I am in Norway!

Jun19

I wanted to remind everyone that the streaming videos from the Southern California Jamboree are available online for free until July 5 (see my previous post). For the next 2 weeks I will mainly be blogging about my travels in Norway.

Corinne and Sigmund at the Bergen airport with Rhododendruns

Corinne and Sigmund at the Bergen airport with Rhododendruns

I had forgotten how much I love rhododendrons since they do not grow anywhere I have lived in the past 15 years. This picture is of my travel companion, 4th cousin Corinne, who I met via DNA testing, with Sigmund, my DNA friend and distant cousin, at the Bergen airport with the rhododendruns. Sigmund is the fellow who found the Y line cousin for me to test to solve our Monsen brick wall.

There were no less than three streamed presentations at the jamboree which included google tips. My favorite tips were to use dates separated by two periods when searching for an ancestor and to use a * to wildcard whether or not there is a middle name even when in quotes. So for example,

“lawrence * munson” 1900..1950

which finds my own family history site of course!

More pictures from Norway ….

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More on the SCGS Jamboree: Free Live Streaming

Jun6

I am very grateful that Ancestry.com has sponsored live streaming of the Jamboree since my foot problems are keeping me home now. There is one selected presentation available in each time slot.

TriangulationSlidesSee the schedule here: http://genealogyjamboree.com/2015/schedule-streaming.html and how to get set up for it here http://genealogyjamboree.com/2015/streaming-overview.html

I really enjoyed my day and a half at the Jamboree. I discovered that most of the San Diego folk had come by train! There is a stop next door at the Burbank Airport and the hotel has a van that will fetch you. Next year …

As always I loved listening to Cece Moore. I learned a few things from her presentation about some of her adoptee success stories. Many more genetic genealogy stars were there: Blaine Bettinger, Tim Janzen, Angie Bush, Judy Russell, and Kathy Johnston. Sadly I had to miss most of their presentations since I gave two of my own.

I was pleasantly surprised by the full house at my triangulation lecture. It was exciting to be live streamed. A number of folk told me afterwards that they felt like they finally understood this concept. What I did was present a number of real life cases from my own research where I used DNA triangulation to figure out relationships. That seemed to work well.

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The SCGS Jamboree is this week! Including DNA day Plus!

Jun1

The fun Southern California Genealogy conference in Burbank starts this Thursday. It includes a whole day dedicated to DNA! Many talks will be live streamed. Plus there are a few DNA presentations on other days and, of course, an exhibit hall.

SCGS-Genealogy-Jamboree--20

I have been working hard on my presentations which are on DNA day Thursday, plus I will be at a round table on Friday. This has seriously cut into my making blog posts. I have no less than three in progress articles waiting for me to have more time.

See the schedule for DNA day here: http://genealogyjamboree.com/2015/DNAday.html

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New DNA Relationship Statistics from Blaine Bettinger

May29

The question I often see is are we really 2nd or 3rd or 4th cousins? The answer is usually “maybe.” A 2nd-4th cousin designation by your testing company is purposefully vague. Best to look at the amount of shared cMs in segments greater than 7cM, number of segments, and the sizes of those segments; plus, of course, who else this new DNA relative matches!

DNA inheritance gets more and more random the further away the relationship is. The amount of DNA you share with someone more distant than a 3rd cousin is impossible to predict and even those 2nd and 3rd cousins seem highly variable. So the statistical study conducted by genetic genealogist Blaine Bettinger is deeply appreciated by all of us hunting down the relationships with our DNA connections.

Shared DNA statistics from Blaine Bettinger

Shared DNA statistics from Blaine Bettinger, used by permission

Blaine has created this beautiful chart. His blog has several posts explaining the study which is the source of these new statistics. See http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2015/05/29/the-shared-cm-project/ for all his posts on this study. I had previously discussed his project when recruiting people to add their statistics; apparently he is still taking in statistics so click here to add yours.