Archive | January 2015

Organizing DNA results with your Genealogy: WIKItree.com

While I have many spreadsheets that I use to analyze DNA results, what I also want is a field in my genealogy program where I can put simple DNA information like haplogroups, where the person tested, and the GEDmatch id number.

To my delight, the free online one world tree at WIKItree.com has all those features. Plus you can see whom you might have gotten your X DNA from, as well as your Y and mtDNA ancestral lines. Another feature is that a person’s profile page shows the tests of relatives that are related by DNA. Here is my mother’s page:

WikiTreeGretchenSmll
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MyHeritage is now doing the family trees for 23andme

So what is the impact of MyHeritage doing the family trees for 23andme? We can all agree that the previous family trees at 23andme were difficult to use. So this has to be an improvement, right? Maybe not.

To try it, I connected my own 23andme account to my existing MyHeritage tree and then looked at it from my aunt’s account, after logging out of MyHeritage. It was hard to find it on my profile. All the way at the very bottom were the words Family Tree next to which were the linked words View Kitty Cooper’s Family Tree. When I clicked on it I saw this:
KittyTreeMyHeritage

Oops. My Dad is set as the home person. Maybe Google can help me figure out how to change that. Clicking on the image above will take you to my tree so you can judge for yourself how well you like it.

MyHeritage is an excellent site in many ways, but to take advantage of the record matching you have to buy a premium membership. Also if you want more than 250 people in your tree, payment is required after those first free 6 months for 23andme folk. The premium or data membership gives access to many European records not on ancestry and also some newspaper articles I have not seen elsewhere.

For me, the biggest issue with MyHeritage is having no pedigree view on the family tree. When generation after generation had eight or more children, their tree view is very unwieldy.

In the rest of this post I will walk you step by step through setting up your 23andme tree at MyHeritage which you must do by May 1, 2015 to take advantage of the offer.
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Organizing my office in 2015

I have decided to get my office decluttered and organized in 2015. To help accomplish this, I am reading through a wonderful blog by Janine Adams called Organize Your Family History.

Also I had to share this Geneapalooza cartoon to celebrate my New Year’s resolution!

From Geneapalooza.com - used by permission

From Geneapalooza.com – used by permission

My main plan is to scan all the documents and photos that are waiting in piles. Then I will file them on my computer in the folder with their family name. Finally I will upload them to the appropriate ancestors in my trees on Ancestry.com, GENI, and WIKItree, all of which sites have the capability to store source images separately from photographs of people.

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Upcoming genealogy conferences where I will be speaking

I love to talk about subjects I am knowledgeable on. Just ask my husband, who frequently accuses me of excessive pontificating. Not surprisingly, my latest outlet for this urge is speaking at conferences about genealogy and genetic genealogy.
rootstech attendees
This year I will be talking at Rootstech, in February in Salt Lake City, one of the very best genealogy conferences there is.* It also has the added advantage of being next door to the fabulous Family History Library. Plus David Archuleta is singing at the closing event.

My talk, RT1661, on Friday afternoon at 2:30 in Ballroom C, is about a subject near and dear to me – putting your research on a one world tree. Since I use all three of the biggest ones and did a blog post comparing them this last year, I have a lot to say on the subject. I will also give that same talk locally in March. Have a look at my presentations page for more details.

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