DNA.land new features: GENI connection

Feb15

It really makes sense for a DNA company or third party DNA tools site to let you link to your profile at a genealogy site rather than reinventing the wheel with their own tree software. So DNA.land now has a feature where you can link your GENI profile to your DNA results page. Then your matches can view your family tree at GENI to see where you might be related.

Last fall I blogged about DNA.land -a nice new web site created by Erlich Lab (a non profit associated with Columbia University). The idea is to have you upload your raw DNA test results in order to contribute to their research and then you get some DNA features in return. The privacy is good: only your matches and the relatives of matches can see your profile and where your DNA matches theirs. So perhaps get your ancestry matches to upload their data there if they are leery of the more open GEDmatch.

At Rootstech I attended a talk by Dina Zielinski from Erlich Lab about DNA.land and the power of big data. She played a wonderful video (above) showing human migration as seen from Erlich Labs analysis of the birth places of 43 million public profiles from Geni.com
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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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End of Year Giving

Dec31

Today being the last day of the year, I always sit down and give money to the charities I care about, online of course. My husband even let me give to my local PBS station since I watch their evening news most nights as well as many other programs like Downton Abbey, Keeping Up Appearances, and Nova.

This year I also gave to a fascinating DNA project; the ongoing search for Y haplogroup A00 and its branches in Cameroon. I love crowd funding; what a fun way to support those things that interest you. Click the image to join me supporting this one.

Finding A00 in Cameroon

Here is an excerpt from the email my facebook friend genetic genealogist Bonnie Schrack sent out recently which caught my eye:

“On our next field trip, in January, Matthew will sample peoples to the
West, the Banyang and Ejagham.

Our exciting news is that Thomas Krahn will be traveling to Cameroon in
January, and will accompany Matthew! They’ll also visit villages
previously sampled, to return results to the men already tested,
something almost never done in traditional academic studies. We, as
genetic genealogists, see them as individuals, not just sources of raw
material. They are interested in learning about their paternal lineages,
and we are trying to learn as much as possible about the A00-bearing
families and their history.”

The Y haplogroup A00 was discovered by citizen scientists and that truly excites me. The history of the migrations of our ancestors is written in our DNA and I really love being part of this.

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