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It’s almost time for Jamboree!

May19

The Southern California Genealogical Society puts on a wonderful genealogy conference every year in Burbank in early June. There are only a few days left to register so, unless you have done so already, head over to http://genealogyjamboree.com/2016/about.html by May 22.

Thursday June 2 is DNA day and there are many terrific presenters and topics: Tim Janzten, Blaine Bettinger, Diahan Southard, Emily D. Aulicino, Katherine Borges, Jim Bartlett, David Dowell, Paul Woodbury and me to name a few. I will be giving my updated talk on DNA Triangulation as well as my Breaking Brick Walls talk. The full schedule is at http://genealogyjamboree.com/2016/schedule-dna.html

Friday morning there are a number of FREE events, including round tables led by experienced researchers both for DNA and genealogy. I will be hosting a DNA table about Triangulation.

The rest of the conference has numerous genealogy talks and a few more DNA presentations plus an exhibit hall of vendors (always one of my favorite parts). Since this is the year I plan to master German genealogy I was pleased to see that it is one of this year’s themes.

A particularly good feature is that you can sign up for a one-to-one consultation with an experienced researcher to help you with one of your genealogical problems, described towards the bottom of this page: http://genealogyjamboree.com/2016/special-events.html

Hope to see you at Jamboree!

My Dad, Larry Munson, 1920-2016

Apr4

A week ago on Easter Sunday my 96 year old Dad died. He was ready, but I was not. He had a wonderful life and everyone in his assisted living facility adored him. I was told he was a real gentleman, he was sweet, he sang so beautifully … When mother died seven years ago, we did not expect Dad to last long after her. They were married for 62 years and were still very much in love.

But that Norwegian optimism kept him going. Some days he thought I was my mother, some days he thought I was his mother, but after about a year he was back to his charming self and usually knew I was his daughter. This is one of my favorite pictures of them taken when I was a toddler.

KittywParentsasToddler

Larry Munson, baby Kitty Munson, Gretchen Munson 1951

Here is his obituary in the Garden City News [UPDATE 23 Dec 2020 the Easthampton Star one is no longer online]
https://www.gcnews.com/articles/lawrence-shipley-munson/
We are taking him home to East Hampton for his final rest, service on April 22 at 11:30 St Luke’s church.

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Rootstech Wrap Up

Feb8

Rootstech is over and I am exhausted. This year I was up early enough to go to the keynote sessions almost every morning. Wow! In a huge hall we saw great multimedia presentations over many screens while listening to a star speaker. I particularly loved Paula Madison and her Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem; so of course I bought the kindle version of the book. [update: the pictures are better in the physical versions but it is still a great read]

Perhaps it is because of my work with adoptees and DNA that I so appreciated her story, but more likely it was just that she was terrific and the tale was so well told. I also got to see the short form of her documentary at the media dinner, definitely worth seeing.

My other favorite keynote speaker was David Isay and his StoryCorps. His concept is to get two people in a booth, facilitate their conversation, and record the result for posterity. I think the story I liked best was the one where the boy with Asperger’s interviews his mother – Sarah and Joshua. But every snippet he played for us brought tears to my eyes, the wild grandad, my son the veteran, and the boy who became close to the mother of the boy from the rival gang that he had killed.

And of course it was great to see A.J.Jacobs again and hear a report on the Global Family Reunion.

Usually my favorite things at Rootstech are the exhibit hall, networking with fellow genetic genealogists, and learning a few new things. This year I have to add to that the sensational MyHeritage after party (click here for the slideshow over at Geneabloggers) and the Keynote sessions. [Addendum: The keynotes and other recorded sessions are available at the Rootstech video archive]

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Will I see you at Rootstech next week?

Jan30

It is almost time for Rootstech 2016, my favorite genealogy conference! Not a surprise that this event suits me since I am a techie who loves doing family history and DNA. Perhaps I also like the fact that it takes place in Salt Lake City next door to the Family History Library, a wonderful genealogy resource. You can find me there on level B1 looking at Norwegian bygdebuks whenever I have a bit of free time.

Speaker BadgeI will be giving a slightly advanced DNA talk late on Friday about how I have used triangulation to solve some of my family’s genealogical questions. Don’t come if you do not know what an autosomal DNA test is. But you will have plenty of chances to learn about genetics and genealogy earlier in the week from other speakers at Rootstech.

Triangulation is an incredibly important tool in the genetic genealogists arsenal. It is our own “proof standard.”  I gave this class for my local DNA group and at the SCGS Jamboree DNA day last year, as I will again this year. This talk does change a little each time and I am always improving the slides. I was very pleased that so many people told me afterwards that they felt they finally understood this difficult concept. Going through a few cases step by step seems to be very helpful for most people. One of the stories I use is how we proved Kristine really is a WOLD cousin which is written up here in my triangulation post.

But there are many other interesting DNA talks by some of my favorite presenters, Bennet Greenspan (founder of Family Tree DNA), Tim Janzen, Diane Southard, and a number of the folk from the Ancestry.com DNA team. Did you notice that 23andme is missing?

If you get to Salt Lake City early, you may want to hear Israel Pickholtz, the author of Endogamy. He is going to give a talk about Jewish DNA on the Tuesday night before the conference for the Utah Jewish Genealogy Society.

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Thank you GENI.com !!

Jan15

Thanks to the collaborative world family tree at GENI.com our long lost second cousins in Germany have been found. Here is that story.

benedict margaret marriage

Margarette and Benedict Reiner on their wedding day in 1889

We knew we had half second cousins somewhere in Bavaria but did not know their surname nor where they lived. The family lore is that my great-grandfather Benedict Reiner was studying to be a priest when he got the daughter of the local innkeeper pregnant. Her family was welcoming but he did not want to be an innkeeper so he ran off to Munich and became a contractor. His illegitimate son from this union came for the occasional visit to Benedict and was called Xavier according to my late mother.

My News Year’s resolution this year was to better learn how to do German genealogy research so I could work on this part of the family. It is the only branch that is not done when you look at the five generation fan chart, so it has been calling to me for a while.

Last week I scanned in a marriage document for Benedict and my great-grandmother that I had found years ago on a microfilm at the LDS family history library. My plan was to upload it to all my online trees and then request some help with checking the translation from my mother over at a facebook group about Bavarian genealogy (thank you Ute). I use many online family trees but I usually start with GENI because it is easy to use and pretty and seems to have more European genealogists than the others. Since I am descended from recent immigrants to the U.S.A. that is an important consideration for me.

GENI has a nice feature that when you are logged in and start typing a name in the search box, it shows you the names that match from your tree or from those people you are following. However if there is a lot of information on your home page when you first arrive, it can be slow to do that. That is why it was not yet responding when I typed in Benedict’s name. So I hit the search button figuring it was an uncommon name thus the regular search it would find him easily and quickly. I was surprised when it found two of them. Curious I clicked the other. He had no dates listed and a different wife and child so perhaps that is why the GENI matching algorithm did not find him.

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