Archive | 2015

I am a cousin, even in my DNA!

A recent email informed me that my brother and I had a DNA connection to A.J.Jacobs, the writer and Esquire editor who read the whole Encyclopedia and lived a biblical year among other creative endeavors. Having had dinner with this fascinating fellow at my brother’s house during the last Rootstech, I was extremely pleased.

A.J. Jacobs and Shipley Munson

A.J. Jacobs with my brother Shipley at Rootstech 2015

A.J.’s latest mission is pursuing the fact that we are all related, by throwing the biggest family reunion ever on June 6. This is sponsored by most of the major genealogical companies and is a fund raiser for Alzheimer’s, which as A.J. said in his email “hits genealogy particularly hard, since it erases family memories.”

Happily for me, there will be a branch party at the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree where I will be on that day.

His TED talk explains it better than any post I could write: http://globalfamilyreunion.com/ted-talk

This is what I read in the email:

With the help of dozens of scientists and volunteers, my family and I are putting together a world-wide event on June 6 that will unite cousins from all over the globe. You can watch a TED talk about it here. Or hear it on NPR here.

Our partners include the top firms in the field, including: FamilySearch, Geni, MyHeritage, Findmypast, 23andme, Family Tree DNA, and WikiTree.

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Humor and back from vacation

I hope your Easter and Passover holidays were as lovely as mine were.  My son finally visited our new, or not so new, San Diego home and I had the pleasure of showing him some of my favorite places here last week.

So yes I have been on vacation, however I have several good articles in the works so stay tuned. Meanwhile I hope you find this Esto cartoon as funny as I did.

Geneapalooza Handwriting

Esto Frigus cartoon from Geneapalooza, used by permission

Also I want to thank whomever ordered that nice expensive diesel heater for their boat via my Amazon associate account. Thank you so much for covering a month of my hosting!

Avotaynu Online is here!

Adam Brown

Adam Brown

Exciting news for Jewish genealogists is the launch of Avotaynu Online, a free online resource that includes all articles from 2007–2011 published in the print and PDF version of AVOTAYNU, the International Review of Jewish Genealogy, a magazine many subscribe to.

The principal architect of this new online resource is Adam Brown, the founder of the Jewish DNA Project at Family Tree DNA and a curator at GENI.com

Their press release describes it as:

A new venture intended to stimulate collaboration among Jewish genealogists in all its forms, including conferences and meetings, DNA studies, online family trees, social networking, the development of genealogical standards suitable for the Internet age, and developments in related fields (i.e., history, law, computer science) that have an impact on Jewish genealogy. Leading participants in these areas will provide in-depth reports on events and discoveries on a regular basis.

I was very pleased to see all the articles about Jewish DNA; perhaps I will report on them in another blog post once I have read them all: http://www.avotaynuonline.com/category/collaboration/dna/

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Y haplogroup humor

Esto’s cartoons often really hit the spot. This one really reminds me of my husband and myself.

Geneapalooza Male Line

Cartoon by Esto Frigus of Geneapalooza, used by permission

 

When I told my 98% Ashkenazi husband that his Y-DNA haplogroup (E1a1 aka E-M44) probably originated in Timbuktu, he started dancing around the room shouting “I am black!”

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Using your DNA test results: the Basics for Genealogists

How do you use autosomal DNA testing to enhance your genealogical research without having to take a PhD level course? This is a question several of my cousins have asked me, so here is my attempt to answer.

KittyTopMatchesMap

Chromosome Map of Kitty’s Closest Matches using her segment mapper tool

  • First of all, get as many relatives to test as you can. The more data you have, the easier it is to make useful comparisons and sort new DNA relatives into their related family lines. The closer family members shown in my chromosome map above are all cousins I convinced to test.
  • Secondly, make sure you know how to use a spreadsheet: sorting, deleting rows, inserting columns; you only need to know the easy stuff. [UPDATE: click here for my post with a youtube video teaching that easy spreadsheet stuff]
  • Third, check your understanding of how DNA works. Perhaps read my basics page – http://blog.kittycooper.com/2013/04/the-basics-at-23andme/ – and follow up with whichever lessons, books or videos appeal to you among those that I suggest or that you find listed in the ISOGG wiki – http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA
    Also lots of beginner questions are answered in the FAQ I keep for the DNA-NEWBIES mailing list on yahoo; a copy is on this blog – http://blog.kittycooper.com/dna-testing/newbie-faq/ – so check there when something is confusing.
  • Fourth, bookmark a page with an explanation of all the acronyms – this is a good one: http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Abbreviations – a key term is cM. You do not need to understand the definition of a centimorgan (cM), hardly anyone does; just accept that it is the best measure of the importance of a DNA match, the larger the better.

Now to the practical application of all this, using shared DNA segment data to find relatives, preferably those 3rd and 4th cousins that your family no longer knows of. Click on success stories on this blog to read about some of the cousins I have found with DNA.

When people are shown as matches to you or your relatives, the testing company will make a guess as to how closely related they are. Beyond 3rd cousins, it is not possible for them to make an accurate estimate because of the random nature of DNA inheritance.

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