Monthly Archives: November 2018

MyHeritage LIVE Conference Day 2 – The Science Behind DNA Matching    

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The MyHeritage LIVE Oslo conference is but a fond memory now, and I would count it as a resounding success.

Perhaps one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much is the scientific aspect and because the content is very focused on a topic I enjoy without being the size and complexity of Rootstech. The smaller, more intimate venue also provides access to the “right” people as well as the ability to meet other attendees and not be overwhelmed by the sheer size.

Here are some stats:

  • 401 registered guests
  • 28 countries represented including distant places like Australia and South America
  • More than 20 speakers plus the hands-on workshops where specialist teams worked with students
  • 38 sessions and workshops, plus the party
  • 60,000 livestream participants, in spite of the time differences around the world

I was blown away by the number of livestream attendees.

I don’t know what criteria Gilad Japhet will be using to determine “success” but I can’t imagine this conference being judged as anything but.

Let’s take a look at the second day. I spent part of the time talking to people and drifting in and out of the rear of several sessions for a few minutes. I meant to visit some of the workshops, but there was just too much good, distracting content elsewhere.

I began Sunday in Mike Mansfield’s presentation about SuperSearch. Yes, I really did attend a few sessions not about DNA, but my favorite was the session on Improved DNA Matching.

Improved DNA Matching

I’m sure it won’t surprise any of my readers that my favorite presentations were about the actual science of genetic genealogy.

Consumers don’t really need to understand the science behind autosomal results to reap the benefits, but the underlying science is part of what I love – and it’s important for me to understand the underpinnings to be able to unravel the fine points of what the resulting matches are and are not revealing. Misinterpretation of DNA results leading to faulty conclusions is a real issue in genetic genealogy today. Consequently, I feel that anyone working with other people’s results and providing advice really needs to understand how the science and technology together works.

Dr. Daphna Weissglas-Volkov, a population geneticist by training, although she clearly functions far beyond that scope today, gave a very interesting presentation about how MyHeritage handles (their greatly improved) DNA Matching. I’m hitting the high points here, but I would strongly encourage you to watch the video of this session when they are made available online.

In addition to Dr. Weissglas-Volkov’s slides, I’ve added some additional explanations and examples in various places. You can easily tell that the slides are hers and the graphics that aren’t MyHeritage slides are mine.

Dr. Weissglas-Volkov began the session by introducing the MyHeritage science team and then explaining terminology to set the stage.

A match is when two people match each other on a fairly long piece of DNA. Of course, “fairly long” is defined differently by each vendor.

Your genetic map (of your chromosomes) is comprised of the DNA you inherit from different ancestors by the process of recombination when DNA is transferred from the parents to the child. A centiMorgan is the relatively likelihood that a recombination will occur in a single generation. On average, 36 recombinations occur in each generation, meaning that the DNA is divided on any chromosome. However, women, for reasons unknown have about 1.5 times as many recombinations as men.

You can’t see that when looking at an example of a person compared to their parents, of course, because each individual is a full match to each parent, but you can see this visually when comparing a grandchild to their maternal grandmother and their paternal grandmother on a chromosome browser.

The above illustration is the same female grandchild compared to her maternal grandmother, at left, and her paternal grandmother at right. Therefore the number of crossovers at left is through a female child (her mother), and the number at right is through a male child (her father.)

# of Crossovers
Through female child – left 57
Through male child – right 22

There are more segments at left, through the mother, and the segments are generally shorter, because they have been divided into more pieces.

At right, fewer and larger segments through the father.

Keep in mind that because you have a strand of DNA from each parent, with exactly the same “street addresses,” that what is produced by DNA sequencing are two columns of data – but your Mom’s and Dad’s DNA is intermixed.

The information in the two columns can’t be identified as Mom’s or Dad’s DNA or strand at this point.

That interspersed raw data is called a genotype. A haplotype is when Mom’s and Dad’s DNA can be reassembled into “sides” so you can attribute the two letters at each address to either Mom or Dad.

Here’s a quick example.

The goal, of course, is to figure out how to reassemble your DNA into Mom’s side and Dad’s side so that we know that someone matching you is actually matching on all As (Mom) or all Gs (Dad,) in this example, and not a false match that zigzags back and forth between Mom and Dad.

The best way to accomplish that goal of course is trio phasing, when the child and both parents are available, so by comparing the child’s DNA with the parents you can assign the two strands of the child’s DNA.

Unfortunately, few people have both or even one parent available in order to actual divide their DNA into “sides,” so the next best avenue is statistical phasing. I’ve called this academic phasing in the past, as compared to parental phasing which MyHeritage refers to as trio phasing.

There’s a huge amount of confusion about phasing, with few people understanding there are two distinct types.

Statistical phasing is a type of machine learning where a large number of reference populations are studied. Since we know that DNA travels together in blocks when inherited, statistical phasing learns which DNA travels with which buddy DNA – and creates probabilities. Your DNA is then compared to these models and your DNA is reshuffled in order to assemble your DNA into two groups – one representing your Mom’s DNA and one representing your Dad’s DNA, according to statistical probability.

Looking at your genotype, if we know that As group together at those 6 addresses in my example 95% of the time, then we know that the most likely scenario to create a haplotype is that all of the As came from one parent and all of the Gs from the other parent – although without additional information, there is no way to yet assign the maternal and paternal identifier. At this point, we only know parent 1 and parent 2.

In order to train the computers (machine learning) to properly statistically phase testers’ results, MyHeritage uses known relationships of people to teach the machines. In other words, their reference panels of proven haplotypes grows all of the time as parent/child trios test.

Dr. Weissglas-Volkev then moved on to imputation.

When sequencing DNA, not every location reads accurately, so the missing values can be imputed, or “put back” using imputation.

Initially imputation was a hot mess. Not just for MyHeritage, but for all vendors, imputation having been forced upon them (and therefore us) by Illumina’s change to the GSA chip.

However, machine learning means that imputation models improve constantly, and matching using imputation is greatly improved at MyHeritage today.

Imputation can do more than just fill in blanks left by sequencing read errors.

The benefit of imputation to the genetic genealogy community is that vendors using disparate chips has forced vendors that want to allow uploads to utilize imputation to create a global template that incorporates all of the locations from each vendor, then impute the values they don’t actually test for themselves to complete the full template for each person.

In the example below, you can see that no vendor tests all available locations, but when imputation extends the sequences of all testers to the full 1-500 locations, the results can easily be compared to every other tester because every tester now has values in locations 1-500, regardless of which vendor/chip was utilized in their actual testing.

Therefore, using imputation, MyHeritage is able to match between quite disparate chips, such as the traditional Illumina chips (OmniExpress), the custom Ancestry chip and the new GSA chip utilized by 23andMe and LivingDNA.

So, how are matches determined?

Matching

First your DNA and that of another person are scanned for nearly identical seed sequences.

A minimum segment length of 6cM must be identified for further match processing to occur. Anything below 6cM is discarded at this point.

The match is then further evaluated to see if the seed match is of a high enough quality that it should be perfected and should count as a match. Other segments continue to be evaluated as well. If the total matching segment(s) is 8 total cM or greater, it’s considered a valid match. MyHeritage has taken the position that they would rather give you a few accidental false matches than to miss good matches. I appreciate that position.

Window cleaning is how they refer to the process of removing pileup regions known to occur in the human genome. This is NOT the same as Ancestry’s routine that removes areas they determine to be “too matchy” for you individually.

The difference is that in humans, for example, there is a segment of chromosome 6 where, for some reason, almost all humans match. Matching across that segment is not informative for genetic genealogy, so that region along with several others similar in nature are removed. At Ancestry, those genome-wide pileup segments are removed, along with other regions where Ancestry decides that you personally have too many matches. The problem is that for me, these “too matchy” segments are many of my Acadian matches. Acadians are endogamous, so lots of them match each other because as a small intermarried population, they share a great deal of the same DNA. However, to me, because I have one great-grandfather that’s Acadian, that “too matchy” information IS valuable although I understand that it wouldn’t be for someone that is 100% Acadian or Jewish.

In situations such as Ashkenazi Jewish matching, which is highly endogamous, MyHeritage uses a higher matching threshold. Otherwise every Ashkenazi person would match every other Ashkenazi person because they all descend from a small founder population, and for genealogy, that’s not useful.

The last step in processing matches is to establish the confidence level that the match is accurately predicted at the correct level – meaning the relationship range based on the amount of matching DNA and other criteria.

For example, does this match cluster with other proven matches of the same known relationship level?

From several confidence ascertainment steps, a confidence score is assigned to the predicted relationship.

Of course, you as a customer see none of this background processing, just the fact that you do match, the size of the match and the confidence score. That’s what genealogists need!

Matching Versus Triangulation Thresholds

Confusion exists about matching thresholds versus triangulation thresholds.

While any single segment must be over 6 cM in length for the matching process to begin, the actual match threshold at MyHeritage is a total of 8 cM.

I took a look at my lowest match at MyHeritage.

I have two segments, one 6.1 cM segment, and one 6 cM segment that match. It would appear that if I only had one 6 cM segment, it would not show as a match because I didn’t have the minimum 8 cM total.

Triangulation Threshold

However, after you pass that matching criteria and move on to triangulation with a matching individual, you have the option of selecting the triangulation threshold, which is not the same thing as the match threshold. The match threshold does not change, but you can change the triangulation threshold from 2 cM to 8 cM and selections in-between.

In the example below, I’m comparing myself against two known relatives.

You won’t be shown any matches below the 6 cM individual segment threshold, BUT you can view triangulated segments of different sizes. This is because matching segments often don’t line up exactly and the triangulated overlap between several individuals may be very small, but may still be useful information.

Flying your mouse over the location in the bubble, which is the triangulated segment, tells you the size of the triangulated portion. If you selected the 2 cM triangulation, you would see smaller triangulated portions of matches.

Closing Session

The conference was closed by Aaron Godfrey, a super-nice MyHeritage employee from the UK. The closing session is worth watching on the recorded livestream when it becomes available, in part because there are feel good moments.

However, the piece of information I was looking for was whether there will be a MyHeritage LIVE conference in 2019, and if so, where.

I asked Gilad afterwards and he said that they will be evaluating the feedback from attendees and others when making that decision.

So, if you attended or joined the livestream sessions and found value, please let MyHeritage know so that they can factor your feedback onto their decision. If there are topics you’d like to see as sessions, I’m sure they’d love to hear about that too. Me, I’m always voting for more DNA😊

I hope to hear about MyHeritage LIVE 2019, and I’m voting for any of the following locations:

  • Australia
  • New Zealand
  • Israel
  • Germany
  • Switzerland

What do you think?

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

MyHeritage LIVE 2018 Day 1 Photos, Details and Party

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The MyHeritage parties are legendary. That in and of itself is a bit ironic, because Gilad Japhet, the founder and CEO is a rather reserved man. The words Gilad and party just don’t seem to fit together, but he certainly knows how to host an awesome party.

Know what? Genealogists will take time away from records to party, dress up and dance too. We aren’t serious all the time!

The article I wrote yesterday about the DNA announcements was quite hurried.

Now, it’s 4:30 AM, I’m terribly jet lagged so unexplainably awake, and since I can’t sleep, I’m writing this article to catch you up on Day 1 of the conference. Of course, this means that by about noon, I’ll be dying for a nap. You’ll have to watch my live panel discussion at 3:30 PM Oslo time today to see if you can tell I’m running on about 4 hours of sleep. (Don’t forget in the US some places changed to Daylight Savings time overnight.) Here’s the link to my article with the livestream link and the time zone calculator.

Day One in More Detail

MHLive Gilad opening crowd

Here’s Gilad just before he opened the conference. Everyone was excited. Don’t you love his shoes?

Before I go any further, I want to thank Gilad for the conference invitation and access to him and the team to be able to take these awesome photos and for the information provided.

Now, if you haven’t already done so, please go and read the day 1 announcement article, here.

I’d like to clarify a couple points and expand on that article.

I had dinner last night with Ran Snir, DNA Product Manager, along with fellow colleague Diahan Southard, and we discussed the new upcoming DNA related features. I’d like to clarify some terminology surrounding anticipated features.

Painting – The term “painting” was used yesterday, and in the context of what MyHeritage is doing, it does NOT mean the same thing as DNAPainter painting. I’ve written several articles about how I use DNAPainter, but the introductory article is here.

DNAPainter paints your own chromosomes only, identifying the segments of your ancestors. This is not what MyHeritage meant by painting. MyHeritage is referring to reconstructing your ancestors’ DNA.

Reconstructing Ancestral DNA – When MyHeritage referred to painting yesterday, they meant that several descendants’ DNA segments that they carry identically by descent (IBD) will be combined and “stitched together” to “create” a partial genome of that ancestor. No, they didn’t say exactly how this would be done, and no, they did not discuss how it would be managed. In other words, who controls the profile of the ancestor – and mitigates disputes about what segments should be, and should not be attributed to that ancestor.

For me, this raised several questions, but we’ll have to wait until the new feature is released to see how MyHeritage will deal with the inherent issues of:

  • Your most distant autosomal ancestor is actually a couple because you can’t yet divide the DNA into husband and wife.
  • The trees of the descendants need to be complete and accurate.
  • People descending from the same child of the ancestor will also carry the DNA of the wives in each generation, so they need to be compared to people descended from other children of the ancestor to ascertain that the DNA is of the ancestor – not of wives in downstream generations.
  • People tend to marry cousins, siblings, etc., especially when living in the same area. DNA from another line may be unknowingly introduced into two different children’s lines, appearing that the resulting segment comes from the ancestor (or ancestral couple) when in fact, it doesn’t.

These are challenges, not barriers, so let’s continue with Gilad’s presentation.

Extracting DNA from Old Envelopes and Stamps

In the next slides, Gilad discusses extracting DNA from old stamps and envelope seals – the goal being that the resulting file can be uploaded to MyHeritage so that your deceased relative’s DNA can be resurrected through the DNA held in the envelope stamp and seal – which they hopefully licked. This is something we’ve dreamed of (and attempted) since the beginning of DNA testing for genealogy. Apparently Gilad dreamed of it too, because several of his own items are being processed right now.

Gilad provided some examples of other types of stamps and seals that might contain the saliva of our ancestors. Think outside of the box, or in this case, outside of the envelope. No, hair and other items were not discussed. There was a sidebar discussion but at this point, only envelopes and stamps are being utilized.

Theory of Family Relativity

The last session of the day was presented by Maya Lerner, the VP of Product where she discussed, among other things, their new Theory of Family Relativity.

I apologize for the quality of some of these photos. I opted not to bring by larger camera to reduce travel weight, using my cell phone instead. I regret that choice.

The Theory of Family Relativity, currently under development will combine the DNA estimates of where a person is likely to fit into a tree with actual records from the MH database to show the most likely placement of a DNA match.

Today, when we have a match, based on the amount of shared DNA, MyHeritage estimates and illustrates the relationship position that this person holds in our tree, but does not show us on our actual tree itself where this person might fit. That’s up for us as genealogists to figure out.

As I understand the new feature, the relationship distance, shown above, will be combined with records such as phased DNA, census, birth, death, logical criteria (women don’t bear children at age 7 or 70) and other records which would exclude some relationships in our actual tree, while providing evidence for others.

New Features

Aside from the DNA announcements, MyHeritage is also introducing a lot of new non-DNA related features.

City Directories – For example, they are digitizing and indexing city directories. The great thing is that they aren’t just indexing names, but also addresses. As a genealogist, Gilad has personally discovered the usefulness of being able to search for an address in immigration records to view everyone, even with misspelled names, who claimed they were joining family at that specific address. It’s another clue.

European Newspapers – in multiple languages. Digitizing and indexing.

Other New Content – Czeck census, German registration records, Brazil records,

There are so many awesome new features coming, what should you be doing to prepare now?

What You Should Be Doing NOW

  • If you’ve tested elsewhere, upload your DNA raw data file to MyHeritage. The upload is FREE and so are all of the features, but ONLY until Dec. 1st. After that, there will be a fee associated with some advanced features. So upload your file and those of your family members (with permission of course) now. I wrote instructions about how to upload to MyHeritage here, to and from Family Tree DNA here, and from Ancestry here.
  • If you haven’t tested elsewhere, purchase a kit, or two. The more of your relatives such as parents, siblings (if your parents are gone,) aunts, uncles, cousins that you can test, the more information that can be learned about your genealogy and connections to others. Give DNA kits for the holidays. Take them to family reunions. Thanksgiving is coming. Kits are on sale right now for an amazing $49 each. Click here to purchase.
  • Be thinking about envelopes and stamps that your deceased family members have licked. Who else in your family, that you might be seeing over the holidays might have these types of items? The technology for extracting DNA from these prized genetic heirlooms may finally be ripe. We’re waiting for early samples submitted to see how successful this technology will be.

Party Time!!!

Ok, I know you’ve been patiently waiting for the party pictures.

MyHeritage is sponsoring the EuroVision Song Contest, so we were the lucky beneficiaries.

Two entertainments groups were featured. The first was a Norwegian folk group. The music was awesome, haunting and ethereal. Like nothing I’ve heard before. They actually make some of these sounds with their cheeks.

The second group was a contemporary band and they were amazing too. Did you know that genealogists love to dance? Must be in the genes!

For those of you wondering, yes, I really do have a halo, but it slips from time to time😊 Here’s living proof!

Thanks Gilad, for a great party to celebrate the MyHeritage wonderful new features😊

How exciting to be on the leading edge.

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

My Heritage Live 2018 – DNA Announcements

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This is a quick and dirty update about DNA products and services at the MyHeritage LIVE conference, although increasingly, the line between DNA and rest of genealogy is entirely disappearing.

I spent most of day 1 in the DNA track, as you might imagine.

I’m trying to fit this article in between sessions and dinner so I apologize in advance for the brevity. I’m trying to provide you with the important information in a timely manner, so details and more photos will have to wait for another time.

Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage opened the conference and his keynote session was not only interesting, from a family history perspective, but also full of information about the future products and features.

The next sessions that I attended relative to DNA were:

  • MyHeritage DNA 101 by Ran Snir, the DNA Product Manager
  • MyHeritage DNA: Advanced Features, also by Ran
  • What’s Next: The MyHeritage Genealogy and DNA Roadmap by Maya Lerner, VP Product

The announcements from the above sessions combined were:

  • The MyHeritage DNA data base is now just under 2 million participants.
  • Shared Ancestral Places: Live now. An interactive map of the location and significant life events (birth, death, etc.) of you and your matches. This would be particularly useful if you don’t know how you match, no common surname, but you discover that you both have ancestors in the same location, or close proximity. The locations are geocoded to avoid issues such as spelling and inconsistent data entry.

This map illustrates the shared ancestral locations of other people who match me and my match.

By clicking on the pin above, I can see the location of Oley, PA and without looking further, I can tell you which family line this is.

This feature is not yet on the mobile app, but it will be updated soon.

  • Ancestor Reconstruction: Future feature. If multiple descendants of a particular ancestor test, MyHeritage will create a “kit” for your ancestor and combine the segments from the multiple descendants identified as originating with that ancestor. I have lots of questions about this feature, such as how other ancestors DNA would be eliminated, such as the wives of ancestors for starters. I’ll see if I can obtain clarification. Gilad referred to this as “painting,” but I’m not sure that this feature is painting in the way we think of DNAPainting – so I would not jump the conclusion that it is. What Gilad actually said was that MyHeritage was creating a tool to provide the reconstructed DNA of ancestors.
  • Envelopes and Stamps: Soon. MyHeritage is partnering with a third party (unnamed) firm to extract DNA from envelopes and stamps. The results will used to create a kit for that ancestor at MyHeritage. Cost was not discussed. Multiple extracted samples can be combined to create one more robust kit.
  • This technique will also be used to add the DNA of famous people to their database. Gilad did state in the examples of the people he discussed that they did not have any direct relatives, so he is cognizant of this ethical “brave new world.”
  • X chromosomal information will be added soon.
  • Maternal/paternal side match indicators will be added soon. Beta product shown.
  • Mass segment triangulation: Future. Gilad was asked about mass triangulation, and he stated that they were working on “something even better,” and someone else later added that they were going to do mass triangulations on specific segments.
  • Theory of Family Relativity. Future but under development. When you receive a new match, you will be able, based on the DNA segments PLUS all available and relevant records to view different theories of how this person might fit into your tree. Multiple theories may be shown to the user. Each theory will be presented to the user with a confidence level ranking.
  • Ethnicity update is coming next year. It will be more refined and include more areas. MyHeritage in their Tribal Quest program has been visiting people in remote or isolated locations, helping them to preserve their family stories and sampling their DNA as well. This helps MyHeritage to build reference models against which to compare their customer’s DNA for ethnicity predictions.

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Oslo – Getting Acquainted

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I hope you don’t mind, but you’re coming along with me again on a jaunt.

This time, of course, we’re going to Oslo for MyHeritage LIVE. #MHLIVE2018

The most convenient, meaning the fewest number of connections involved flying overnight and attempting to sleep sitting up in an airline seat. I left Wednesday afternoon and arrived in Oslo Thursday afternoon.

Landing at dawn at in Amsterdam.

That means the day you arrive, you’re terribly jet lagged AND in my case, you’ve walked from one end of the EXTREMELY large Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam to the other. This airport is the only airport I’ve ever seen where distances to gates are given in the number of minutes it takes to walk.

However, Schiphol is fun with lots of interesting shops selling everything from diamonds to chocolate.

The pragmatic Dutch people get right down to brass tacks!

My Scandinavian Connection

Norway has a very frustrating and special connection to me. My mitochondrial DNA full sequence matches are almost all to people from Norway and Sweden. Clearly, our common ancestor before the time of records that can be traced came from there.

My most distant matrilineal ancestor is found in German church records around 1700. Her ancestors were clearly not German, at least not on her mother’s side, and I have to wonder about the 30 Year’s War and if her ancestor wasn’t one of the women who accompanied the Swedish soldiers who marched through almost all of Germany. A map of the locations where Swedes were known to have traveled during that time is shown here. My ancestor was earliest found in the mustard colored region of this map about half way between Bamberg and the  Czech border, labeled Bohemia on the older map.

Somehow, my ancestor found herself in Germany and had children there. The telltale sign is in the J1c2f mitochondrial DNA that I myself carry – a distant vestige of my Scandinavian roots.

I’ve returned to the land of my ancestors – distant and unknown maybe – but my ancestors nonetheless. Illustrated succinctly by my matches throughout Norway and Sweden.

I’ve discovered that I love Scandinavia – and I must admit, for someone who doesn’t much care for the cold – that’s saying something!

Oslo

The airport is located about 54 km from the city itself. Train, bus and taxi service is available (word to the wise, use OsloTaxi if using a taxi) to the city itself.

The conference is being held at the Radisson Blu Hotel.

Notice the greenery on the roof.

I tried to stay awake my first day in Oslo, with a moderate amount of success. I did need lunch, so I now have a favorite new pub.

The atmosphere is wonderful and they have Ginger Joe’s Ginger Beer. I can’t manage to find Joe’s in the States, so if you see any, let me know where I might obtain said Ginger Beer. By the way, Ginger Beer (generically) comes in both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic variety, although Joe’s does have about as much alcohol as near-beer. It’s so pop-like that they often serve it over ice here.

That’s lentil soup and bar bread. Yum!

I love old-world pubs because there is nothing cookie-cutter about them and they all have their own unique personality.

Fantastic atmosphere. I’ll be back before my week here is over.

Friday

The long Scandinavian winter has begun, with dusk beginning about 2:30 and the sun setting about 4 in the afternoon.

Yesterday was relatively clear, but today is rainy and the rest of the week promises to be so as well.

Not to say that it rains a lot here and the residents are used to it, but even the baby buggies have raincoats here.

In case you didn’t know, the troll is the symbol of Norway. They are everyplace, both today and in legend.

At breakfast, I was reminded that the Norwegians have an acute sense of humor.

I googled and discovered that there is a quilt shop in Oslo. I had half a day today, so I decided to find the shop and get to know the city a bit.

Arriving by cab, I discovered the Kathrine Quilte Stue was closed. Thankfully, the cab driver translated the sign, and I heaved a sigh of relief to discover that it was only closed from 11:30-12:30. The time I arrived? 11:32

I walked a block in either direction when I spied a lovely bakery.

It seemed pretty busy, which is always a good sign. I decided to have something healthy for lunch. That is, right up until I went inside.

Here’s my compromise. Avocado toast and a cinnamon bun😊 What do you think?

I have to tell you, this was the best sesame cracker I’ve every tasted. Very savory and crunchy. This is why Scandinavian people generally aren’t heavy. Their health food is so doggone good.

Just ignore that cinnamon roll. Not there. Didn’t happen.

Ok, well, it did, BUT it was sweet but not overly sweet and no icing.

Perfect lunch.

However, it got even better when I discovered the lovely antiquarian book shop next door.

You may not know that I love maps, especially old maps, especially old maps of where my ancestors lived.

This lovely shop purveys maps from around the world. In the owner’s words, “The internet changed everything.”

I would like to have stayed longer, but the quilt shop was calling to me.

For some reason, Scandinavia, with their long cold winters, isn’t terribly interested in either quilts or quilting – with a few exceptions. Kathrine’s shop is cram packed full of quilts, fabric, patterns and more.

Treasures are buried just about everyplace. Of course I found some fabric for a souvenir. How could I not find fabric here?

The rose fabric makes me think of mother, whose ancestor’s were from here someplace of course. Bicycles are such a European thing. Many people ride for basic transportation, especially in the Netherlands.

I was reminded that even though many buildings have been renovated, at least the street-facing exterior, the underlying structure is still old, giving an old-world charm to the portions of buildings not normally seen by customers. This bathroom window is the only ventilation in a bathroom that is about 2 feet by 3 feet – if that large. Literally your knees were touching the door.

I decided I wanted to see the city and the walk back was only a couple of miles. With Google maps, what could possibly go wrong?

Let’s just say I did have a lovely walk through the city, just a bit longer than I anticipated.

Let me share some of the beautiful architecture with you.

Small shops interspersed with apartments.

Very little graffiti here.

Lots of cobblestones.

Plenty of parks and public areas. People walking dogs and children walking alone. Oslo is very safe.

Obviously, business vehicles, but they look like quilt patterns to me. These look like so much fun to drive!

It’s late fall here too.

Norway is one of the wealthiest countries on earth. The standard of living is high and their residents are very happy. Homelessness is almost nonexistent.

This style of stone walls with thick seams is very popular.

I’m not sure what these trees are, but I saw several.

Lots of gardens. This rose bush was not quite ready to surrender to fall just yet.

I love this picture, especially with the lost glove on top of the lower fence by the wall. You might surmise that Oslo is a city by the sea built on hills.

If you walk enough in a strange city, you might just run into a palace. I had no idea that the park I was walking through was actually the palace grounds.

Yes, the palace is guarded.

The palace sits on top of a hill.

Standing here, looking left, the Radisson is the large building just behind the trees.

Who knew?

Not sure what this building is, but there are a lot of embassies and ambassadors’ residences nearby.

Walking around the block behind the hotel, I found a combination antique shop/second hand store. What fun!

Treasure has to do with what you are looking for. Love this old sewing machine. I can image the original owner sewing in the long winter days. Maybe she (or he) made quilts.

I enjoy browsing because places like this always tell me something about the history and culture of the people.

Norwegians love to read.

By this time, the sun was already setting and conference registration had begun.

I met several people this evening at the reception, including many blog followers, and am looking forward to tomorrow’s sessions.

Remember to join by livestream or later, after MyHeritage has had the opportunity to edit and upload the sessions. As soon as it’s announced, I’ll let you know where you can find them. The recorded sessions will be free.

Here’s the link to my article with livestream link and the timezone converter.

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

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Vote, Vote, VOTE!!!

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I may be in Norway for this election, but I voted absentee before I left. That’s my ballot in the yellow envelope in my hand. Voting is a right far, far too critical for anything else to take precedence. Neither rain, nor snow, nor Oslo:)

It profoundly saddened me to walk beneath the flags at half-staff to honor the Jewish people slaughtered in Pittsburgh in order to cast my ballot, but it reminded me in dramatic fashion why voting is so incredibly important.

People Died for Your Right to Vote

February 3, 1870 – that’s the day that the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution guaranteed black people, people of mixed race, or people that had once been slaves the right to vote. Yes, every sort of intimidation tactic imaginable was used to prevent this body of Americans from voting.

This 1869 Thomas Nast cartoon shows everyone at the Thanksgiving dinner table portrayed as equals…well, except the women at the table still weren’t able to vote, nor would they be for another half century.

Why? People in charge were afraid of the outcome of how women or “people of color” might vote. They feared that the sheer number of “other” people’s votes would outnumber their own if those disenfranchised individuals were allowed to vote for representatives and policies that benefitted them. In other words, if everyone that was not a male of pure European descent were able to vote – the control that men of purely European descent exercised over women and everyone of mixed ethnicity would either be diminished or disappear entirely. You can read more about voting rights in America here.

When you discover that your ancestors with so much as “one drop” of non-European blood passed for white as soon as possible, and hid other lineages – this history might give you a clue as to why. Other terribly discriminatory laws and practices related to employment, property ownership and many other rights persisted until as late as 1965 and even though the laws became obsolete then, the practices did not. Even today, the political practice of gerrymandering routinely structures voting districts in a fashion to benefit some and disadvantage others.

Native American people and voting rights – that history is even worse. In order for the original disenfranchised inhabitants of this land to obtain the right to vote, they were required to give up their tribal lands beginning in 1887. However, their right to vote was consistently challenged. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 created to enforce the 14th and 15th constitutional amendments should have ended all controversy, but since then at least 74 lawsuits have been filed with the intention of disenfranchising Native American Voters.

August 26, 1920 – that’s the day in the US that the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution guaranteed women the right to vote.

If you think any of this came easy, it didn’t.

There were marches, protests, jailed protesters while picketing the White House, violence, beatings, lynchings and widespread intimidation. In fact, here’s a gallery of Suffragette prisoners.

If you get the feeling that voting rights are always at least marginally in some form of jeopardy, I’d have to agree. It seems there is always a group of people who would be all too happy to remove the right to vote from another group.

Disenfranchisement is still way too close in my family.

Neither of my grandmothers were allowed to vote until they were adults. Ollie Bolton would have been 44 in 1920 and Edith Lore, 32. I hope they both proudly voted.

My father wouldn’t have been allowed to vote, and neither would his Estes side of the family if the truth were known about their mixed race lineage. They were painfully aware of this situation. Neither would my mother’s grandfather’s line. He was mixed too.

That leaves just my paternal grandmother’s male line and my maternal grandfather’s Dutch and male German lines with the ability to vote. Of course, my Dutch great-grandfather was the immigrant who, ironically, arrived like so many others due to religious discrimination back home.

In other words, more than half of my tree was disenfranchised because they were women, and of the remainder, another half would have been prevented from voting because of their heritage. At one time, only white male property owners over the age of 21 could vote, on top of the other restrictions. More than 75% of my ancestors were disenfranchised one way or another, and that’s not counting the ones who were living in other countries or deported from Canada in 1755 because they were Catholic.

Historically, it seems that voting wasn’t really a right after all, but a privilege restricted to the while, land-owning elite. By and large, they intended to keep it that way too.

I have the ability to vote, thanks to a very long history of sacrifices, and it’s my responsibility to do so.

The Long Road

So here we are, 98 years after women obtained the right to vote, facing a difficult election.

The 2016 US election was the most contentious in living memory, at least in my life, with a very divisive outcome. The sitting president ascended to power not with the majority of popular votes, but with the votes of the electoral college. Translated, this means that based on political districts, in the US, one vote really does not equal one vote today because some districts have more electoral votes than others. You can read more about the electoral college and how it works here.

Regardless of whether we like the system we have in place today, regardless of who wins or loses, it’s what we have to work with. It’s incredibly important that everyone who has the right votes. Apathy is simply putting your future into the hands of the party that happens to get elected, without even so much as a peep out of you. My rule – if you don’t vote you don’t get to complain.

If everyone who didn’t vote in the last election HAD voted, then perhaps either there would have been a clear winner by popular vote (as well as electoral college,) or a different outcome might have occurred altogether.

If everyone who voted for a third-party candidate had voted for one of the two candidates who was going to win, again, either there might have been a clear popular winner, or a different winner. Either outcome, I think, would have been less divisive.

Voting rights were too difficult to obtain not to cherish and utilize them.

Everyone who descends from a Revolutionary War soldier is descended from someone who fought in order that they, and their descendants, would have voting rights, fair representation and a say in their own outcome.

Descended from slaves or Native Americans or soldiers who fought for the North during the (not so) Civil War? They voted with their blood for your right to cast a ballot today.

Family members who fought in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm or the military actions since? Those men and women are commanded by the President, a person voted into power through the votes of you and me.

Voting is the political Facebook. Talking isn’t enough. Nothing matters except for your vote.

People shed blood and died for your right to vote. Your ancestors may have given their lives or served their country in order to preserve that right. Our service members today are doing that very thing.

Honor them.

Vote like your life depends on it, because it may. The lives of our service men and women certainly do. The lives of your descendants will.

It’s your right and your responsibility.

November 6th, for the honor of your ancestors and hope for our collective future…

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research