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Free MyHeritage Video – Top Tips for Triangulating your DNA Matches With Roberta Estes

Roberta Estes

Yesterday’s Facebook LIVE presentation for MyHeritage was lots of fun for everyone, and now it’s available for anyone who might have missed it, here.

I must say, I was stunned that so many people tuned in. We had just under 5000 watching live, with just under 500 comments. There were literally people from all over the world – with perhaps the exception of the locations where it was the dead of night. A day later, there are already more than 9000 views. I hope everyone is enjoying the session.

It felt good to be connected, even if it was electronically. It was still “live.”

I saw people I knew saying “hey,” DNA matches, known cousins, longtime friends, and at least one person with a fairly rare surname from a location that I suspect shares one of my ancestors.

How cool is that?!

For people who are curious about how this works, I was too, so here’s a short explanation.

The Back Story

One day last week, MyHeritage invited me to create this seminar. I thought it would be nice – given that our lives are all disrupted right now.

They suggested half an hour to an hour, including Q&A time, but being just a tad over-zealous, mine went a little long. The entire session, plus Q&A was an hour and a quarter. It’s impossible to do triangulation justice in a short time because the presenter must first explain how and why triangulation works, and why it’s important. You can’t just dive into the middle of that pool.

Also, just to be very clear, I created this video as a volunteer – I wasn’t paid, and I’m not compensated for this or any other article either. I don’t write articles for money or in exchange for anything. If I do receive something, like a book to review that I did not purchase, I say so. My opinions are my own and not for sale.

Working as a member of a worldwide team is interesting, in part because of the time factor. Israel is 7 hours different from my time in the US, so our practice session on Sunday was quite late for their team members, Esther who you met online and Talya, working behind the scenes.

The underlying platform is a product called BeLive which records the session, provides the chat capability and interfaces with Facebook. This means that the computers, cameras and audio (headsets) of all of the people involved must all be compatible with BeLive, given that Esther and Talya are moderating and handling things like which screen is showing and moderating the chat questions. The speaker really can’t do any more than focus on their topic.

I had planned to use my laptop to present against the backdrop of my fireplace in the living room. If you’re going to have a few thousand people “over,” you might as well hostess in the nicest part of your home, right?

BeLive was challenging on my end, to put it mildly. My husband and I both spent several hours, as did Talya and Esther, trying to make things work. The camera and audio on my laptop worked just fine using other platforms, like Skype and Google Hangouts – but absolutely refused to work with BeLive. Even BeLive technical support was baffled. Nothing worked – although my husband, not to be bested by a computer, installed the desktop version of BeLive (which wasn’t supposed to be necessary), then uninstalled the plugins and reinstalled them, toggled the camera, and it magically began to work. But by that time, I had already changed courses.

Compounding the challenge, my laptop, in the midst of those efforts, just died – as in spontaneously went entirely black. No, the battery wasn’t dead, and no, I didn’t have confidence after that. I was afraid that “sudden death” would happen in the middle of the presentation. I always have to be vigilant, because Murphy lives with me and is ever-present, always lurking about.

I made the decision to shift to my desktop. It’s a newer system, but so new that it’s not entirely configured yet, I hadn’t yet used it for webinars, and I’m not completely familiar with how things work in that new environment either.

Thankfully, BeLive worked well on the desktop system and we were able to complete our practice run. It was past time for Talya and Esther to hit the hay, but I needed to clean my office, at least the part behind and beside me, where viewers could see.

So, if you’re wondering if my desk is always entirely clear, the answer would be a resounding “no.” I wasn’t about to have a messy office with company coming over😊

Actually, one of the things I liked when I watched the other MyHeritage Facebook LIVE sessions with Daniel Horowitz and Ran Snir was the homey nature. You know the presenters are recording from someplace in their house and I felt grateful to them for making that extra effort.

DNA Kits Aren’t Quarantined

You might not be able to visit grandma or your relatives, but you can still order DNA tests and have them delivered through the mail. Mother’s Day is May 10th. Order those DNA tests, here. Your gift to them and their DNA gift to you will continue solving family mysteries forever.

The Video

Now that you’ve learned more about the video production aspect than you ever wanted to know, you can watch the presentation online by clicking on the video, below. This part is super easy!

Note that it has been reported that this embedded link is not viewable in Firefox, so please use Chrome. If you do not see the video displayed below and can’t click to view, just click here.

Enjoy!!!

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