Blaine Bettinger, one of the best presenters and educators on genetic genealogy, is coming to Carlsbad, San Diego, for a daylong seminar next week on Saturday, October 6. This is a wonderful opportunity to gather knowledge from one of the stars of the field. At the moment, there are still a few seats open.
I will also be doing a workshop on working with your DNA matches that morning in Carlsbad. If you are interested in having your results be an example in my workshop, please contact me with some details.
The idea of a workshop is I talk briefly, then you try it yourselves. Then I talk some more. Then you try some more and we repeat again. So please bring your laptop or tablet or even make do with your smartphone and we will have fun! We will mainly work with Ancestry matches plus a little bit with GEDmatch. If you have not yet uploaded your DNA data to GEDmatch.com please do so. Click here for how.
Blaine’s workshop about visual phasing will be at the same time as mine. Everyone loves this workshop at Jamboree so it is great to have it locally. Blaine is not only the author of several books on genetic genealogy and a blog, but he also runs a FaceBook group of about 46K members called “Genetic Genealogy Tips & Techniques.” His latest endeavor is a web site for self paced learning called DNA Central.
If you cannot make it up to Carlsbad, then come hear me following Saturday Oct 13 when I will be talking to the San Diego Genealogy Society in the Lake Murray area.
Or if you are in New Mexico, I will be talking in Albuquerque New Mexico the following day, Sunday Oct 14!
There is an all-day DNA Workshop Sunday, October 14, at Congregation Albert. It is sponsored by Casa Sefarad@Nahalat Shalom in conjunction with the JGS of New Mexico.
ABQ is waiting for you, Kitty! We will have people from Santa Fe and down south, and even from southern Colorado!
Hi wanted to ask you something first I would love to go to that seminar, but it’s to far! Do you think they will be going to Las Vegas, or Santa Clarita ! In the near future thank you
Michele –
Every June the SCGS has a conference in Burbank which includes a DNA day at which I usually speak, see http://genealogyjamboree.com/
I have an older half sister that my mother gave up in 1971 and I have pretty much every piece of info that can be gathered without DNA testing. It’s important to me to locate her if I can, so I am willing to buy a couple of DNA tests and dig thru all the results. I’m not insanely interested in going back to Adam and Eve, but I’d like to know my heritage. However I have no idea which of the available tests for sale will give me the greatest odds of success (I’ll be using GedMatch and other free resources as well) I just need to be pointed in the right direction(s). Can you help. please?
Test yourself or better, your mother if possible at ancestry and upload those results everywhere. If she is not yet found them also test at 23and!me
I did a DNA test and found a half sister I was not aware of. Turns out we are 7 weeks apart in age. We have the same father but different mothers. We share about 35% (2374 centimorgans). The DNA is really high for half siblings. We actually look very much alike. There is no other connection in past family. Is it just an anomaly? Why so high?
It could be an anomoly or more likely your mothers are related. Look at your one to one comparison at GEDatch and see if there are any fully identical regions (FIRs) see this post: http://blog.kittycooper.com/2016/04/full-versus-half-sibling-dna-matches/
Thanks for replying. I have been reading your blogs extensively since I started this process. I did the one to one and the first eight chromosomes look very similar to the half sibling graph in your link. Chromosomes eighteen though twenty two show a bit more green but no really long green bars.
One other thing we have no shared DNA showing on Ancestry from mothers side.
Kitty, I’m signed up for Blaine’s workshop on October 6. Three siblings are needed on Gedmatch. I have them. Lucky me! I manage my brother’s DNA, however I do not manage my sister’s. She manages it herself. Am I able to use her DNA even though I don’t manage it? With her permission, of course. Thank you, Diane
Great Diane! Lucky you! All you need is the kit numbers on GEDmatch and you can get the data when logged into your own account
Thanks to everyone who came to today’s workshop!!
The slides are online here:
https://slides.com/kittycooper/dna-test-results2-30
Kitty,
My husband and I are planning to attend your workshop at the San Diego Genealogical Society in Lake Murray, San Diego.
Could I please ask your advice on the following?
My distant cousins and I are attempting to discover our common ancestor.
We are all connected through a surname, but we are also connected through autosomal DNA and through Y DNA findings. We have a surname project on FTDNA.
All of the several dozen members of us have lineage in this line that cannot be traced farther back in time than 1780, so a reliable Tree to a progeniture is missing.
We are wondering if you would like to use our findings in one of your presentations that discuss distant cousin autosomal DNA analysis? Or if you could suggest dome other approach that we haven’t explored.
We estimate that the bulk of us are connected at 5th-8th cousins.
If you are interested, Kitty, more information will be supplied.
Thanks so much!
Nan
Nan – I look forward to meeting you Saturday. Using autosomal DNA to get back before 1800 is hit or miss. Only about half your 4th cousins will match you in your DNA see https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin_statistics
So I would recommend Y test a few men in direct paternal descent on different lines. Then develop a theory and get some more testers from that possible line elsewhere. That is what I did for my 4th grandad on the Munson line see
https://blog.kittycooper.com/2013/03/we-have-found-our-ancestor-lars-monsen/
Sadly the public Y database mentioned there no longer exists due to GDPR (EU privacy law).
I could have written this! All these matches and not one person to suspect. I thought it was because it was Revolutionary War time and I think we were Loyalists. SO frustrating!
where is Carlsbad, San Diego? The link takes me to a page that says:
404: Page not found
It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try a search or one of the links below?
Toni, the event is over so they have taken the page down but the 404 is within their web site so you can use the menu to navigate to other pages. Carlsbad is in North county San Diego on the ocean and the DNA special interest group meets on the 3rd Saturday every month at the Georgia Cole library. There is now also a DNA special interest group meeting in La Mesa on the 4th Saturday alternate months.