Text to GEDCOM Using my Ahnen2GED

Oct11

My Ahnentafel to GEDCOM converter, Ahnen2GED, apparently has more uses than I realized. It was initially written to convert the output of DNArboretum (a tool to create ahnentafels from Family Tree DNA trees) to a GEDCOM, but many people are using it to convert other text files as well. So I have enhanced Ahnen2GED to accept any date format that ends with a space followed by the four digit year, so for example 10 jan 1920. I also fixed the known problem where it did not work properly if the lines for the grandparents were not there.

The URL for my Ahnentafel to GEDCOM converter is:
https://kittymunson.com/dna/Ahnen2GEDcom.php

Below is the documentation of the format Ahen2GED expects. Hopefully this will help you create text files that will easily convert to GEDCOMs using my tool. Especially DNAgedcom.com users!

myahnentafels

Continue reading →

Slow Sourcing, better than no sourcing

Oct5

Congratulations to WIKItree for getting sources added to more than 22,000 profiles. Read the wrap up here – http://www.wikitree.com/blog/sourceathon-2016-wrapup/ … No thanks to me though, as I got tangled up in my first one before finally moving on to do a few more.

The WIKItree source-a-thon was really fun. I loved checking in to the hangouts (although I was not really there just at Utube and often after the fact) and hearing about how well all those other teams were doing, hundreds of profiles sourced. How wonderful! Never anything for team Europe, my team. Perhaps our sourcing is just harder or it was that we had no captain reporting in. In three hours I managed to source four people!

wikitreeunsourcedMaybe the first one I picked was just too difficult. So here is my sourcing experience.

I went to the unsourced profiles page and clicked on Europe. Within Europe I clicked on Norway since I figured my expertise with the Norwegian online archives plus all the copied farmbook pages I have on hand would help. None of my farms were listed on either page of 200 names except for one in the 1500s, too long ago. So I chose a person with a surname (usually a farm name) that a cousin of mine married into, Foss, which is actually a pretty common name in Norway.

Continue reading →

Source-a-thon Saturday

Sep29

WIKItree is kicking off Family History month with a three day sourcing contest startng this Saturday that includes $4500 in door prizes, including one from me! See http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Source-a-Thon for the details and click here for for the impressive prize list.

For those of you not familiar with WIKItree, it is a wonderful collaborative world family tree that integrates DNA tests extremely well. Read about it in my article on collaborative world trees.

WIKItree has a really nice, easy way of adding sources explained here. http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sources

Personally, I use the familysearch catalog to get the full reference for any book I have used, like those Norwegian bygdebuks.

Any other Norway team folk out there?

Taking it to the Next Level – DNA Spreadsheets

Sep24

Perhaps this post needs the subtitle , “My Perfect Cousin Goes to GEDmatch.”

Most of us can keep track of information in spreadsheets. So how to do that with DNA? Well, the idea is to keep a list of matching DNA segments so that a new match can be compared to your known family members. That way you may be able to see where they fit in.

If you have tested at 23andme, MyHeritage. or Family Tree DNA, you can download your list of matches with their matching DNA segments either directly from your testing company or by using the tools at DNAgedcom. However AncestryDNA does not provide a list of matching segments.

Extract from my Dad's MasterSpreadsheet

Extract from my Dad’s Master DNA Segment Spreadsheet (click for a larger version)

Why would you want those? The short answer is to figure out which line a new DNA cousin belongs to. For the long answer, read on. For more posts about DNA spreadsheets click here or in the tag cloud, lower right hand column.

tier1smll AncestryDNA testers can make a DNA segment spreadsheet by using any of a number of utilities at the GEDmatch web site. Start by uploading your raw DNA data (click here for that “how to” post). Your results will usually be ready for full comparisons the next day. Then buy the tier 1 utilities for at least one month ($10).

My preference for making a first spreadsheet is to use the Tier 1 GEDmatch Matching Segment Search. Then I go through the top matches from the ‘One-to-many’ matches report with that spreadsheet as a reference. I add notes on what I discover to my new spreadsheet.

Here is the step by step of what I did for my perfect cousin J.M. whose AncestryDNA results I blogged about in my previous post.

Continue reading →

My Perfect Cousin

Sep21

This is the first time I have had a cousin’s DNA test come out showing an ancestry composition that was 100% a single ethnicity. My cousin J.M. was not in the least bit surprised as she expected to be all Scandinavian. Five of her eight great-grandparents were born in Norway and the other three were born in the U.S.A. to Norwegian immigrants. But I was quite surprised because there is usually at least a trace of something else.

jmethnicitysmllShe shares my Norwegian born Munson (Monsen) great-grandparents as her great-great-grandparents making us 2nd cousins once removed. She tested at AncestryDNA to help me figure out where a related adoptee might fit in (no luck on that). The fact that she has a genetic genealogist for a cousin who would tell her what it all meant helped convince her as well.

I usually send cousins to my page comparing all the autosomal tests and let them choose. However I prefer Ancestry.com DNA testing for the interested, but non-genealogically serious, relatives who are online because it is so easy to see the relationships and use the green leaf hinting system. Also I was tired of having only one circle and her test would give me a second one. Those with colonial ancestry have plenty of circles and NADs (New Ancestor Discoveries) but we recent immigrants (1870s and 1880s) are lucky to have any. Last but not least, it was the cheapest test at the time she ordered it.

Now why is she perfect? It is not just the 100% Scandinavian but amazingly her top four matches are all second cousins from different pairs of great-grandparents! I have never seen that before either. Of course most of my tested relatives being from relatively recent immigrants, have no second cousins and almost no thirds showing at Ancestry .

Here are J.M.’s matches:

Continue reading →