on Diahan’s genetic genealogy research.

How They Do It: Diahan Southard

How long have you been doing genealogy?

I have been involved in genetic genealogy since the beginning, so about 17 years.

What’s your favorite part of doing genetic genealogy?

My favorite part about genetic genealogy is the unexpected tangible connection that I feel with my DNA cousins that I have never met.

Do you consider your genealogy research well organized?

I honestly spend more time helping others than I do on my own research at this point, so while I feel like I have some good organization in the DNA realm, I know my traditional research could use some help.

What type of software do you use for organizing your genetic genealogy research?

Each testing company does offer some limited means for keeping track of your matches in the form of notes. When I look at a match, I just make a quick note in that person’s profile about what I did and what I found, especially if I was able to find the common ancestor. This makes it easy for me to remember when I go back weeks later.

Do you have a tree on Ancestry? If so, is it public or private? Why?

I do have a public tree on Ancestry as it gives me access to all of the best genetic genealogy tools at AncestryDNA. With a public tree I get access to the DNA circles and New Ancestor discoveries features, as well as the shaky leaf hints. Having my tree public also allows me to take advantage of other people’s research time, meaning that my tree is out there for them to peruse so that my DNA matches might be able to identify our connection even if I haven’t had a chance to look yet.

What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to organizing your genetic genealogy?

The biggest challenge in genetic genealogy is figuring out what to do with all of those fourth cousins! Most of us have so many. The best thing to do is to pull your Best Matches out of the longer list and focus on those. Your best matches have shared surnames, shared locations, or are your best genetic matches.

What’s your biggest piece of advice to beginners in genetic genealogy in terms of keeping track of their research?

If you are just getting started in genetic genealogy, please don’t get overwhelmed by the more experienced people telling you that you HAVE to have this fancy tool or you HAVE to transfer your data to another database. Spend at least a year getting to know the database you were tested in and don’t worry about anything else for now.

What do you think is the most important thing for people to do to stay organized when it comes to family history research?

Stay focused on one goal. Don’t get distracted by other shiny objects.

If you were starting out new in genetic genealogy what would you do differently?

I would test more of my ancestors before they passed away. If you have parents or grandparents, or aunts or uncles still around, go order them a DNA test!!

Do you keep paper or electronic files (or both)?

All my genetic genealogy is electronic.

Do you use Evernote, One Note or any other electronic organizing system for your genealogy? If so, how do you use it?

I do use Evernote to clip particularly helpful articles or charts to help me make sense of my genetic genealogy results. I also use it to save screenshots of DNA circles and New Ancestor discoveries, or important matches.

Do you have anything to add?

While the ins and outs and ups and downs of genetic genealogy can take you down many paths with many twists and turns, keep in mind that it really comes down to a simple concept: if you share DNA, you are family.

Diahan obviously has a lot to teach those of us struggling with knowing what to do with our DNA results! I really love her advice to stayed focused and to spend a year getting to know the database you’ve tested with before branching out to other databases or trying new tools. And, of course, her advice to test your older relatives now, while they’re still with you, is so important.

AncestryDNA announces Genetic Communities

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When I was at RootsTech, an executive from Ancestry showed a tantalizing video during an opening session about the “genetic communities” that Ancestry DNA customers would see in their profile.  It’s a big step beyond the ethnicity estimates they previously offered.

Yesterday, Ancestry announced that the genetic communities are starting to be rolled out. They also provided a help page with more information on genetic communities. Here’s the accompanying video:

You can bet that I rushed over to my Ancestry DNA results to see if I’d been placed in any genetic communities. I was delighted to see that I had one genetic community listed in my profile (so far). It is the Settlers of Southern Appalachians community and reflects my father’s mother’s side of the family (the Rascos) who were Alabama settlers.

The whole thing is a bit mysterious to me (but that’s true of DNA in general) and I’m anxious to learn about this new feature and whether I might eventually be connected with more communities. So I signed up for a free webinar from Legacy Family Tree called Exploring AncestryDNA’s New Genetic Communities, presented by renowned genetic genealogist Blaine Bettinger. It’s tomorrow, March 30, at 1 pm Central time. I’m not available at that time but I was thrilled to read that the recording will be available free of charge for seven days.

I’ve been ignoring my DNA results for at least a year now, but I sense that might be ending, since yesterday I purchased the Getting Started with DNA and Genealogy Boot Camp from Hack Genealogy. It’s $25.95 for three hours of recorded webinars and 10 pages of handouts, available for a year. I used the coupon code GETDNA to get $6 off that price. (That code expires March 31.)

I don’t want to get too distracted from the single family line I’m exploring in 2017, but I am looking forward to learning more about how DNA can help me in my research. AncestryDNA’s Genetic Communities might be really helpful!

Free live streaming of select Jamboree sessions

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Free live streaming of SCGS Jamboree!I’m very excited to be attending the Southern California Genealogical Society’s Jamboree June 5 to 7. (I loved the NGS conference so much, I’m ready for more learning!)

Here’s some great news: If you can’t attend in person, you can attend some of the sessions virtually. And there’s no charge, thanks to sponsor Ancestry.com.

Registration for live streaming is now open.  Once you register, you’ll have access to all streaming sessions. (You don’t have to register for individual sessions.) Four sessions will be streamed on Friday, six on Saturday and four on Sunday. You can see the list of streaming sessions on this Jamboree blog post. You don’t even have to be available that weekend; you can watch archived versions of the Jamboree live streams up until July 5. If you want to purchase recordings to keep forever, that’s another available option (and there are savings if you pre-order).

I’m also attending the DNA Day on June 4. Live streaming is available for that day as well, for a fee. You can watch any of a select six individual sessions for $20 each or all six for $99. The schedule is detailed in this post. These sessions are not archived or recorded.

SCGS is wonderful about educating the public. They offer free webinars twice a month. The fact that fourteen of the Jamboree sessions are being offered free of charge to genealogy enthusiasts everywhere is really laudable. I look forward to meeting these generous people!