Tag Archive | genetic genealogy books

Meeting Emily Aulicino at DIG

Having a local DNA special interest group (DIG) is wonderful. It not only provides the pleasure of listening to interesting speakers; it is also a place to swap fun stories of NPEs and triangulations that would bore your non-genetic genealogist friends. For me that group is the DNA Special Interest Group of the North San Diego County Genealogical Society which meets on the 3rd thursday of every month.

My first time there, a few years back, I went to hear Cece Moore talk about using 23andme’s tools. I learned some good tips from her. One was to regularly sort my matches by Contact Status and look at the end for new ones. I had been using just Most Recent First and some had slipped by me. Another good tip was to have a standard contact message and send it out to everyone on my list while watching TV.

Kitty and Emily Aulicino

Kitty and Emily Aulicino, photo by Kathleen Cooper

This past week I had the great pleasure of hearing Emily Aulicino speak. She is the author of the excellent book on the basics of autosomal DNA testing – Genetic Genealogy: The Basics and Beyond

Emily also blogs at http://genealem-geneticgenealogy.blogspot.com/ and coordinates many DNA projects, the NW ISOGG branch, and a few mailing lists. Quite impressive and she is a good speaker as well!

She was talking about using autosomal DNA testing. Although I did not learn much that was new to me, I loved her stories.

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My contest for a free pass to RootsTech 2014

One lucky reader will get a free pass to Rootstech 2014 this coming February (an educational event for the howtos of using technology in family history research), since I will be an official rootstech blogger. So my idea was to award it to whomever comes up with the best question for me to ask Spencer Wells at the conference. I am expecting to have a private interview with him, video recorded and posted here. So send me your questions via my contact page by January 30th.

It was Well’s book, Deep Ancestry: Inside The Genographic Project, that sparked my interest in population genetics and genetic genealogy. After I read it, I did the original NatGEO DNA test. Then I transferred the results to FamilyTreeDNA.com but my mitrochondrial DNA was too deep in the past to satisfy my genealogy cravings. Soon thereafter I heard about 23andme and tested there. Twisted the arms of many family members and relatives to get tested, including my father, whom I had tested by both of those sites. In the process I read lots of books and blogs. The marriage of genes and genealogy known as genetic genealogy had me firmly hooked.

Read on for more about all the things I have enjoyed reading to expand my understanding, n.b. favorite blogs are in the column on the right towards the bottom. Continue reading