Archives

MyHeritage is now doing the family trees for 23andme

Jan19

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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Upcoming genealogy conferences where I will be speaking

Jan5
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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What Can the X Chromosome Tell Us About the Importance of Small Segments? by Kathy Johnston

Dec19

The current technology for personal DNA testing shows us the pair of values (A,T, G or C) from each of our parents at every tested position on a chromosome but cannot tell us what we got from which parent. If we could separate the DNA that we inherited from one parent, called phasing, and use that for DNA comparisons then perhaps there would be fewer false matches.

chr-X

X chromosome diagram – http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/chromosome/X

Phasing might bring matching segments smaller than 5cM into play. There have been many recent online posts and discussions among leading genetic genealogists about whether those small segment matches are real (IBD) or pseudo matches (IBC). Links to some of those articles are at the end of this article.

The X chromosome is particularly interesting for small segment comparisons because a male only has one of them to go with his Y, so we know all his X DNA is from his mother. Thus it is ‘phased’ to his mother’s results already. Perhaps then smaller matching X segments are more often real for men.

Dr. Kathy Johnston is a retired dermatologist who has been doing genealogical research for over 25 years and genetic genealogy for 10 years. She has been researching the X chromosome since 2008. She recently posted on facebook that small X segments can be IBD so I asked her for a guest post on the subject.

Read on to see what she has to say on this subject.

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A book to give to your genealogist friend or yourself for Christmas

Dec17

My family’s eyes glazed over when I mentioned enthusiastically at Thanksgiving dinner that I was reading a great book about the history of doing family history. So I did not go on to tell them all the ways The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures by Christine Kenneally discusses how DNA, family history, and culture affect who we are.

I was fascinated by the discussion of the cultural lack of trust even today in some West African countries where selling people off to slavery was a possibility a few hundred years back. Or the silence about the past in Tasmania where almost all the founding population was made up of convicts. Or the genetic research into who the Melungeons really were.

This book wanders over many family history, DNA, and related topics but it does it so very well. She starts with discoveries about her own family and moves out from there.

Like many books that I find enjoyable, I read it far too fast (in three days) so now I am going back through it more slowly.

A great Christmas gift for the genealogist in your family.

Free guide to DNA testing (for a few days only)

Dec12

Richard Hill is a very fine writer. I could not put down the story of his search for his biological parents, Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA, which reads like a mystery novel.


He has put together an e-book, Guide to DNA Testing: How to Identify Ancestors, Confirm Relationships, and Measure Ethnic Ancestry through DNA Testing, available from Amazon, which is a very simple guide to personal DNA testing. Normally $.99, it is free through 12/16.

It will help you choose which test to take and why. It is only about 30 pages. It is not comprehensive but it does answer your basic questions. It is meant for those totally new to DNA testing not for the experienced. Although if you have tested, but still have many questions, they may be answered by this book.

This may also make a nice gift for relatives who are thinking of doing DNA testing.

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