Learning New Tricks 2014

Hi all well it's almost conference time again in Kansas City. I wanted to share this with you all before it happened so that if you're in the area and want to attend yourself you can get signed up.

 So here is the breakdown, the Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence is hosting "Genie Tech 2014".  Their two speakers are Lisa Lousie Cooke and Kathleen Brandt.  Both speakers are going to be sharing with us the latest technology tools to do your family research.  I am excited about both speakers as Lisa will be bringing one of her google earth classes and Kathleen will be presenting on the DNA side of genealogy research.  Genie Tech 2014 will be on March 8th, if you plan on going let me know so we can share highlights from our notes.

The other conference I am excited about is the GenealogyKC.  It was hosted last year during RootsTech but this year they moved it back so that some speakers from RootsTech could attend. There is 132 classes being put on on both Friday and Saturday March 21 & 22, 2014.  This year they are really focused on Technology and Youth.  I am already signed up for my classes and can't wait for it all to start.  I plan to be at this one all day both days so if you're attending this one look me up.

The thing I am most excited about with the GenealogyKC conference is I am going to be presenting my Google Earth research, it's called "Follow Your Family's Trail With Google Earth".  I will be demonstrating how to use Google Earth for your family research on both Friday and Saturday. Click on "Follow Your Family's Trail With Google Earth" and you can see the times I am presenting.  If you can't wait for my class or don't have time to attend you can check out my other blog, Genealogy Through Google Earth to get started on spinning your own globe of family history.

Before I go, I wanted to give a shout out to the Iowa Genealogical Society, about their Genealogical Name Tag.  Originally I found out about this on Beth Foulk's blog Genealogy Decoded - A Family Tree Name Tag, and I immediately wanted one.  You can order them from the Iowa Genealogical Society here at Genealogical Name Tag, I ended up ordering two.  I got a call the very next day confirming the order and within a week received my new name tags, and I was really impressed.  They look really sharp and are a pretty high quality name tag.

So if you are going to attend either of these conferences, or any others in your area, you should get yourself a professional name tag.  Don't forget to look me up and hope to see you soon.

Happy Researching.

DNA in My Family Genealogy... The Ethnicity Update

Ancestry has finally done it, they have updated the Ethnicity Estimate within the DNA results. If you are just now tuning into this post and haven't read my other two segments called DNA in My Family Genealogy you can check them both out here... MY DNA  and  THE GRANDPARENTS

If you remember I wasn't really impressed with the ethnicity results from my first test, especally after I got results back from my maternal grandparents. My results showed me with 78% Central European and 18% Scandinavian. Between my two grandparents they had well over 100% British Isle, so where did mine go.

That's where ancestry changed things up. The first added more regions this broke some places up like Great Britain and Ireland up so for some people it may have increased the accuracy of their region results. The other thing they did was the calculated range. The randomly selected 40 positions of the DNA. From there they average the results out and with some comparisons figure out your probability to each region.

All in all I think its more accurate but below are pictures of my results, my grandfathers, and grandmothers. I will let you check it out for yourself.  I think its pretty interesting that I went from no British Isle to 53% Great Britain and 4% Irish.

Let me know what you think.

My Ethnicity Estimate

Grandpa's Ethnicity Estimate

Grandma's Ethnicity Estimate

DNA in My Family Genealogy... The Grandparents

So here is a update from my previous post DNA in My Family Genealogy I love the fact that I get the opportunity to talk with other members of the NWMGS about discoveries, concerns, and questions about genealogy. While talking about DNA a member commented about thier results just confirmed many, many years of research, and so I thought I would share my maternal grandparents results as it completely changed mine. So the Story begins...

Few months back, without going into details, in fear of losing my only set of living grandparents, I was able to talk to them and get thier test submitted. Excited it only took three weeks to get the results back and then things really started to get interesting.

If you remember back with my Genetic Ethnicity results came back with 78% Centeral Europe, 18% Scandinavian, and 4% uncertian. This all seemed wierd to me as I have been able to document, with traditional research, a large amount of branches tracing back to the British Isles. Then the grandparents enter the picture. My Grandfather showed up with 70% Central European, 27% British Isles, and 3% uncertain. OK well I would stay thats pretty close to what I have researched without crunching the numbers. Grandma's was a shocker when compaired to mine. She had 74% British Isles, 16% Eastern European, 7% Central European, and 3% uncertain. Well especally with results like that, where did my British Isles go??? I can only guess, not being a genetisist, that my father must have some strong Scandinavian blood that dominated my British roots while still being born a red head.

Well let me mention a few things that I havn't liked about AncestryDNA or hope to see explained in furture updates. First off I have my grandparents linked to the same tree I am using, and while I can somewhat understand why I dont have some of the same genetic hintsto cousins my grandparents have. Why do they not show up as a hint when we are 99% confinent you're related, but can't identify how, within thier hint feature? Yes I know how we are related but seem it likes a hickup in thier system. The second is I am sure they are trying to keep it broken down to the lowest common dinominator but there is no advanced features to AncestryDNA like a Chromosome Browser. Especally in my grandfathers results there are quite a few hints that come from the same branch within a few generations of each other. This all being said they are supposed to come out with a new Ethnicity breakdown any day now. While there seems to be a few bugs in thier system, looking at all three results niether my mom or I where adopted.

It has been a great experience even though I don't understand it all. I have meet many more, lets call them genetic cousins, and many more I have yet to contact. Some are beating me to the chase and contacting me way before I have compiled my thoughts to contact them. Especally through my grandfathers side I am even starting to get connection hint, where the common ancestor is Revolutionary War time period, which is very exciting. And while the hints make it easy to make a connection. Having both maternal grandparents tested helps out too because if I can't see another user on thier results then that kinda narrows it down that you must come from my fathers side of the family.

I am going to sign off now, as just a few hours ago they released the new ethnicity results. It may take a few to get an updated blog post. I have already checked and the rest of the AncestryDNA community must be equally excited because the site is bogged down.

DNA in My Family Genealogy

So I have always been told there is two types of genealogy/family history research.  There is the common type where you have proof, ie census records, death certificate, marriage licence.  Then there is the type that you have no source documents and they call that mythology.  Just recently there is a new type of research that has finally become cost efficient for the genealogy community to partake in, genetic research.  This is the real scientific proof of your ancestors and we all carry it around with us in our DNA.  While this new type of research can tell you the where, its still up to you to know the who and when.

My first attempt with this was with Family Tree DNA.  I paid some money and got the mid-level 37 marker Y-chromosome DNA test.  I'm not going to get into the science behind the test, but the Y-DNA test is used to figure out your male ancestry.  It was a simple cheek swab and off in the mail it went, almost 6 months later I started getting results.  First my 12 markers then 25 and 37 a few weeks later.  While the results didn't conclude that I have an exact match with the Stitt ancestral line, and I didn't get any matches to my 25 or 37 markers, I did get 37 matches with my 12 marker.  What that means: If you find that you are an exact (12 for 12) match to another individual. This tells you that there is about a 50% chance that the two of you share a common ancestor within 7 generations, and a 95% chance that the common ancestor is within 23 generations.  .

This test also tells me my Haplogroup which is where your family is from based on your dna's molecular evolution.  My results came back as  R1b1a2 (R-M269) which is Western Europe

My second test was actually an offer from AncestryDNA to participate in their Beta test when they first acquired the DNA labs.  This totally come out of the blue but who would pass up a DNA test for the price of shipping.  The test in this kit was a vile of saliva  several months later, I am sure the long wait was the huge number of people they asked to start this program and that its all still beta testing as they figure out how they want to run this new branch of the company.  So to explain this test, where the Family Tree DNA was just 37 markers and only did the direct paternal lineage, this AncestryDNA test is more of a Family Finder test where they look at 700,000+ markers on all branches of your tree.  Spring of last year AncestryDNA started posting the beginning results of my test.

The first results they posted was my Genetic Ethnicity, this was at first quite a shock, I have alway researched the family coming from the British Isles   So with results of Central European, Scandinavian, and Uncertain was not what I expected.

That wasn't the end of it, some time later they started posting results of cousin matches, people who you are related two based on the science.  These were all broken down to by generations ie 1st-3rd cousins 4th-6th cousins and so on with this note: 'Distant cousin' matches (5th cousins or greater) have a lower degree of certainty compared to 3rd and 4th cousins. Even though there is a 50% (or less) chance that you are related, these matches are still good leads. Each of these cousins you can click on and if the cousin has posted their tree with public permissions you would see their tree and a list of matching surnames between you and their tree.  As the months have gone by I have tried to find matches with these trees but it is a tough job.  While they give you a list of matching surnames, like they noted earlier is just a lead, and some of the time these surnames are from both sides of my family tree and as far as I have been able to research my paternal and maternal sides did not cross until me.  Months and months go by and I get more of these cousins, and I should mention I don't have any that are closer than 4th-6th cousins, which means they are cousins with a common ancestor going to about the civil war or later, but more results are always coming in and I sit with 3500 matches now.  Again I want to mention that they are still Beta testing, how to run this new program.  One of the new features that came out is Hints "the shaky leaf".  These are matches where they have looked at your tree and the cousin's tree and found the common ancestor.  When you click on these you get to see a relationship chart showing how you too are related, this takes all the guesswork out of the list of matching surnames.  Out of a total 3500 genetic cousins 9 have the shaky leaf hint of how we are related. Below is how those are hints are related to me.  The superscript is the number of generation for that surname, the subscript is the birth year of that common ancestor. 

I haven't started contacting these cousins as I am trying to clean up and making sure my mythology has some source documents behind it.  I have been contacted by some of those 3500 other matches but I haven't had any success making new discoveries within those 3500.  

I will leave you with that for now.  I am sure I will blog in the future as I make new connections and discoveries.  Hope you all enjoyed and if you decide to adventure into the DNA side of genealogy feel free to ask me questions and check with me I may know of some current discounts.