Memorial Day – All Gave Some, Some Gave All

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Roberta Estes

For Memorial Day, I wanted to take a look at my ancestors and see just how many served our country, or the colonies that would become our country. I was surprised, and a bit overwhelmed, to discover just how many veterans I have for ancestors.

“Our fallen heroes are the reason we live in a privileged nation where we get to sleep safely and soundly in our beds every night. This is one of many reasons they deserve this one day to remember their service and sacrifice.”

Seana Arrechaga, widow of SFC Ofren Arrechaga, killed in the line of duty, March 29, 2011, Kunar Province, Afghanistan, just days before the end of his tour of duty.

When I was young, I thought of Memorial Day as the gateway to summer, and Labor Day as the gate on the other end. Of course, Memorial Day in Indiana was associated with the end of the school year, always a happy occasion, picnics and the Indy 500 Race. It wasn’t until I got older, much older, that I realized the significance of this day. That’s odd, in a very strange way, given that I have the triangle shaped flag from my own father’s coffin. I just never knew or understood its significance…that is…until Vietnam.

I still, to this day, cannot talk about the human losses in and due to Vietnam. Our men came home, if at all, so broken and to an unsupportive, even hostile, country. Mental and physical illnesses have plagued them in the decades since, and along with them, their parents, wives and families. Not all died in Vietnam. Many died years later from the scars inflicted upon them in Vietnam – both physical and mental.

Perhaps Vietnam was no different from any other war – it’s just that Vietnam was the war I witnessed. Boys going to the recruitment center, proud to enlist, returning months or years later as men, broken and ravaged by an invisible disease, nightmares that woke them screaming from what used to be peaceful sleep, and horrors the rest of us can’t begin to imagine.

I knew Greg growing up, before we dated and married. After he returned from Vietnam, he found a job and tried to pretend all was well, but the mental demons would consume him, inch by inch, day by day, month by month, year by year – until he was gone.

I found a photograph in my former husband’s belongings that explained it all. It was a picture of him and two other men in military fatigues in Vietnam, eating lunch sitting in the front bucket of a bulldozer. Then I looked closer. The piles waiting to be bulldozed were human corpses, stacked like cordwood. It is any wonder mental illness consumed him and stole his life?

Then I understood why he hated returning to active duty from leave. It didn’t have so much to do with what he was leaving as what he was returning to. What few stories he told me were utterly horrific. Mostly he didn’t talk about his time in service in the Army’s Green Beret unit. He never discussed it while it relentlessly ate him alive. There was no escaping. Yet, he was proud to serve his country.

He is the first veteran to honor.

Greg Cook

This picture was taken one Christmas in happier times.

David Estes

The second veteran is my brother, David Estes, a Marine, shot down as a tail gunner, injured and contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion in Saigon. Yes, it took him 27 years, but he too succumbed to his injuries.

William Sterling Estes

My own father, William Sterling Estes, served three tours in the Army as well, in both WWI and WWII, and he too was injured. At one point, either during or after his service, he worked at Oak Ridge, TN, on “the bomb,” and he was just never right again. Alcohol consumed his life. He died in an automobile accident that we believe was suicide after what would be his final relapse.

John Y. Estes

My father’s great-grandfather, John Y. Estes, was a Confederate prisoner of war during the Civil War, captured after he was injured and eventually released north of the Ohio River to make his way back to Claiborne County, TN, as best he could.

John R. Estes

John Y. Estes’ father, John R. Estes, served in the War of 1812 out of Halifax County, VA.

George Estes

John R. Estes’ father, George Estes, served three tours of duty in the Revolutionary War, two in Virginia and one in what would become Eastern Tennessee.

Moses Estes

George Estes’ grand-father, Moses Estes, served in the French and Indian War in Amelia County, Virginia.

Henry Bolton

Henry Bolton, my great-great-great-grandfather served in the Revolutionary War in Maryland and may have looked after George Washington’s horse.

William Herrell

William Herrell, my great-great-grandfather served in the War of 1812, walking from Tennessee to Fort Williams in Alabama, and back. He called this the “War with the Creek Indians.”

Samuel Claxton or Clarkson

Samuel Claxton, my great-great-grandfather served as a Union soldier in the Civil War, contracted tuberculosis, never recovered and died after the war.

William McNiel

William McNiel, my 4^th great-grandfather served in the Revolutionary War from Spotsylvania County, Virginia and fought at the Battle of Brandywine.

Reverend George McNiel

William’s father, the Reverend George McNiel served in the Revolutionary War at the Battle of King’s Mountain, even though he was in his 60s at the time.

John Francis Vannoy

John Francis Vannoy, my 5th great-grandfather, may have served in the French and Indian War.

William Crumley Sr.

William Crumley Sr., my 5th great-grandfather, provided supplies for the Revolutionary Army, gathering supplies in Frederick County, Virginia, and submitted a Publik Service claim.

Edward Mercer

Edward Mercer, my 6th great-grandfather, father-in-law of William Crumley Sr., fought with George Washington and was defeated at the Battle of Fort Necessity in 1754, during the French and Indian War.

Marcus Younger

My 5^th great-grandfather, Marcus Younger, provided brandy and other supplies in King and Queen County, Virginia during the Revolutionary War.

Lazarus Dodson

My 4^th great-grandfather Lazarus Dodson, served in the Revolutionary War, in the same unit with George Estes in what was then North Carolina, but later became Tennessee. Their grandchildren would marry in Tennessee. Their descendants are shown below at the celebration honoring Lazarus by setting his gravestone.

Raleigh Dodson

Lazarus’s father Raleigh Dodson, may also have served in the Revolutionary War. His name is on the same roster.

Jacob Dobkins

My 5^th great-grandfather Jacob Dobkins served in the Revolutionary War as a scout. He is believed to have participated in the Battle of King’s Mountain as well.

John Harrold

William Herrell’s father, John Harrold, my 4^th great-grandfather, served two terms in the Revolutionary War out of Botetourt County, Virginia serving in Virginia and North Carolina.

Michael McDowell

My 4^th great-grandfather Michael McDowell served three tours of duty in the Revolutionary War out of Bedford County, VA.

James Lee Clarkson/Claxton

James Lee Clarkson/Claxton, my 4^th great-grandfather, served in the War of 1812 and died in service in Alabama at Fort Decatur. He was buried outside the fort, but his grave has been lost to time.

Nicholas Speak

Nicholas Speak, my 4^th great-grandfather, fought in the War of 1812.

Joseph Workman

Joseph Workman, my 5^th great-grandfather, served in the French and Indian War.

Col. Robert Craven

Col. Robert Craven, my 6^th great-grandfather, served in the French and Indian War.

Abraham Workman

My 6^th great-grandfather, Abraham Workman, served in the French and Indian War.

Charles Beckwith Speak

Charles Beckwith Speak, my 4^th great-grandfather, served in the Revolutionary War in the militia in Maryland.

Gideon Faires

Gideon Faires, my 5^th great-grandfather served in the Revolutionary War.

Samuel Muncy

Samuel Muncy served in 1774 on the frontier in Moore’s Fort in what is now Lee or Scott County, VA.

Mother’s Side

On my mother’s side of the family, there are fewer men who served to defend the US or the colonies, in part because many of her ancestors immigrated recently, in the 1800s, from both the Netherlands and Germany.

Some of my mother’s ancestors were Brethren, a pietist religion, opposed to warfare or violence in any format, to the point they would not defend their own family against attack.

One of mother’s lines was Acadian, so spent their lives in Canada, not the US.

Joseph Hill

Joseph Hill, my great-great-great-grandfather may have served in the War of 1812 from Vermont. There were two Joseph Hills and we have been unable to verify his service.

John Hill

Joseph Hill’s father, John Hill served in the Revolutionary War from New Hampshire.

John Drew

John Drew, my 6^th great-grandfather, was a Sergeant in the military organization of New Hampshire in the 1600s.

Capt. Samuel Mitchell

Capt. Samuel Mitchell, my 5^th great-grandfather, served in Maine in the 1600s.

Stephen Hopkins

Stephen Hopkins, my 11^th great-grandfather, served at Jamestown, returned to England, then sailed on the Mayflower and served in the Plymouth colony.

Militia Service

Many men’s names are omitted from this list, not intentionally, but often due to lack of records. The Revolutionary War was the first war that offered land as pay, or land as a benefit of service, as well as both veterans’ and widows’ pensions. Therefore, service records become critically important.

In the previous wars, specifically the French and Indian War, the only records we have are county records if the soldiers happened to be recorded.

During this timeframe, and earlier, all men were expected to serve in the local militia which functioned to protect the community as well as serve on the frontier to defend the region, if called upon. Therefore, we can assume that all men prior to the Revolutionary War did in fact serve in some capacity in their local militia and community. Did they see warfare defending the frontier? Perhaps, but we’ll never have that documentation because in most cases, there are no lists of militia members, nor records of what types of activities the militia was engaged in, aside from regular drills and practice.

In many cases, we don’t know when, why or how men died, so we don’t know if they died in the service of their country, as a result of that service, or of some unrelated cause.

Thank You

For all of my ancestors whose service goes unmentioned, my apologies, but more importantly, my sincere thank you. Without those hearty men who all served as a normal part of their citizenship, we would not be here today as a nation. And thank you to the wives, left at home with the children who persevered and carried on, doing both the man’s and woman’s work while the husband was gone.

I am honored to carry the history of such a long list of patriots, stretching from Jamestown and the Mayflower to my brother and father.

My son, while not serving in the military, serves as a public safety officer, providing both fire and police protection for his community, risking his life daily to do so – and has for more than 20 years.

Thank you, one and all, for your service.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, but don’t forget who made it possible and those in active service today who keep it possible. Many are unable to celebrate with their families this weekend either because they made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, they are currently deployed or because they are working to protect the rest of us.

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Family Finder Update Comparative Results

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Roberta Estes

The new Family Finder update at Family Tree DNA is live this morning. I wrote about what to expect here and here.

Family Tree DNA’s dual matching algorithm leaves most of the current matches in place, with the newly added portion providing matches for people who didn’t match the old total threshold. The two matching thresholds currently in effect are:

20cM total with a minimum longest single segment of 7.69cM
No total cM requirement but a minimum longest single segment of 9cM

There are lots of happy people reporting new matches on social media today!

You can check your new matches by signing on to your account and clicking on Match Date to sort by match date. A second click sorts in the opposite direction.

However, I noticed that not all of my new matches carry the match date of 5-23-2016, which is the latest match date.

Comparing Your Match Files

The best way to find all of your new matches is to download your matches list and compare to a previous match list. At the bottom of your match page, there is a link to download matches.

I downloaded my match list on 5-23-2016 and again this morning, 5-26-2016, so that I could compare old and new.

My old number of total matches is 1392, and my new is 1447, so my gain would be 55. However, that’s not the entire story.

I compared the two files, and I lost a total of 20 matches. Three of those were in the 4^th to remote category and the rest were in the 5^th to remote category. These must have been casualties of the tweeking of the algorithm.

In reality, I didn’t gain 55, I gained 75 new matches.

That’s about a 5% increase in matches.

The technique I use to compare the files from the two days is to color code one and then combine them into one spreadsheet file. I sorted by full match name, and that made it easy to look for any two white rows or any two green rows, which indicate a loss or a gain. People appearing in both files will show as a whole and green identical row one after the other forming a green, white, green, white pattern on the spreadsheet, so it’s easy to spot an aberration.

Green is the 5-26-2016 file, so two white rows together means that one of those two white rows from the 5-23-2016 file doesn’t have a corresponding green row, so it was lost in the update. You can see that happened with Jerry, colored red, in my spreadsheet below.

Two green rows together means that one of those green rows didn’t have a 5-23-2016 white row, so it was a gain. You can see that with Helen, colored purple, above. I colored by loss rows red in the Full Name column and my gain rows purple.

Then, I sorted the spreadsheet again by cell color in the Full Name column. All the red and all of the purple appear together, so it was easy to see gains and losses.

Of course, in my example, there is only one gain and one loss, but the concept still holds when there are more.

The one unusual aspect that I found is that the match dates for all of my new matches are not 5-23-2016. They are primarily 5-4-2016 with a few 5-23-2016 and one 5-21-2016. It looks like this rematching process was completed in steps on three different dates.

This means that you can’t rely entirely on the match date on your match page at Family Tree DNA by looking for today’s date. Your best bet is to compare a current matches file with a previous matches file. If you don’t have a previous matches file, it looks like anything in the month of May is likely a new match.

Evaluating Matches

When I evaluated my new matches, I was surprised to find that only 7 were the result of the new algorithm change. I’m not sure if the bottom two would have appeared before, as there were 20.xx cM and I’m not sure if the threshold was exactly 20.0 or 20.99. In any case, they are new now, and the top 5 are definitely a result of the new algorithm.

The balance of my new matches seem to be a result of truly new matches that have recently tested (I received 74 last month alone) or a result of the algorithm tweeking, because they clearly qualified as matches previously, under the old algorithm.

These 67 matches longest block ranges from 7.70 to 12.04 and the total shared cMs range from 21 to 54.

Now, of course, it’s time to see who matches whom, who triangulates, who phases against my mother and which of these matches have trees sharing a common ancestor.

I have a lot of new cousins to meet and genealogy work to do, and I hope you do too. Let me know how the Family Finder update affected you!

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Family Finder Update Update

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Recently, I shared with you an announcement by Family Tree DNA about the expected update to their Family Finder autosomal DNA product.

Family Tree DNA sent an e-mail to their project administrators yesterday evening providing additional information about their update that will be following shortly.

Their verbiage follows, but this additional information removed some question about how matches will occur. Some people, me among them, were concerned that the new matching algorithm would remove all matches below 9cM. This would happen if the new algorithm replaced the old one. I’m very pleased to report that’s NOT the case. This new algorithm has been implemented in addition to the old one that required 20cM and 7.69 cM or greater longest single segment.

If you don’t match utilizing the old algorithm, you get second chance now with the new one that has no total cM requirement and a minimum segment length of 9cM. If you match either way, that person will be on your match list. Blaine Bettinger created a handy-dandy flow chart showing this process.

The good news is that the old threshold will preserve your old matches and the new threshold will allow new matches that do have a 9cM segment or longer but don’t happen to have 20cM total. I think this is win/win – and a very welcome change

Family Tree DNA has refined their matching algorithm somewhat, but the net effect of this should be that people will have more matches, but no new matches under 9cM and few losses, unless it’s from the algorithm tweaking.

As you look at your new matches, also keep in mind that some of your new matches may simply be because people tested and their results just happened to come back during this time – so if you do see a match under 9cM that’s new – this could be why. It may not be a result of the change, just a function of timing.

Those of you with Jewish heritage that were worried about being overwhelmed with matches, you can worry a little less. Family Tree DNA has maintained their proprietary routines that attempt to minimize the noise in Jewish matches.

Here’s the meat of what Family Tree DNA sent to the group administrators:

After months of research and testing, we’re implementing those changes as soon as the quality assurance process is complete, which should be within the next few days.

Until now the amount of shared DNA required for two people to show as a match was a minimum of 20 total centiMorgans of shared DNA with a minimum longest block of at least 7.69 cM for 99% of testers, 5.5 cM for the other one percent. With the adjustment, if two people share a segment of 9 cM or more, they will show as a match regardless of the number of total shared cM. However, if there’s not a block that’s 9 cM or greater, the minimum of 20 shared cM with a longest block of 7.69 cM applies.

We also slightly altered other proprietary portions of the matching algorithm that will, to a small degree, affect block sizes and total shared centiMorgans. These changes should have only marginal effects, if any, on relationships, generally in the distant to remote ranges.

There’s a separate proprietary formula that is also applied to those with Ashkenazi heritage, but you can, of course, expect to have more new matches than those not of Ashkenazi heritage.

The entire existing database has been rerun using the new matching criteria, and all new matches have been calculated with the new thresholds.

Please keep in mind this change will not affect close matches, only distant and speculative ones. Some matches will fall off, others will be added. Most people will likely have a net gain of matches.

Your myOrigins results may change slightly with the rerun, but we have not updated or changed myOrigins yet. We’ll let you know when that happens.

And that’s not the only good news we have!

Some of you may have dealt with mtDNA results that had some issues with genetic distance. The fix for the root cause of that problem was released awhile back, but we had to wait until all the hardware installations were complete and integrated before re-running those kits affected prior to that fix. We’re in the process of deploying that update now!

Over the next few days, those affected will likely see differences in genetic distance of some matches as the corrections are implemented. Those who have tested after the fix whose mutations were correct may see an increase in matches to existing testers. That’s to be expected.

Thank you for your patience through the process.

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Beware The Sale of Your DNA – Just Because You Can Upload Doesn’t Mean You Should

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Roberta Estes

You know something is coming of age when you begin to see knockoffs, opportunists – or ads on late night TV. As soon as someone figures out they can make money from something, rest assured, they will.

In the past few weeks, we’re beginning to see additional “opportunities” for places to upload your DNA files. Each of them has something to “give” you in return. You can view this as genuine, or you can view this as bait – or maybe some of each.

So far, each of them also seems to have an agenda that is NOT serving us or our DNA – but serving only or primarily them. I’m not saying this is good or bad – that depends on your perspective – but I am saying that we need to be quite aware of a variety of factors before we participate or upload our autosomal DNA results.

Some sites are more straightforward than others.

I have already covered the fact that both 23andMe and Ancestry sell your DNA to whomever for whatever they see fit.

Truthfully, I always knew that 23andMe was focused on health, but I mistakenly presumed it was on the study of diseases like Parkinson’s. My mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, so I had a personal stake in that game. When their very first patent was for “designer babies,” I felt shell-shocked, stupid, naïve, duped and taken advantage of. I had willingly opted-in and contributed my information with the idea that I was contributing to Parkinson’s research, while in reality, my DNA may have been used in the designer baby patent research. I have no way of knowing and I had no idea that’s the type of research they were doing.

Parkinson’s yes, designer babies no. It’s a personal decision, but once your DNA is being utilized or sold, it can be used for anything and you have no control whatsoever. While I was perfectly willing to participate in surveys and have my DNA utilized for a cure for diseases, in particular Parkinson’s, I was not and am not willing for my DNA to be utilized for things like designer babies so the wealthy can select blue eyed, blonde haired children carrying the genes most likely to allow them to become athletes or cheerleaders.

And once the DNA cat is out of the bag, so to speak, there is no putting it back in. In some cases, you can opt out of identified data, but you can’t opt out of what has already been used, and in many cases, you can’t opt out of having your anonymized data sold.

So, let me give you an example of just how much protection anonymizing your data will give you.

Anonymized Data

Let’s say that someone in one of those unknown firms wants to know who I am. All they have to do is drop my results into GedMatch and my name is right there, along with my e-mail.

Have a fake name at Gedmatch? Well, think for a minute of the adoption search groups and how they identify people, sometimes very quickly and easily by their matches. Everyday.

Not to mention, my children (and my parents, were they living) are very clearly identifiable utilizing my DNA. So while my DNA is mine, and legally belongs to me, it’s not entirely ONLY mine.

The promise of anonymized data by stripping out your identifying information has become somewhat of a hollow promise today. In a recent example, a cholesterol study volunteer recognized “herself” in a published paper, but was not notified of the results. In an earlier paper, several Y DNA volunteers were identified as well. Ironically, Dr. Erlich, now having formed DNA.Land and soliciting DNA uploads was involved with this unmasking.

Knowing what I know today, I would NEVER have tested at 23andMe and I would have to think very long and hard about Ancestry. The hook that Ancestry has, of course, is all of those DNA plus matching trees. Is having my anonymized DNA sold worth that? I don’t really know. For me, it’s too late for an Ancestry decision, because I’ve already tested there and you cannot opt out of having your anonymized data sold.

I already had an Ancestry subscription, but some testers don’t realize they have to have at least a minimum level subscription to receive all of the benefits of testing at Ancestry. That could certainly be a rude awakening – and unexpected when they purchased the test. The $49 DNA base subscription is not available on Ancestry’s website either – you have to know about it and call support to purchase that level. I’m sure most people simply purchase the normal subscription or do without.

One thing is for sure, our DNA is worth a lot of money to both research and Big Pharm, and apparently worth a lot of effort as well, given how many people are attempting to capture our DNA for sale.

In the past few weeks, there have been several new sites that have come online relative to autosomal DNA uploading and testing.

But before we talk about those, I’d like to take a moment for education.

The Sanger Survey

I’d like to suggest that you take a few minutes to view the videos associated with the Sanger Institute DNA survey here. I think the videos do a good job of explaining at least some of the issues facing people about the usage of their DNA. Of course, you have to take their survey to see the videos at each step – but it’s good food for thought and they do allow you to make comments.

So, please, take a few minutes for this survey before proceeding.

Genes and US

One of the first “sidebar” companies to appear in September 2014 was at the site http://www.genesand.us/ which is now nonfunctional.

I took screen shots at that time, since I was going to write an article about what seemed quite interesting.

It was a free service that offered to “find the best genes that you can give to your child.” You had to test at 23andMe, then upload both you and your partner’s raw DNA files and they would provide you with results.

I did just that, and the screen shot below shows the partial results. There were several pages.

At the end of this section was a question asking if I wanted to “speak to a doctor about any of these benefits.” I didn’t, but I did want to know if gene selection was actual possible and being implemented. I found the site’s contact information. I sent this e-mail, which was never answered.

So let me ask you…where is my and my husband’s DNA today? I uploaded it. Who has it? Was this just a ploy to obtain our DNA files? And for what purpose? Who were these people anyway? They are gone without a trace today.

DNA.Land

More recently, in the fall of 2015, DNA.Land came upon the scene.

As of today, 22,000+ people have uploaded their autosomal DNA files.

What does DNA.Land offer the genealogist?

A different organization’s view of your ethnicity as well as relative matching to others who upload.

The quality and reliability of these enticements offered by companies in exchange for our DNA files may vary widely. For example, when DNA.Land launched, their matching routine didn’t find immediate family members. No product should ever be launched in an alpha state, which calls into question the quality of the rest of their products and research. That matching problem has reportedly been fixed.

The second enticement they offer is an ethnicity tool.

I can’t show you my example, because I have not uploaded my DNA to DNA.Land. However, a genetic genealogy colleague conducted an interesting experiment.

TL Dixon uploaded four DNA files in late April 2016. He tested twice at 23andMe, both tests being the v3 version, and twice at Ancestry, in 2012 and 2014, and uploaded all 4 files to DNA.Land to see what the results would be, comparatively.

23andMe v3 test 1

23andMe v3 test 2

Ancestry test from 2014

Ancestry test from 2012

We all know that ethnicity testing as a whole is not terribly reliable, but is the most reliable on the continent level, meaning Africa vs Europe vs Asia vs Native American. Given that these raw data files are from the same testing companies, on the same chip platform, for the same person, the Ancestry 2012 and 2014 ethnicity results from DNA.Land are quite different from each other relative to African vs Eurasian DNA, and also from the 23andMe results – even at the continent level. Said another way, both 23andme results and the Ancestry 2014 results are very similar, with the Ancestry 2012 test, shown last, being the outlier.

Thanks to TL Dixon for both his multiple testing and sharing his results. According to TL’s known family history, the two 23andMe and the Ancestry 2014 kits are closest to accurate. Just as an aside, TL, surprised by the differing results, utilized David Pike’s utilities to compare the two Ancestry files to see if one had a problem, and they were both very similar, so the difference does not appear to be in the Ancestry kits themselves – so the difference has to be at DNA.Land.

So, what I’m saying is that DNA.Land’s enticement of a different company’s view of ethnicity, even after several months, and even at the continent level, still needs work. This along with the original matching issue calls into question the quality of some of the enticements that are being used to attract DNA donors. We should consider this not only at this site, but at others that provide enticement or “free” services or goodies as well. Uploaders beware!

While the non-profit status of DNA.Land along with their verbiage leads people to believe that their work is entirely charitable, it is not, as reflected in this sentence from their consent information.

I understand that the research in this study may lead to new products, research tools, or inventions that have financial value. By accepting the terms of this consent, I understand that I will not be able to share in the profits from future commercialization of products developed from this study.

At least they are transparent about this, assuming you actually read all of the information provided on the site – which you should do with every site.

My Heritage Adds DNA Matching

This past week, My Heritage, a company headquartered in Israel, announced that it has added autosomal DNA matching. Some people think this is great, and others not so much.

My Heritage, like Ancestry, is a subscription site. I happen to already be a member, so I was initially pretty excited about this, especially when I saw this in their blog.

Your DNA data will be kept private and secure on MyHeritage.

Our service will then match you to other people who share DNA with you: your relatives through a common ancestor. You will be able to review your matches’ family trees (excluding living people), and filter your matches by common surnames or geographies to focus on more relevant matches.

And also:

Who has access to the DNA data?

Only you do. Nobody else can see it, and nobody can even know that it was uploaded. Only the uploader can see the data, and you can delete it at any time. Users who are matched with your DNA will not have access to your DNA or your email address, but will be able to get in touch with you via MyHeritage.

I was thinking this might be a great opportunity, perhaps similar to the Ancestry trees, although they don’t say anything about tree matching.

However, their Terms of Service are not available to view unless you pretend to start an upload of your DNA (thanks for this tip Ann Turner) and then the “Terms of Service” and “Consent Agreement” links become available to view. They should be available for everyone BEFORE you start your upload.

On the MyHeritage main site, you’ll see DNA matching at the top. I’m a member, so, if you’re not a member, your “main site” may look different.

Click on “learn more” on the DNA Matching tab.

Step two shows you two boxes saying you have read the DNA Terms of Use and Consent Agreement. Don’t just click through these – read them. Not just at this vendor, at all vendors.

In the required DNA Terms of Use we find this in the 5^th paragraph:

By submitting DNA Results to the Website, you grant MyHeritage a perpetual, royalty-free, world-wide, transferable license to use your DNA Results, and any DNA Results you submit for any person from whom you obtained legal authorization as described in this Agreement, and to use, host, sublicense and distribute the resulting analysis to the extent and in the form or context we deem appropriate on or through any media or medium and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed or discovered.

And this in item 7:

c. We may transfer, lease, rent, sell, share and/or or otherwise distribute de-identified information to third parties for any purpose, including without limitation, internal business purposes. Whenever we transfer, lease, rent, sell, share and/or or otherwise distribute your information to third parties, this information will be aggregated and personal identifiers (such as names, birth dates, etc.) will be removed.

In the optional Informed Consent agreement, we find this:

The Project collects, preserves and analyzes genealogical lineage, historical records, surveys, genetic information, and other records (collectively, “Research Information“) provided by users in order to conduct research studies to better understand, among other things, human evolution and migration, population genetics, regional health issues, ethnographic diversity and boundaries, genealogy and the history of the human species. Researchers hope that the Project will be an invaluable tool for a wide range of scholars and researchers interested in genealogy, anthropology, evolution, languages, cultures, medicine, and other topics and that the Project may benefit future generations. Discoveries made as a result of the Project may be used in the study of genealogy, anthropology, population genetics, population health issues, cultures, trends (for example, to identify health risks or spread of certain diseases), and other related topics. If we or a third party wants to conduct a study (1) on topics unrelated to the Project, or (2) using Research Information beyond what is described in this Informed Consent, we will re-contact you to seek your specific approval. In addition, we may contact you to ask you to complete a questionnaire or to ask you if you are willing to be interviewed about the Project or other matters.

What are the costs and will I receive compensation? MyHeritage will not charge participants any fees in order to be part of the Project. There will be no financial compensation paid to Project participants. The data you share with us for the Project may benefit researchers and others in the future. If any commercial product is developed as a result of the Project or its outcomes, there will be no financial benefit to you.

You can’t see the terms of use or consent agreement unless you are in the process of uploading your DNA and in addition, it appears that your DNA data is automatically available in anonymized fashion to third parties. The terms of service and informed consent data above does not seem to correlate with the marketing information which states that “nobody else” can see your data.

The other thing that’s NOT obvious, is that you don’t HAVE to click the box on the Consent Agreement, but you do HAVE to click the box on the DNA Terms of Use.

If you are not alright with the entirety of the DNA Terms of Use, which is required, do not upload your DNA file to My Heritage. If you are not alright with the Consent Agreement, don’t click the box. Judy Russel wrote an detailed article about the terms here.

Uploading your DNA to MyHeritage is free today, but may be a pay service later. It is unclear whether a subscription is required today, or will be in the future. However, at one time one could upload a family tree of up to 250 people to MyHeritage for free through 23andMe. Larger files were accepted, but were only free for a certain time period and now the person whose tree was larger than 250 people and who did not subscribe is locked out of their account. They can’t delete their larger-than-250 person tree unless they purchase a subscription. It’s unclear what the future holds for DNA uploads, trees and subscriptions as well.

I have not uploaded my DNA to MyHeritage either, based on 7c. It would appear that even if you don’t give consent for additional “research information” to be collected and provided, they can still sell your anonymized DNA.

WeGene

Very recently, a new company, WeGene at http://www.wegene.com has begun DNA testing focused on the Chinese marketplace.

Their website it in Chinese, but Google translates it, at least nominally, as does Chrome.

It does not appear that WeGene does matching between their customers, or if they do, I’ve missed it in the translations.

You can, however, upload at least 23andMe files to WeGene. I can’t tell about Family Tree DNA and Ancestry files. Unless you have direct and fairly recent Chinese ancestry, I don’t know what the benefit would be.

Their privacy and security, such as it is, is at this link, although obviously autotranslated. Some people seem to have found other verbiage as well. Navigating their site, written in Chinese, is very difficult and the accuracy of the autotranslation is questionable, at best.

Their autosomal DNA file is obviously available for download, because GedMatch now accepts these files.

I am certainly not uploading my DNA to WeGene, for numerous reasons.

Vendor Summary

This vendor summary was more difficult to put together than I thought it would be – in part because I am not a new user at either Ancestry or 23andMe and obviously can’t see what a new user would see on any of my accounts. Furthermore, Ancestry in particular has several documents that refer back and forth to each other, and let’s just say they are written more for the legal mind than the typical consumer.

* – Both 23andMe and Ancestry appear to utilize all clients DNA for anonymized distribution, but not for identified distribution without an individual opt-in.

*1 – According to the 23andMe Privacy Policy, although you can opt in to the higher level of research testing where your identity is not removed, you cannot opt out of the anonymized level of DNA sharing/sale. Please review current 23andMe documentation before making a decision.

*2 – Can Opt in or Opt out.

*3 – Can opt out of non-anonymized sales, but not anonymized sales. Please verify utilizing the current Ancestry documents before making a decision.

*4 – DNA.land indicates that you can withdraw consent, but does not say anything about deleting your DNA file.

*5 – DNA.Land states in their consent agreement that they will not provide identified DNA information without first contacting you.

*6 – At 23andMe, deleting DNA from data base closes account.

*7 – Automatically opted in for anonymized sales/sharing, but must opt in for identified DNA sharing.

*8 – 23andMe has been and continues to experience significant difficulties and at this point are not considered a viable genetic genealogy option by many, or stated another way, they would be the last choice of the main three testing companies.

*9 – All legal action must be brought in Tel Aviv, Israel, individually, and not as a class action suit, according to item 9 in the DNA Terms of Use document.

*10 – Website in Chinese, information through an automated English translator, so the information provided here is necessarily incomplete and may not be entirely accurate.

Please note that any or all of these factors are subject to change over time and the vendors’ documents should be consulting and read thoroughly at the time any decision is being made.

Please note that at some vendors there are many different documents that cross-reference each other. They are confusing and should all be read before any decision is made.

And of course, some vendors’ websites aren’t even in English.

Points to Consider

While these companies are the ones that have come to the forefront in the past few months, there will assuredly be more as this industry develops. Here are a list of things for you to think about and points to consider that may help you make your decision about whether you want to either test or upload your autosomal DNA with any particular company. After all, your autosomal DNA file does contain that obviously much-sought-after medical information.

First, always read every document on a vendor site that says anything like “Terms of Use,” “Security and Privacy” or “Terms of Service” or “Informed Consent.” Many times the fine print is spread throughout several documents that reference each other. If their policy does not say specifically, do NOT assume.

Also be aware that the verbiage of most companies says they can change their rules of engagement at any time without notification.

Here are the questions you may want to consider as you read these documents.

Does the company or organization sell or share your data?
Is the data that is sold or shared anonymized or nonanonymized, understanding that really no one is truly anonymous anymore?
Who do they sell your data to?
For what purpose?
Do you have the opportunity to authorize your DNA’s involvement per study?
If you do not live in the same country as the company with whom you are doing business, what recourse do you have to enforce any agreement?
How do you feel about your DNA being in the hands of either organizations or companies you don’t know for purposes you don’t know?
Are you asked up front if you want to participate?
Can you opt out of your DNA being shared or sold entirely from the beginning?
Can you opt out of your DNA being shared or sold entirely at any time if you have initially opted in?
Do you receive the opportunity to opt in, or are you automatically opted in?
If you are automatically opted in, do you get the opportunity, right then, to opt out, or only if you happen to discover the situation? And if you can opt out immediately, are you only able to opt out of non-anonymized data or can you opt out entirely?
Is the company up front and transparent about what they are doing with your DNA or do you have to dig to unearth the truth?
If you already tested, and gave up rights, were you aware that you did so, and do you understand if or how you can rescind that inadvertent authorization?
Do you have to dig for the terms of service and are they as represented in the marketing literature?
Do you feel like you are giving truly informed consent and understand what can and will happened to your DNA, and what your options are if you change your mind, and how to exercise those options? Are you comfortable with those options and the approach of the company towards DNA sale as a whole? Were they forthright?
For companies like MyHeritage and Ancestry, are their other unknown “gotchas” like a subscription being required in addition to testing or uploading to obtain the full benefits of the test or upload?
What happens to your DNA if the company no longer exists or goes out of business? For two examples, look at the Sorenson and Ancestry Y and mtDNA DNA results. This is certainly not what any consumer or tester expected. Not to mention, I’m left wondering where my DNA submitted to genesandus is today.
Who owns the company? What are their names? Where can you find them? What is the address of the company? What does google have to say about the owners or management? Linked-In? Facebook? If there is absolutely no history, that’s probably as damning as a bad history. No one can exist today in a professional capacity and have no history. Just saying.
Is the company acting in any way that would cause you not to trust them, their motives or agenda? As my mother used to say, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Near and Dear to My Heart

I have family members who work in the medical field in various capacities. I also have family members who have or have had genetically heritable conditions and like everyone else, I would love to see those diseases cured. My reticence to donate my DNA to whomever for whatever is not a result of being heartless. It’s a function of wanting to be in control of who profits with/from my DNA and that of my family.

Let me share a personal story with you.

My brother died of cancer in 2012. He went for chemo treatments every two weeks, and before he could have his chemo treatment, he had to have bloodwork to assure that his system was able to handle the next dose of chemo.

If his white cell count was below a certain threshold, a shot of a drug called Neulasta was available to him to stimulate his body to increase the white blood cells. The shots were $8000 a piece. And no, that is not a typo. $8000! His insurance did not cover the shots, because as far as they were concerned, he could just wait until his white cell numbers increased of their own accord and have the chemo then. Of course, delaying the chemo decreased his chances of survival.

Over the course of his chemo, he had to have three of these $8000 shots. Fortunately, he did have the money to pay, although he did have to reschedule his appointment because he was required to bring a cashier’s check with the full payment in advance before the clinic would administer the shot. After that, he simply carried an $8000 cashier’s check to each appointment, just in case.

I do not for one minute believe that those shots COST $8000 to manufacture, but I do believe that the pharmaceutical industry could, would and does CHARGE $8000 to desperate patients in order to continue the chemo that is their only hope of life. For those whose insurance pays, it’s entirely irrelevant. For those whose insurance does not pay, it’s a matter of life and death. And yes, I’m equally as angry with the insurance company, but they aren’t the ones asking for me to do donate my DNA.

So, as for my DNA, no Big Pharm company will ever get their hands on it if there is ANYTHING I can do about it – although it’s probably too late now since I have tested with both 23andMe and Ancestry, who do not allow you to opt out entirely. I wish I had known before I tested. At least I would have been giving informed consent, which was not the case.

Consequently, I want to know who is doing what with my DNA, so that I have the option of participating or not – and I want to know up front – and I don’t want it hidden in fine print with the company hoping I’ll just “click through” and never read the documentation. I don’t want it to be intentionally or unintentionally confusing, and I want unquestionable full disclosure – ahead of time. Is that too much to ask?

My brother had the money for the shots, and he died anyway, but can you imagine being the family of someone who did not have $24,000?

And if you think for one minute that Big Pharm won’t do that, consider Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, dubbed “the most hated man in America” in September 2015 for gouging patients dependent on a drug used for HIV and cancer treatment by raising the price from $13.50 per pill to $750 for the same pill, a 5,556% increase – because he could.

Medical research to cure disease I’m supportive of in terms of DNA donation, but not designer babies and not Big Pharm – and today there seems to be no way to separate the bad from the good or to determine who our DNA is being sold to for what purpose. Worse yet, some medical research is funded by Big Pharm, so it’s hard to determine which medical research is independent and which is not.

The companies selling our DNA and Big Pharm are the only people who stand to benefit financially from that arrangement – and they stand to benefit substantially from our contributions by encouraging us to “help science.” We’ll never know if a study our donated DNA was used for produced a new drug – and if it’s one we can’t afford, you can bet the pharmaceutical industry and manufacturers care not one whit that we were one of the people who donated our DNA so they could develop the drug we can’t afford. If any industry should not be soliciting free DNA donations for research, Big Pharm is that industry with their jaw-dropping profits.

So, How Much is Our DNA Worth Anyway?

I don’t know, directly, but we can get some idea from the deal that 23andMe struck with pharmaceutical company Genentech, the US unit of Swiss drug company, Roche, in January 2015, as reported by Forbes.

Quoting now, directly from the Forbes article:

According to sources close to the deal, 23andMe is receiving an upfront payment from Genentech of $10 million, with further milestones of as much as $50 million. The deal is the first of ten 23andMe says it has signed with large pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Such deals, which make use of the database created by customers who have bought 23andMe’s DNA test kits and donated their genetic and health data for research, could be a far more significant opportunity than 23andMe’s primary business of selling the DNA kits to consumers. Since it was founded in 2006, 23andMe has collected data from 800,000 customers and it sells its tests for $99 each. That means this single deal with one large drug company could generate almost as much revenue as doubling 23andMe’s customer base.

The article further says that the drug company was particularly interested in the 12,000 Parkinson’s patients and 1,300 of their parents and siblings who had provided family information. Ten million divided by 13,300 means Genentech were willing to pay $750 for each person’s DNA, out the door. So the tester paid $99 or upwards, depending on when they tested – $1000 before September 2008 when the test dropped to $399, to 23andMe and then 23andMe made another $750 per kit from the tester’s donated DNA results.

And that’s before the additional $50 million and the other deals 23andMe and the other DNA-sellers have struck with Big Pharm. So yes indeed, our DNA is worth a lot.

It’s no wonder so many people are trying to trying to find a way to entice us to donate our results so they can sell them. In fact, it’s a wonder, and a testament to their integrity, that there is ANY company with access to our DNA results that isn’t selling them. In fact, there are only two companies, plus the Genographic Project.

Who Doesn’t Share or Sell Your Autosomal DNA?

Of the major companies, organizations and sites, the only three, as best I can tell, that do not share or sell your autosomal DNA (or reserve the right to do so) and specifically state that they do not are National Geographic’s Genographic Project , Family Tree DNA and GedMatch.

Of those three, Family Tree DNA, a subsidiary of Gene by Gene is the only testing company and says the following:

Gene by Gene collects, processes, stores and shares your Personal Information in a responsible, transparent and secure environment that fosters our customers’ trust and confidence. To that end, Gene by Gene respects your privacy and will not sell or rent your Personal Information without your consent.

National Geographic utilizes Family Tree DNA for testing, and the worst thing I could find in their privacy policy is that they will share:

with other selected third parties so that they may send you promotional materials about goods and services that they offer. You have the opportunity to opt out of our sharing information about you as described below in the section entitled “Your Choices”;
in accordance with your consent.

Nothing problematic here.

Your Genographic DNA file is only uploadable to Family Tree DNA and Nat Geo does not accept uploaded data from other vendors.

GedMatch, which allows users to upload their raw data files from the major testing companies for comparison says the following:

It is our policy to never provide your genealogy, DNA information, or email address to 3rd parties, except as noted above.

Please refer to the entire documents from these organizations for details.

Serious genealogists have probably already uploaded to GedMatch and tested at or uploaded to Family Tree DNA as well, so people are unlikely to find new matches at new sites that aren’t already in one of these two places.

To Be Clear

I just want to make sure there is no confusion about which type of companies we’ve been referencing, and who is excluded, and why. The only companies or organizations this article applies to are those who have access to your raw data autosomal DNA file. Those would be either the companies who test your autosomal DNA (National Geographic, Family Tree DNA, Ancestry and 23andMe in the US and WeGenes in China), or if you download your raw data file from those companies and upload it to another company, organization or location, as discussed in this article. The companies and organizations discussed may not be the only firms or organizations to which you can upload your autosomal DNA file today, and assuredly, there will be more in the future.

The line in the sand is that autosomal DNA file. Not your Y DNA, not your mitochondrial DNA, not your match list – just that raw data file – that’s what contains your DNA information that the medical and pharmaceutical industry seeks and is willing to pay handsomely to obtain.

There are other companies and organizations that offer helpful tools for autosomal DNA analysis and tree integration, but you do NOT upload your raw data file to those sites. Those sites would include sites like www.dnagedcom.com and www.wikitree.com. I want to be sure no one confuses sites that do NOT upload or solicit the upload of your raw autosomal DNA files with those that do. I have not discussed these sites that do not upload your autosomal DNA files because they are not relevant to this discussion.

This article does not pertain to sites that do not utilize or have access to your autosomal raw data file – only those that do.

Summary

As the number of DNA testing consumers rises, the number of potential targets for DNA sales into the medical/pharmaceutical field rises equally, as does the number of targets for scammers.

Along with that, I increasingly feel like my ancestors and the data available through my DNA about my ancestors, specifically ethnicity since everyone seems to be looking for a better answer, is being used as bait to obtain my DNA for companies with a hidden, or less than obvious, agenda – that being to obtain my DNA for subsequent sale.

I greatly appreciate the Genographic Project, Family Tree DNA and GedMatch, the organizations who either test or accept autosomal file uploads do not sell my DNA, and I hope that they are not forced into that position economically in order to survive. It’s quite obvious that there is significant money to be made from the sale of massive amounts of DNA to the medical and pharmaceutical communities. They alone have resisted that temptation and stayed true to the cause of the study of indigenous cultures and population genetics in the case of Nat Geo, and genetic genealogy, and only genetic genealogy in the case of Family Tree DNA and GedMatch.

In other words, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Frankly, I believe selling our data is fundamentally wrong unless that information is abundantly clear, as in truly informed consent as defined by the Office for Human Research Protections, in advance of purchasing (or uploading) the test, and not simply a required “click through box” that says you read something. I would be much more likely to participate in anything that was straightforward rather than something that was hidden or not straightforward, like perhaps the company or organization was hoping we wouldn’t notice, or we would automatically click the box without reading further, thinking we have no other option.

The notice needs to say something on the order of, “I understand that my DNA is going to be sold, may be used for profit making ventures, and I cannot opt out if I order this DNA test,” if that is the case. That is truly informed consent – not a check box that says “I have read the Consent Document.”

Yes, the companies that sell DNA testing and our DNA results would probably receive far fewer orders, but those who would order would be truly informed and giving informed consent. Today, in the large majority of cases, I don’t believe that’s happening.

We need to be aware as consumers and make informed decisions. I’m not telling you whether you should or should not utilize these various companies and sites, or whether you should or should not participate in contributing your DNA to research, or at which level, if at all. That is a personal decision we all have to make.

But I will tell you that I think you need to educate yourself and be aware of these trends and issues in the industry so you can make a truly informed decision each and every time you consider sharing your DNA. And you should know that in some cases, your DNA is being sold and there is absolutely nothing you can do about if it you utilize the services of that company.

Above all, read all of the fine print.

Let me say that again, channeling my best Judy Russell voice.

ALWAYS, READ ALL OF THE FINE PRINT!!!

ALWAYS.
READ.
ALL.
OF.
THE.
FINE.
PRINT.

Unfortunately, things are not always as they seem on the surface.

If you see a click-through box, a red neon danger light should now start flashing in your brain and refuse to allow you to click on that box until you’ve done what? Read all the fine print.

There really is no such thing as a free lunch – so be judiciously suspicious.

I will leave you with the same thought relative to testing companies and upload opportunities that I said about companies selling our data. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

I think early in this game we all got excited and presumed the best about the motives of companies and organizations, like I did with both 23andMe and genesandus, but now we know better – and that there may be more to the story than initially meets the eye.

And besides that, we all know that presume is the first cousin to assume…and well, we all know where this is going. And by the way, that’s exactly how I feel about genesandus who disappeared with my and my husband’s DNA. I wasn’t nearly suspicious or judicious enough then…but I am now.

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Family Finder Matching Thresholds Changing at Family Tree DNA

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Roberta Estes

By Endlisnis – Street limbo 3, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45772088

A long-requested change is taking place shortly at Family Tree DNA – although we don’t have a firm date as of yet. Final testing before release is still underway.

I received a notification from Family Tree DNA, as follows:

You asked for it and we listened!

Currently, the current matching thresholds – the minimum amount of shared DNA required for two people to show as a match are:

Minimum longest block of at least 7.69 cM for 99% of testers, 5.5 cM for the other one percent
Minimum 20 total shared centiMorgans

Some people believed those thresholds to be too restrictive, and through the years requested changes that would loosen those restrictions.

In the near future, as soon as the quality assurance process is complete, the following changes will be implemented to the matching program.

No minimum shared centiMorgans, but if the cM total is less than 20, at least one segment must be 9 cM or longer.
If the longest block of shared DNA is greater than 9 cM, the match will show regardless of total shared cM or the number of matching segments.

The entire existing database is being rerun using the new matching criteria, and all new matches calculated with the new thresholds.

Most people will see only minor changes in their matches, mostly in the speculative range. They may lose some matches but gain others.

This is truly exciting news, especially for people with African American heritage whose connections to matches may be several generations back in time and may not have met the previous 20cM total threshold criteria. In fact, these new thresholds may benefit many of us with deep colonial roots, but I’m hoping that people who have had few matches until now will be pleasantly surprised.

As soon as this change is released, I’ll be checking to see if I’ve gained or lost matches, and will report back as either additional information or results are forthcoming!

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

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Back in the Saddle Again – OK, Sidesaddle, Riding Very Slowly

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Well, I’m pleased to let my readers know that I’m back in the saddle again. Ok, maybe not fully in the saddle. Maybe I’m riding side saddle and very slowly right now, and gingerly. According to some in the family, I shouldn’t even be on the horse…but I am. Or, in my case, perched on a rock.

My husband was gracious enough to make me a temporary office on the main floor of the house – probably because he got sick of me whining about getting texting hand injuries from trying to function entirely on my iphone as I lay flat on my back on ice packs. Let’s just say it has been a very long 5 weeks and my family has been just wonderful – beyond all expectations.

And this walk outside – it was glorious. Being cooped up inside (5 weeks today, not that I’m counting) is so difficult when I know those weeds are growing and needing to be pulled up by the roots! The beautiful phlox is in bloom, the cherry trees are just finishing, in the background…nothing as beautiful as springtime! And the sunshine – it just felt SOOOoooo good.

In all seriousness, back injuries are no joke and excruciatingly painful, especially if you cannot take narcotic drugs.

However, ice, heat, rest and time help a great deal (In addition to my wonderful family) and my neurosurgeon has told me that I just need more of the same. I’m improving every day and have informed my husband that the surgeon said that I cannot do yard work nor housework, and I have a witness. In fact, I’m likely to never be able to do those things again, ever. Miss Mary, my quilt sister, accompanied me to the appointment and she swears that’s exactly what the doctor said! She’s got my back, pardon the pun.

Right Miss Mary???

The funniest thing about the doctor visit was when the doctor said, “Well, you can’t change your genetics” and Miss Mary piped right up and said, “Well, if anyone can, she can.” He looked very quizzical of course and we all had a good laugh after discussing how different medicine, including genetics will be in another generation or even another decade.

This of course made me think about the past and wonder what happened when my poor ancestors encountered this type of situation.

The history of spinal cord injury reaches far back into history, with some insight and a lot of myth and mystery – not to mention misery and experimentation.

Spinal surgery had begun in England in the early 1800s, and yes, without anesthetic. It’s no wonder so many patients died. They wanted to.

The first successful laminectomy which removed a disc which was compressing a nerve which resulted in paralysis from a fall from a horse was performed in Kentucky in 1829 by a doctor who had studied in Philadelphia.

That’s probably because while there was no anesthetic, Kentucky had plenty of moonshine.

In the 1800s, and before, back pain that was not a direct injury was thought to be a form of rheumatism. In fact, according to the book, “Occupation and Disease: How Social Factors Affect the Conception of work-Related Disorders” by Allard Dembe, it wasn’t until about WWI when the US passed the major worker’s compensation laws that back pain was considered to be a result of trauma, meaning an injury, not rheumatism, which was considered to be an illness.

There was also considered to be difference between a debilitating spinal injury, from something specific, like falling from a horse, or a building, and an injury from something like working in the field, or the garden. The latter was rheumatism. In fact, I still remember the old people talking about their “rheumatism flaring up” and rubbing their backs when I was younger. I didn’t understand then, but now it makes perfect sense.

The term rheumatism in the current sense has been in use since the late 17th century, as it was believed that chronic joint pain was caused by excessive flow of rheum or bodily fluids into a joint.

The term rheumatism is somewhat older, adopted in the early 17th century from Late Latin rheumatismus, ultimately from Greek ῥευματίζομαι “to suffer from a flux”, i.e. any discharge of blood or bodily fluid.

Before the 17th century, joint pain thought to be caused by viscous humours seeping into the joints was named gout, a word adopted in Middle English from Old French gote “a drop; the gout, rheumatism.”

Now, the good news, if there was any for those 17th and 18th century sufferers, is that opioid medications were readily available “over the counter” at that time, so hopefully, while our ancestors were in pain, they truly didn’t suffer terribly.

I know for a fact that my bootlegging ancestors had their own brand of pain-killer, and I doubt that some of them did enough manual labor to hurt their backs in the first place.

Still, I’m very glad to be living today, because if I do need surgery again one day, I want anesthetic, and I’m very grateful for modern medicine, especially after reading that article titled, “A Brief History of Therapy for Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury” by Jason Lifshutz and Austin, Colohan, M.D.s. In many cases, it looked to me like the treatment was worse than the injury. If I were you, I’d just skip that article and take my word for it, or better yet, maybe just go and get yourself some of that moonshine and you won’t care anymore about what’s in that article, and you won’t remember that your back was hurting either!

Thanks to one and all for your kind words of support, prayers, flowers, e-mails, cards, chocolate (that’s a medicine, didn’t you know) and the cookies too – not to mention lunch visits, smoothie runs, fabric cupcakes (no calories and cat approved), rides to the doctor and two turtles. Don’t ask about the turtles. That’s a story for another day – and yes, that too involves Miss Mary!!!

______________________________________________________________

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Creating a Phased Parental Kit at GedMatch

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Roberta Estes

In the article, Concepts – Parental Phasing, I explained why it’s so important to have at least one, if not both of your parents DNA tested in addition to your own DNA. Having at least one parent tested allows you to determine, at least for the matches that match both of you, which side the genetic ancestral connection is from, assuming the match is only from one side.

At GedMatch, you can utilize the kit of you and one parent to subtract out the DNA of your known parent. The results are the other half of your DNA, that of your missing parent. Now, this technology isn’t perfect. Let’s say for example that you have your mother, as I do, but not your father. At one location, you and your mother both have an A and a T. There is no way to know whether you inherited the A or the T from your mother, and which one you inherited from your father, so these situations are unresolvable.

So are areas where they are no-calls or bad reads.

In other studies that I’ve been involved with, we can obtain a significant amount of your half of the other parents’ DNA, around 40% of their entire DNA sequence. So that’s certainly better than nothing, given that you only have 50% of their DNA to begin with.

A New Series – Managing Autosomal DNA Matches

I’m going to step through how to create a second phased parent at GedMatch, because you’re going to need to do this for one of the upcoming Concepts Series – Managing Autosomal DNA Matches articles. Yes indeed, I’m introducing a new series soon – and this article is to help you prepare!

Test Your Parents and Close Family Members Now!

So here’s a big hint for the new series. If you have a parent who has not yet tested, now is the time to order that test. You can test at Family Tree DNA or at Ancestry and then transfer your results to Family Tree DNA and GedMatch. However, if you order from Ancestry, make sure to read this article first to understand fully the rights you are conveying to Ancestry. Also, Ancestry is changing to a new chip, and we’re not sure how compatible their new autosomal file will be with either Family Tree DNA or GedMatch, and we won’t know until after those vendors have had some time to evaluate the new chip file results, so perhaps Family Tree DNA would be the safer bet right now for new tests, because you will need to transfer your parents results to both Family Tree DNA and GedMatch. Yes, you will need your known relatives results in both locations, because relatives help identify match and triangulation groups.

So, order that kit today so you’ll have results and can fully participate in the new series’ exercises. We’ll we walking through matching, phasing and triangulation vendor by vendor one step at a time to create your own matching DNA Master file.

No Parents to Test? You’re NOT Out of Luck!

If you don’t have either parent, you’re not entirely out of luck. You won’t be able to participant in parental phasing, BUT, you will be able to participate in other types of phasing and matching. In order to do this, you’ll need to test as many of your relatives as possible, beginning with testing as many half or full siblings as possible.

Test any grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles and any and all cousins that you can find and arm-twist (in the nicest way of course) too, because their matches will help you – and that goes for whether you have one, both or neither parent tested.

The only people in your family you don’t need to test are people both of whose parents have tested, or the relevant parent (to you) has tested.

For example, if your first cousin has tested, you don’t need her child too, because that child inherited half of your first cousin’s DNA, and you already have that in your first cousin’s test. However, your first cousin’s sibling is an entirely different matter, and you’ll want to test as many cousins (and their siblings) as you can find.

Creating a Parent at GedMatch

To create a phased parent, you’ll need your kit and the kit of one of your parents. If you have both parents tested, you don’t need to do this.

Sign into your GedMatch account and select the Phasing option, 6th from the top.

Enter the kit number of the child, which is you, and the kit number of the parent whose DNA you do have.

Click on generate.

When the utility is finished, you will receive the following message.

GedMatch has created a phased maternal and paternal kit with the leading letters PM (for 23andMe kits), PT (for Family Tree DNA kits) and PA (for Ancestry kits) and the trailing letters P1 and M1. P1=Paternal and M1=Maternal.

The kit number of the child is imbedded inbetween PM and P1, so for example in PT524738P1.

These phased kits, because they are only “half kits,” can be utilized to determine which of your matches are from which side of your family.

I wrote about how to do that in the article titled, Phasing Yourself.

But let’s be very clear here, a phased kit is never as good as the real McCoy, so by all means, get that parent tested if at all possible.

Have fun and get your ducks in a row for the new series!

______________________________________________________________

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Ancestry Modifies Their Autosomal DNA Chip

Posted on May 15, 2016 by Roberta Estes

For today’s consumer, this isn’t really much of a story, although it may be someday.

Ancestry published an article in their blog this week announcing that they have begun testing on a new AncestryDNA chip.

Currently, Ancestry uses the standard Illumina chip also used by Family Tree DNA which also functions as the base chip for the 23andMe product as well. 23andMe has a chip customized for medical testing, and Ancestry is now following suit as well with their new chip, soon to go into production.

The Illumina chip today holds roughly 700,000 locations, or SNPs that can be reported. Ancestry’s download today provides customers with roughly 682,000 locations, as compared to 23andMe’s 577,000 and Family Tree DNA’s roughly 690,000.

However, Ancestry is trading in some 300,000 of those SNPs currently on the standard chip and replacing them with new SNPs optimized for medical and ethnicity testing in addition to replacing some “low performing” locations with alternate locations. They couldn’t provide a breakdown in terms of percentages of how many are for medical, ethnicity or other SNPs.

What Does This Change Mean For You?

Today, nothing at all, according to Ancestry.

I asked if Ancestry had tested their clients who have tested on the new chip against the same client’s results from the current, soon to be, old chip – and Ancestry said they showed exactly the same matches.

So, the chip is backwards compatible in that the new chip will still provide matches to the old chip.

The difference may come in the future when more people have tested on the new chip. Only time will tell if those people will receive more and better matching with other people that have tested on the new chip.

Ancestry indicated that if they feel their clients need to update their test at some point in the future, then they will put together a plan – but until then, if then, there’s nothing to worry about.

Should You Retest?

Obviously the bloggers group wondered about this. If you retest today, you’ll have to handle both tests separately in your account. There is currently no way to merge tests, so you’ll have an old one and a new one. There is no “best of both worlds.” There is no way to preserve stars or notes or anything you may have done to one account and transfer to a different account. About the only thing you could do is, in time, to compare to see if you continue to have the same matches on both chips as more people test on the new chip.

Why The Change?

Ancestry was very clear that the changes today are really for future development and will have no effect on current accounts or matching. They are evaluating their future position in the medical arena. With last June’s announcement of Ancestry Health, they have very clearly been sticking their toes in that water. They hired Dr. Cathy Petti last July as well, an MD functioning a Chief Health Officer.

I’m not sure if this means Ancestry will one day offer health services to clients, similar to 23andMe, or whether it means that the firms they are currently or want to sell the DNA data to want more health related information, or perhaps both. We will just have to wait and see. Clearly they wouldn’t even be discussing this publicly and laying groundwork if they weren’t planning to do something!

Will You Still Be Able to Download?

Yes, your autosomal data file will be downloadable, just like it is today.

Will You Still Be Able to Upload to Family Tree DNA and GedMatch?

That of course will depend on those vendors making the necessarily format changes. This would be similar to the different vendors’ files being compared to each other today. Comparing one vendor to another isn’t quite as good as comparing each vendor to its own files, but the matches are still good and it’s still a darned site better than nothing.

Both Family Tree DNA and GedMatch will need to see the new file formats first and have some time to work with them. We don’t know if quality of matching will be an issue given that nearly half of the SNPs are being replaced – but until we hear otherwise from either company, I’d presume that they will make every effort to accommodate the new file structure.

When Is The Change Being Made?

The new chips are arriving next week, but Ancestry will be running on dual platforms for a little while yet during the changeover. There really won’t be any external way to tell if your test was performed on a new (v2) or old (v1) chip – so if you want the new chip – wait just awhile to order to be sure the new chip is in full production first.

Summary

Ancestry’s change, to clients today, is superficial. Your matching will still function. You don’t need to retest, unless you are simply curious. If you do want to retest, wait a few weeks to be sure the new test is completely in production – and remember, you’ll be managing two kits separately, so everyone will be asking you about you and your twin that they match. I’m sure there will be a number of curious people who will test on both platforms.

These chip changes are for future development – and we’ll just have to wait for the future to see what those new developments might be.

______________________________________________________________

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The Rest of the Miller-Stutzman Story

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Roberta Estes

If you watched the Katey Sagal episode of Who Do You Think You Are that aired on TLC on April 14^th, you’ll recall that Katey made a couple of discoveries leading to the unveiling of her Amish heritage. First, her ancestor in Iowa was buried in a “Dunkard” Cemetery. Dunkard was the colloquial name for the religious denomination known as the Brethren.

I have Brethren ancestors too, an entire quarter tree full of them – my mother’s father, John Whitney Ferverda was Brethren. His mother Evaline Miller married Hiram B. Ferverda, a converted Mennonite.

The Brethren, Amish and Mennonite churches were all German based, lived in German communities, and were notorious for swapping members back and forth. All three were pietist religions, eschewing any type of violence or warfare, even for protection of yourself or your family. In other words, those three sects were in many ways far more alike than different.

In other words, finding someone who was a Dunkard in one generation and their parents as Mennonite in the earlier generation was not a surprise. According to Amish historian, J. M. Byler, intermarriage between Amish and Brethren or Mennonite was acceptable until 1809 when it was forbidden.

So, I knew I was going to enjoy this episode.

But then, the episode got much, MUCH more interesting.

Here are two screen grabs from the episode, thanks to TLC and Shedd Media. Katey’s line, going back in time, was found in Somerset, PA, then in Berk’s County, PA. an area highly known for their Amish population.

Even more interesting, Peter Miller married Mary Stutzman.

That just about doubled my heart rate right there, because my Miller line, also German, also Brethren, was very closely associated with a Brethren Stutzman line.

My Miller Line

My immigrant Johann Michael Miller Jr., born in 1692, immigrated from Germany in 1727 with his sort-of step-brother Johann Jacob Stutzman, known as Jacob Stutzman.

What is a sort-of step-brother?

Johann Michael Miller’s mother died, and his father, also Johann Michael Miller, married a second time to Anna Loysa Regina. Johann Michael Miller Sr. then died, and Anna then married to Hans Jacob Stutzman in 1695. Johann Michael Miller Jr. was only three years old at this time, so Anna was probably the only mother he had ever known.

Anna and her husband Hans Jacob Stutzman then had a son by the name of Johann Jacob Stutzman on January 1, 1706. So, technically, these two boys were not biologically related, but given that they immigrated together and were found together throughout their lives, it’s very likely that Anna Loysa Regina Miller Stutzman simply continued to raise Johann Michael Miller Jr., her step-son, after his father’s death and the boys were raised as brothers, even though they were 14 years apart.

Johann Michael Miller Jr. married Suzanna Berchtol in Germany, and in 1727, immigrated with his family, which included at least son Philip Jacob Miller, to the colonies – along with his sort-of step-brother Johann Jacob Stutzman

Johann Michael Miller and Suzanna Berchtol had a son the year after their marriage, Hans (probably Johann) Peter Mueller, baptized January 19, 1715 in Konken, Germany. We don’t know much about Peter except that on at least one occasion, Philip Jacob Miller’s brother, John, who died in Washington County, MD in 1794 was referred to as Johann Peter Miller in one document, but only one document of many.

Was that John the same Hans Peter that was born in 1715? It seems rather unlikely since he was never otherwise called Peter, but it’s possible.

So, we have a (possible) lost brother, Johann Peter Miller who was associated with the Stutzman family. Now, in Berks County, we find a Peter Miller married to a Stutzman wife.

What are the chances of this being all circumstantial?

Slim to none, right? Stutzman is not a common name, even though Miller is. And the two families being found together again, and intermarried is certainly suggestive of some continuity. Right?

Clearly, the Peter Miller on Katey’s chart born in 1756 is not the SAME Peter Miller born in 1715 in Germany, but he could clearly be a descendent, either a son or possibly a grandson.

The program did not follow Peter Miller any further, but instead switched to the Stutzman line because it led to the Hochstetler line which was the focus of the rest of the program.

Mary Stutzman was the daughter of Christian Stutzman, born about 1732, and Barbara Hochstetler. Christian Stutzman could have been the son of Jacob Stutzman or perhaps even a younger half-sibling or uncle.

Had I by any chance found my missing Peter Miller, or at least his descendant, associated with the Stutzman family? It would make perfect sense.

With two family connections in Pennsylvania, plus the pacifist religion – and a very unusual name like Stutzman – how could this NOT be the same family group?

Well, hold tight, because we’re going to find out!

I was so very excited!

Let’s Start Digging

Since Stutzman isn’t my direct line, I do have some references, but not a lot, so I began on the internet where I discovered that Christian, at least by some, is attributed to be the brother of Johann Jacob Stutzman, the “step-brother” of Johann Michael Miller Jr..

If Anna was 20 in 1695 when she married Jacob Stutzman, as her second marriage, she would have been 57 in 1732 when Christian Stutzman was born. Well, there’s the first big red flag.

The next problem is that Peter Miller is attributed to John Miller and Magdalena Lehman, and that John Miller would have been the age to be a sibling to my Johann Michael Miller Jr. This John Miller, known as “Indian John” was also wounded in the same raid where Katey Sagal’s Hochstetler family was taken captive.

The next problem is that Indian John is attributed to Christian Daniel Miller, born in Bern Switzerland. Hmm….if this is accurate, this is clearly not my Miller family – although my Miller’s did come from near Bern – so they could be the same family, just a generation or two further back in time. But regardless, not my lost Hans Peter Miller’s son.

Well, crumb.

I’m always skeptical of trees, anyplace, so I wanted more proof than this.

I decided to take a look at the Miller DNA project at Family Tree DNA and see if there was any enlightenment there. At the top of the project page, my Johann Michael Miller line is shown. At the bottom of the page, the John Miller who married Magdalena Lehman is shown. You can click to enlarge.

While they do share the same halogroup, they are definately not matches to each other, as you can see below, so they are definitely NOT the same Miller line.

Double crumb.

Ok, well, maybe the Stutzman line is the same. While it’s not my direct line, it’s still an interesting part of my Johann Michael Miller’s life, so let’s take a look at what we find.

Stutzman

Stutzman was more difficult.

Ancestry trees showed a plethora of information, with some trees showing Jacob and Christian as full brothers, but we’ve already shown that’s nigh on impossible due to the age of Anna.

They could, however, be paternal half brothers or otherwise related.

The Stutzman project at Family Tree DNA seems to be abandoned and shows no project results. Harumph. (If there is someone who would like to adopt the Stutzman DNA project at Family Tree DNA, which is quite small (4 members), it needs an administrator.)

So I turned to YSearch, with the hope that some of the Stutzman clan had uploaded results there.

Indeed they had. Three entries – and two of those entries appear to be the lines we’re seeking. I checked the compare box to view their results.

First of all, none of the three match to each other, so these lines are definitely different. I checked my own Stutzman resource books, and the Jacob Stutzman line that Anna Regina married into is reported to be from Erlenbach, Switzerland. In this case, that would be equivalent to the first entry, user ID V85YJ.

Sure enough, they had uploaded a Gedcom file and I verified that indeed, this is the Jacob line that was the sort-of step-brother to Johann Michael Miller.

The other entry, VZJYF is the is the Christian Stutzman line from Berks County, PA, whose daughter married Peter Miller.

By running the Genetic Distance report, I verify that at 12 markers, which is all the further kit V85YJ tested, they have a genetic distance of 6, which very clearly indicates they are NOT a match.

Well, triple crumb.

Now, you could also say we need another sample from each of these two Stutzman lines, through a different son to assure that no undocumented adoptions have occurred – and you would be right of course.

However, without that additional information, it looks like these are different lines, just like the Miller line was.

Summary

I’m sure that it was assumptions just like this, before DNA testing was available, that caused people to jump to incorrect conclusions.

After all, what ARE the chances that both a Miller and a Stutzman would be found in a close family situation, not terribly distant, in a minority Pietist German religion in colonial America, and not be related? I don’t know the mathematical odds, but I can tell you that DNA confirms that whatever those odds are, they don’t matter. Of course, this is also why definitive proof of a relationship between the two families could never be found – it wasn’t there to BE found. The only facts we have are the DNA tests.

The DNA facts confirm that neither the Peter Miller nor the Christian Stutzman family from Berks and Somerset County, PA are the same family as the Johann Michael Miller and Jacob Stutzman family from York and Cumberland County, PA and then Frederick/Washiongton County, Maryland.

Three strikes and I’m out, but I am actually very glad to put this decades long question for both of these family groups to rest once and for all. Bravo DNA testers, projects at Family Tree DNA and YSearch – all three critical to answering this question.

______________________________________________________________

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Preserving Family Information Forever?

Posted on May 7, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Given that today is Mother’s Day, and those who have mothers still with us are hopefully visiting and feeling very grateful for their presence in our lives – I want to take this opportunity to talk about preserving as much about our mothers’ lives as possible for future generations.

Those whose mothers have already passed over know the huge hole their passing creates, in so many ways – unfathomable until they’ve crossed that bridge.

Not only do our mothers take their own memories with them, but the memories of their parents, who we may or may not have known, and the memories of their grandparents, who we probably didn’t know. Their grandmother may have told our mother stories about her parents and grandparents and what happened in their lifetimes – and all of that is lost too.

If you’re counting, that’s a link to 5 generations back in time we’re losing when we lose a parent. In my case, that 5^th generation reached back to a woman born in 1823 in Germany.

I asked my Mom questions before she passed away, but not enough. I wish I had asked sooner. Older people do forget. I wish I had asked my grandmother’s sister more questions too. I wish, I wish….

There isn’t anything I can do about that now, except document and research based on their recollections – which really has been very productive.

The Memory Book or Journal

In the last few years before my mother passed, I asked her to complete a memory book and when she should no longer write legibly, she dictated the answers and I transcribed in her own words – although I love the answers in her own handwriting.

There are several flavors of memory books available, for Mom, Dad and grandparents.

Here are links to two, but if you look at the “frequently bought together,” books, you’ll see the others too.

And if you are the mother, father or grandparent, do your descendants a favor and just order one for yourself!

What’s Next?

But the next question is how to preserve this information forever.

And by forever, I do mean after I’m gone, and after my children, who are not currently interested in genealogy are gone – hopefully into the indefinite future.

We used to think that Rootsweb was forever, but given that Ancestry purchased Rootsweb and has a history of suddenly obsoleting products and services, we certainly can’t depend on that anymore.

WordPress, which is the platform I used for my blog, has a free option. Of course, there really is no such thing as a free lunch, so there will be ads on the site from time to time. And it’s free “forever,” as long as forever is in this technoworld. How long is that? I don’t know. Weebly has the same type of arrangement. Of course, some functions and options aren’t free, like a domain name, and if you exceed a certain space limit, fees apply. You can’t pay fees if you’re dead.

Any entrepreneur want to start a “legacy” business, pay now, die later, your information stays forever? I think it would be a wonderful idea!!!

I have several articles on my blog that I’d really like to be archived “forever,” in particular, my 52 Week of Ancestors articles, which has now grown to over 120 (from the originally anticipated 52) and will continue to grow until I’m, well, done. Now I don’t know what “done” actually means in a genealogists world, so I can’t tell you when that might be.

I would also like to preserve family stories, the kind I hope you’re collecting from Mom this Mother’s Day.

Let’s Have Fun!

Be sure to have fun. Tell Mom you love her. You really never know when it might be your last opportunity. Laugh. Let the conversation flow, and ask Mom questions that will result in interesting conversations. You never know what you might find out! And she’ll be very pleased that you are interested in her and her family!

Here are some ideas of questions you might ask Mom, just for fun:

Tell me about your first bicycle ride.
What were your chores as a child?
Who was your first boyfriend?
What was your favorite candy bar as a kid?
What food did you hate as a child? Do you still hate it?
Tell me about your first day at school?
Did anyone ever play a trick or prank on you?
Did you play a trick or prank on someone else?
Did you know your grandparents? What are your fondest memories of them?
Tell me about a family vacation.
Did your family have picnics? Who came?
Did your parents have any special family traditions surrounding the holidays, like Christmas, Easter, Hanukah or other times of the year?
What television programs did you watch as a child?
Did your parents or grandparents have a hobby?
What games did you play for fun?
What is the biggest change you’ve seen in your lifetime?

Avoid topics that might make Mom sad, like funerals and pets. I made the mistake of asking about Mom’s pets as a child and let’s just say I immediately wished that I hadn’t.

Do yourself a favor. Don’t think you’ll remember the answers, because, regardless of your best intentions, you won’t. Write them down, or better yet, record them and later transcribe the recording.

Don’t you wish you had this kind of information about your great-great-grandparents? I do. This is your opportunity to provide that gift to future generations.

Now, it’s up to you to preserve these stories. If you don’t do it, no one else is going to.

Archival and Preservation

First, commit the stories to paper. You can then utilize those documents to publish the stories online, on a free “forever” site like Weebly or WordPress. Of course, you’ll need to take into consideration any privacy issues, living people and such. I mean, announcing uncle Joe is gay online when he hasn’t announced that publicly himself, and without his permission, is maybe not such a good idea.

In my case, by family, I’ve also combined several stories into a “book” and donated an electronic copy to the Allen County Public Library, who printed the book and added it to their collection.

The Allen County Public Library is one of the largest genealogy libraries in the US and has partnered with both FamilySearch and the Internet Archive. They also have taken a leadership role in preserving oral history and have other suggestions at this link.

Not all libraries are interested in genealogy. Gasp – I know – hard to believe. Libraries that are local to your family would be most interested, although I’ve donated family books and visited the library later to find that they have “no record” of the book being donated – and it surely was not on the shelf. While you might want to donate to local libraries, I wouldn’t depend on them for posterity.

Donating your book to the Family History Library has specific guidelines, including “if they have space.” If your family history and stories fit this criteria, the Mormon Family History Library has as good a chance at “forever” as anyplace. They want genealogical information, and your stories should include a pedigree chart, minimally, so that future generations have some idea of who is recanting about whom.

There’s nothing worse than an old photo of someone that you know you’re related to, with no names on the back – so you have no idea who it is. The same goes for your family stories and recollections as well.

And as for those old pictures, add those to the stories as well. People love pictures and stories.

Leave it up to one of my wonderful subscribers (thanks Karen) to identify another source for archiving books. The Internet Archive accepts donations of one or more books at a time, digitized (hopefully) or hardcopy, and this nonprofit whose goal is to “create universal access to all knowledge” makes the books available to everyone, by key word search and by title search, forever.

Personally, I would utilize all of these options to assure the widest coverage possible.

Honoring Mothers Who Have Passed Over

Enjoy your Mother’s Day, hopefully with Mom, but if she has passed over, maybe you can memorialize her today by recording something special about her life. Here are some suggestions:

Her favorite or most memorable food. Do you remember her preparing or family meals eating that dish together?
Her favorite scent. Do you think of her when you get a whiff?
Her favorite flower. Did you plant or tend the garden with her?
Something silly that she did. Do you have a photo to go along with this?
Something embarrassing that she did – maybe embarrassing to you, not her:)
Her favorite recipe, and your memories of her making that recipe. I know whatever that was came immediately to mind and maybe you can even smell it now. My Mom’s was fudge!
Your favorite memory of her.
A typical day in her life.
A memory of your mother with her parents.
Her hobby. What did she love to do, and why. Do you have anything she made?
What gave her life meaning? What was her motivation?
Her most memorable moment.
What is her legacy?

Preserve Mom’s DNA

If your Mom is still with us, and for that matter, your Dad too, please, PLEASE test their DNA. Family Tree DNA archives the DNA for 25 years, and presuming it has not degraded during that time, you can order upgrades for new tests not yet available (and maybe not even dreamed of) today. I ordered my mother’s Family Finder test several years after she was gone and I thank that woman every day of my life for that gift that she gave me.

For your mother, you can order the Family Finder autosomal test and the mitochondrial DNA full sequence which directly tests her mother’s mother’s maternal line. If you’re ordering for Mom, the tests are on sale for a significant savings until midnight (Central Time) on Mother’s Day night.

Your father can order both of those plus the Y DNA test. I recommend at least the 37 marker panel, and 67 if you’re feeling particularly generous. It would make a great Father’s Day present, and you can order now while the Family Finder and mitochondrial are on sale.

If your Mom has passed over, you can still test her mitochondrial DNA, which she gave to all of her children, by testing your own mitochondrial DNA.

You can learn a lot about the legacy of your matrilineal ancestors, meaning your mother’s matrilineal line, with the mitochondrial test – things so far back in time that no oral history could possibly remember.

My mother’s mitochondrial DNA line dies in my generation, as none of my children will be passing it along, so don’t let the information in your mother’s mtDNA be lost to posterity.

You can click here to order a DNA test, on sale.

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

______________________________________________________________

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