Writing Ancestor Articles in 12 Easy Steps

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Roberta Estes

You might notice that this article is in place of my normal 52 Ancestors article I publish every weekend. That’s because I didn’t get this week’s article finished. Sometimes life just gets in the way, plus, the ancestor I was working on has a HUGE amount of research data to sift through. I’ve worked on this family for decades now, as have others and I want to be sure to include everything that is correct and relevant, and exclude those items that are not. Easier said than done in some cases.

Lots of people have asked how I go about the research for these articles, so I’d like to share that with you, in the hope that you too will do something similar. If you don’t publish accurate information about your ancestor in one form or another, who will?

Not The Same As A Book

I’ve written books before, both specialized books in the technology field and books about specific ancestral lines. The weekly articles I write about just one ancestor are really different from books, although when I began the 52 Ancestors series two and a half years ago, I didn’t realize how different, or why.

First of all, if you look at writing a book, that’s an overwhelming task that you’ll do “someday.” Do you know how many books have gone to the grave in people’s heads? Surely more than have been written. But anyone can write just one article, then one more. Then, one day, before you know it, you do have a book. Voila.

These articles are different from books in other ways too.

When I was writing a book about a line or lineage of ancestors, I was not focused on just one person, but on the story of that particular lineage, which of course included every ancestor in that line. However, I never focused on just the story of any one person disconnected from the rest. I focused on all of the people in that line in the context of their relationships to the other people. In other words, I never looked at John Doe from birth to death, from only his perspective. Instead, in a book, John Doe is a son, he marries, moves to another state, has children and dies. There is little in the story about what was happening in his life at different times. How those events like warfare or drought or economic conditions might have affected him. In other words, the 52 Ancestors stories take each individual person from cradle to grave and it’s their story and theirs alone. I also write it as a story, their story, with as much empathy and detail as I can muster. In other words, I try to walk in their shoes.

Of course, this too has presented some challenges, because I don’t want these stories to be boring and repeat information presented in parents’, children’s and spouse’s stories, so I try to utilize different information so that these individual stories could be combined into book format without too much duplicate information. So no, you won’t find the same level of detail about the 1816 famine in Europe in the father, mother, son, son’s wife, son’s wife’s parents, or their children’s stories. You may find mention of it, but only one story will have the details. Therefore, to really have the whole picture, you probably should read the story of each ancestor.

For example I generally list the children for John Doe, but I often go into more detail about the children, who they married and what happened to them in the wife’s story. Why? Because often the wife has less information – she didn’t own land, she didn’t vote, she (generally) didn’t go to court and normally didn’t get herself thrown out of church for drinking and swearing – so I save the children’s detail for her story so the stories are more balanced.

Research, Then and Now

While I attempt to compile and finalize a story each week, most of the research is not performed today. In fact, these stories have been an attempt for me to organize my information and file information away forever. I have a rule that the file folder cannot go into the file cabinet before the information in the folder is processed. Once it is in the file cabinet, it really should NEVER have to come out again.

And yes, I’m dead serious. I know that when I pass over, it’s likely that those folders will never see the light of day except maybe in the trash truck on the way to the dumpster – so I’m making sure all of that cumulative information is scanned and published which will hopefully make it more permanent. Yes, I’m also printing it, and donating it to relevant libraries. However the internet being what it is, I’m counting on the folks who are “gathering” to attach these stories to their tree records at Ancestry, etc., where, as we know, they will live into infamy! Yes, in essence, I’m hoping my ancestor stories become a sort of genealogical virus, infesting the genealogical community to last forever. I figure it’s going to happen anyway, so I might as well take advantage of the phenomenon.

Let’s take a look at the various steps in the process.

Step 1 – Gather All Information

Step 1 is to gather all the information you have. I guarantee you, if you have researched very long, you will have information you’ve forgotten about and it’s probably scattered in various folders. Mine is. Gather it all together in one place.

Step 2 – Add Local History Resources

In addition to information directly about my ancestor, I check local and county history books for information about the family. You never know what you may find in a child’s vanity article that will provide information about their parents – or grandparents – for example. It was through a vanity story that I discovered that my Brethren ancestor married a German Lutheran and secondly, a non-German BAPTIST!!! Holy chimloda. Today, this isn’t remarkable, but when he did it, it was.

Many local genealogy societies have published genealogical history books where their membership has been encouraged to write articles about their ancestors. Often, these include photos and stories as well, so it’s always wise to check both local history books and more contemporary publications by genealogy societies.

Step 3 – Make a Timeline

Often, but not always, I make a timeline. When I have multiple people and families in the same location, I always make a timeline. This makes it easier to understand chronological order as well as see relationships. When you write the story, you can write it in chronological order as well. In some cases, where I have extracted huge amounts of information by surname in order to discern family relationships, I have created a spreadsheet that is sortable by column, so I can find surnames, locations, and more. In the example spreadsheet below, the Places column would include locations in deeds such as stream names.

Obviously, a timeline can be done in this manner as well. This is particularly useful when employing the FAN principle, Family, Associates and Neighbors. In other words, if I found Joseph Abbott consistently witnessing deeds for my family, I would begin to ask if and how he might be related. As it turns out, this Halifax County spreadsheet served to help me DISPROVE the family connected to John Moore. There were at least two Moore families, not related as eventually proven by Y DNA, in Halifax County quite early. DNA was a Godsend to the Moore lines, but so was the timeline spreadsheet because between the two, it allowed me to sort the families.

Step 4 – Add Events Into the Timeline

Normally, the events we track for people are:

Birth
Marriage
Children’s Births
Death

There is a lot more that affected their lives. Did their grandparents live during their lifetimes? When did the grandparents pass away? Do we know where they are buried, because if you do, you know what your ancestor was doing that day, and where.

Religion

Whatever religion they followed, it’s likely that religion was fundamentally important to your ancestors. One common thread in my family seems to be that they were extremely devoted to their chosen religion. I have hard core Catholics, Lutherans, Brethren, Mennonites, Protestants (1709ers), and more. What was happening in that time and place relative to their religion? Add this information into the timeline.

Warfare

Did your ancestor serve in the military? Was your ancestor the wife waiting at home? If so, how might she have survived? How did the war affect the life of your ancestors? Were the wars fought on their home ground? How did they go to war? Did they walk? Can you find a regimental history? If your ancestor served in the US, don’t forget to order their entire record packet from the National Archives and check Fold3.com.

Whatever you can find, add into the timeline.

Deaths

Did they have children that died? If you don’t know the answer, are there “gaps” in the census of more than 2 years between children’s births that suggest a child might have been born and died? Where would that child have been buried? Was there a cemetery on their property, such as was common in colonial America, especially in the south, or was it customary to bury the dead in a churchyard, such as in Europe?

Is the grave still there today? Have you checked Find-A-Grave?

How do local customs affect burials? For example, in Europe, graves are reused, but often in the same family. In one case, in the Netherlands, we found my ancestors grandchildren buried in the plots he bought, so he too was likely buried there at one time.

Step 5 – Find or Scan Documents

Everyone loves a story book with pictures. Obtain relevant documents for your ancestor and include them. The best item is one with their signature because a signature is so personal.

Deed and will books are not original signatures, as the clerks copied the deeds and wills into the book. Only the original deed or will, which went with the owner, had the original signatures, sadly.

However, applications for bounty land, receipts, some estate documents, some marriage license applications, some naturalization applications and petitions all have original signatures. Chancery suits are Godsends because often some records from those suits are retained, and even if your ancestor isn’t the plaintiff or defendant, they may be mentioned in a relevant way.

I’ve also found my ancestors’ signatures and information about their life in other people’s chancery suits. Like the time a couple got divorced and my ancestor, a Methodist preacher, had originally married them. He testified he though they were “simple” at the time he married them and told about their wedding day. He also signed his deposition. The Library of Virginia has indexed every chancery suit by every name in the suit and it’s a goldmine. Not all counties are complete, but many are

In addition, finding your ancestor’s deeds from the deed books, wills, estate inventories, and naturalization records all lend to the historic feel of the articles.

Sometimes an article is delayed when I discover an item exists that I don’t have, or that I have not checked all relevant sources. The good news is that today, many times, the clerk or other official, depending on the item type, will scan and e-mail you the requested items, so obtaining them is easier than ever before.

Don’t forget libraries in your search either. You never know what kind of resources of files they might have. I’ve had wonderful items from local newspapers sent from librarians more than once.

Step 6 – Be Anal

After you assemble everything, go back over what you have to answer the question “What don’t I have?” Go back and check one more time. Check Genweb, Rootsweb, Ancestry, WikiTree, Fold3, AmericanAncestors.org, Newspapers.com, MyHeritage, FindMyPast, FamilySearch and any other subscription source you follow. You never know what new record sources are available now that were not before. Records are being indexed every single day.

You also don’t know who might have posted photos, stories, etc., that are new.

Furthermore, check your original records and notes in your file. You will, I guarantee, see things you didn’t see before. In one case, I realized that somehow, I had overlooked in one census that the oldest child was listed with the wife’s maiden name – but just in one census. In subsequent census schedules, the child was listed with the husband’s surname which he used throughout his life. Later, DNA testing confirmed that the child whose surname was not that of the husband in the first census after they were married was not the child of the husband. Obviously no secret then, but being “discovered” now, it could be a scandal, had that census not recorded that the child was the wife’s, clearly before the marriage.

Step 7 – Document

Document your sources. Yes, I know, you’re groaning and I do too. I initially thought I would, of course, never forget, so I didn’t document some of my early sources. Pox on me. I don’t make that mistake now.

If you check a source and your ancestor is NOT there, sometimes that’s just as telling too. Don’t just omit that information and not write it down. Absence is informational as well. Document the source and that they were absent.

In one case, who is IN the census and on tax lists, and ABSENT from the militia rosters tells us who was likely a member of the Brethren faith in a particular county during the Revolutionary War when militia duty was mandatory.

When you have an unidentified wife, which happens constantly with the Brethren who did not believe in civil marriages so they didn’t obtain marriage licenses, this is one way to identify who her family might have been. Early Brethren also didn’t keep church records. Pox on them.

A Brethren male would only have married a Brethren female (or been thrown out of the church, unless she converted), so the list of who is absent from the militia rosters is a virtual pick list of who the wife’s family might be. Later, when you begin to get DNA matches on that line to unexplained Brethren families, look on the “non-militia” list. You might be surprised. So, in this case, “absent” might just the clue to breaking down a brick wall!

Step 8 – Find Their Land

I love to actually go back to where my ancestors lived and as one of my genealogist friends says, “walk the walk.” On my own personal list, that is a #1 priority and my bucket list items are almost all comprised of “walk the walk” places.

My top 3 right now?

Acadia in Nova Scotia
Plymouth Plantation
Germany

Yes, I’m making plans for all 3.

When possible, and with permission of course, I take a rock from each place and bring them home to my garden, so my ancestors are all with me, both outside, in the garden, and inside (DNA.)

However, there are other ways to find their land that are almost as good. Google maps is an incredible tool. Old deeds often include landmarks such as creek names, churches, cemeteries, etc. Often, old plat or tax maps still exist that can help as well, especially if you can track their land backward or forwards to the time of that map to locate the land through the then-current owner.

Using Google, or in person, you can locate the land today and view the old homestead if it still exists, the land, their church and even cemeteries. All without leaving your chair. I know there are places I’ll never be able to visit in person, so Google maps is quickly becoming one of my best friends.

Even in Europe, where Street View is not utilized, satellite viewing is enabled and you can still “see.” Additionally, along the bottom bar, often Google Maps links to photos where the photographer has tagged the location you are searching for, or nearby, and you can then view their photographs.

Step 9 – Find Their DNA

After testing yourself and any family members you can convince to test, you’ll discover which ancestors DNA you have and which you do not. By this I mean, if you are a male, you automatically have available to you information about your mitochondrial and Y DNA. This means, of course, that you have information about your father’s Y DNA, his father’s Y DNA, on up the tree – shows by the blue squares to the left below.

Conversely, your mtDNA is inherited from your mother, her mother, on up the tree, so you have some information about those ancestors directly. These are shown in the red circles to the right, below. Unfortunately, females only carry mitochondrial DNA, so they have to find males, such as brothers or fathers or uncles to identify their paternal line DNA.

For other people whose mitochondrial and/or Y DNA you don’t personally carry, you will have to find people who descend appropriately to test.

For example, you don’t carry your father’s mtDNA, because he carries his mother’s DNA and males don’t pass mtDNA on to their children. To find your father’s mitochondrial information, you’ll need to test your father. Don’t have access to test your father? Then test one of his siblings, or his sister’s children, since only women pass mitochondrial DNA on to their children. You may have to be creative with hunting for specific relatives whose DNA you need to complete their, and your, ancestral genetic information.

Here’s an example of what my DNA pedigree chart looks like.

You’ll notice that I have managed to identify the haplogroup information for several lines, but there are still others I need, and a few that have died out.

When you’re out of cousins to test directly, check MitoSearch and YSearch.org.

Also check trees at Ancestry to see if you can find someone who descends appropriately and ask them if they have had their Y or mtDNA tested. If not, offer to provide that test.

Autosomal matches at Ancestry show you how you and your match descend from a common ancestor – so check those matches for people eligible to take either the Y or mtDNA test.

Unfortunately, we still don’t have any good tools to discover genetic lineage and who has tested for mtDNA. By this, I mean you can’t enter your ancestor’s name and find out who descends from her that has tested. But I have my fingers crossed that this will be a feature someday.

Sometimes, just publishing the article will be the key to finding a tester. You never know. And let’s face it, these articles are cousin-bait.

If there is any, and I do mean any, question in your mind about how valuable and informative Y and mitochondrial DNA can be – just read these two articles.

Y- DNA – Jakob Lenz (1748-1821), Vinedresser, 52 Ancestors #128

mtDNA – Elisabetha Mehlheimer (c1800-C1851) and Her Scandinavian Mito-Cousins, 52 Ancestors #24

The Y and mitochondrial DNA provides information that isn’t possible to discover any other way – the deep ancestry of that particular line. You have shortchanged yourself, and your ancestor, if you don’t make every attempt to discover their Y and mtDNA haplogroups and the historical information that comes along with the haplogroup designation.

Step 10 – Google is Your Friend

Aside from Google maps, Google is your friend. Google your ancestor’s name and location. Google his wife’s name, both maiden and married, and location. Google just the location with the word “history” following. Google in different ways to find information that might not appear on your first Google search.

People write blogs now and it’s easy to create a webpage. They contribute to GenWeb. They post photos and memorials to Find-A-Grave. The old Rootsweb list and boards, which are often sadly inactive now, are wonderful resources. Ancestry bought the Genealogy.com boards and while you can no longer post, they have preserved the postings and threads which were already there, which are also goldmines. Don’t forget about social media resources like Facebook. Some people have started family pages there.

Furthermore, many local history books, especially those whose copyrights have now expired are available through various scanning initiatives.

So, Google, Google, Google.

Step 11– Revisit Earlier Conclusions

There is nothing I hate worse than proving my own work wrong – and I can’t tell you how often I’ve done just that. The only person who doesn’t make mistakes is the person who does nothing. My only possible excuse is that I never set out to be a genealogist, there were no “instructions” in those early years, I’ve been doing this for 38 years now and I’ve learned one heck of a lot!

Today, you may have far more information than you did when you formed earlier opinions. You may have learned more about cultural and social norms affecting your ancestor where they lived. You may have been flat out wrong or just overlooked something that is obvious now, but wasn’t then.

Don’t just accept what you, or anyone else for that matter, has previously written, without scrutiny in light of the information you currently have.

In one case, I made a logical assumption that was wrong. After a woman’s husband died, in the next census, an older invalid male was living with her. My assumption was that it MIGHT have been a sibling, hence, his name MIGHT have been her maiden name. I did phrase it that way. Unfortunately, when that information was repeated, the word MIGHT never got included, and today, after later finding her husband’s War of 1812 pension application that contains not only her maiden name, but the name of her father as well – I constantly have to do battle with records that reflect my own logical, but incorrect, earlier surname commentary. Often, people have grown attached to that wrong name, and refuse to change it.

If you don’t know, say you don’t know. If the information is ambiguous or confusing, say so, and why. Perhaps someday someone will find something that clarifies the situation.

Step 12 – Be With Your Ancestor

I know this sounds a bit bizarre, but when I write these articles, each article gives me the opportunity to “be with” that ancestor, focusing on only them, for a week, or more, at a time. I get to see through their eyes, as much as I can in this lifetime. I get to experience what they experienced, as best we are able from our perspective today. The ONLY way I can do that, though, is to understand their world, not just within the family in terms of who was being born and baptized, but in terms of what was going on around them at that time.

One of my favorite items that allows me to “be with” my ancestors are estate inventories. Those are the closest we will ever come to peeking inside their homes. I’ve learned a great deal about what they do, their skills, and even if they distilled liquor. I just can’t tell you how much I love estate inventories.

Often, after I’m done researching and organizing, I take a walk or otherwise just allow my ancestor’s experiences and life to just kind of simmer and percolate for a day or two.

Write Your Article

You may have noticed that I name each 52 Ancestors article. Each person has something that is defining or remarkable about their life.

My friend knew that her great-grandfather had been shot and killed. The story was rather hush-hush and no one would discuss it in her family. She ordered the old newspaper films from that location into her local Family History Center.

I was there the night she found the newspaper article about her great-grandfather’s death. She emitted a shriek that rivaled any smoke detector. We weren’t sure if that was a death rattle or just what, so all of the patrons and librarians went running in her direction. She couldn’t even talk. As we’re all fawning over her, she just gasped and pointed to the microfilm reader in front of her where the front page newspaper headline said, “Shot on the Whore House Steps.” Yep, it was her great-grandfather and yep, I’d say that was a defining event.

Now that you’ve gathered the information about your ancestor, sifted and sorted the correct and relevant from the chaff, organized it as best you can, you’ll need to decide how to write the article. In general, I utilize the timeline methodology, with a few segways. I find this to be easiest to follow, in most cases. The segways are often for historical discussions about things that were occurring or relevant socially and adds flavor to their life. After the segway, which is in the timeline-appropriate place, I continue with the events of my ancestor’s lives. I try very hard to write these articles with a narrative story feel and not the dry names and dates feel that genealogy often has. I want their life experiences to come through, for people who read the article to know them as people and see life through their eyes.

I want you to leave the story knowing what a vinedresser is, even though you had never heard this word before. I want you to know what they do, when, and why. I want my grandchildren to be inspired by these stories and to know the people well enough that when the story is over, they want to go and play “Jakob the vinedresser” and have enough information to do so.

I often don’t name these articles until during or after I write them, because it’s really not until after I utilize every scrap of information that I can discover about their lives, and percolated a bit, that I feel I “know” them well enough to select an article name. More often than not, the article pretty much names itself…or maybe it’s my ancestor helping out.

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Concepts – Relationship Predictions

Posted on August 4, 2016 by Roberta Estes

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One of the ways people utilize autosomal DNA for genealogical matching is by looking for common segments of DNA that match with known, or unknown, relatives. When the relationship to the person is unknown, we attempt to utilize how much DNA we share with that person as a predictor of how, or at what level, we’re related to them – so in essence where or how far back we might look in our tree for a common ancestor.

Until recently, the best estimate we had in terms of how much DNA someone of a particular relationship (like first cousin) could be expected to share both in terms of percentages and also cMs (centiMorgans) of DNA was the table on the ISOGG wiki page. Often, these expected averages didn’t mesh well with what the community was seeing in reality.

Recently, Blaine Bettinger’s crowdsourced Shared cM Project reported the averages for each relationship level, plus the range represented from lowest to highest in a project where more than 10,000 people participated by providing match information.

Additionally, before publication, Blaine worked with a statistician to remove outliers in each category that might represent data entry errors, etc. Not only did Blaine write a nice blog article about this latest data release, he also wrote a corresponding paper that is downloadable that includes tables and histograms not in his blog.

I am constantly looking between the two sources, meaning the ISOGG table and Blaine’s paper, so as an effort in self-preservation, I combined the information I use routinely from the two tables – and did some analysis in the process. Let’s take a look.

The Combined Expected cM and Actual Shared cM Chart

On the chart below, the two yellow headed columns are the Expected Shared cMs from the ISOGG table and Blaine’s Shared cM Average – which is the average amount of DNA that was actually found. These, along with the percent of shared DNA are the columns I use most often, followed by Blaine’s minimum and maximum which are the ranges of matching DNA found for each category. As it turns out, the range is incredibly important – perhaps more important than the averages expected or reported – because the ranges are what we actually see in real life.

I’ve also included the number of respondents, because categories with a larger number of respondents are more likely to be more accurate than categories with only a few, like great-great-aunt/uncle with only 6.

It’s interesting that the greatest number of respondents fell into the aunts/uncles niece/nephew category with second cousins once removed a very close contender.

These were followed by the next closest categories being, in order; first cousins, second cousins, first cousins once removed, second cousins once removed and third cousins.

Note: If you downloaded this chart on August 4, 2016, there was an error in the maximum number of first cousins trice removed. On August 5, 2016, it was corrected to read 413.

You can see that in reality, all categories except two produced larger than the expected cM value. One category was equal and one was smaller (yes I checked to be sure I hadn’t transcribed incorrectly). Actual numbers with higher values are peach colored, lower is green and white is equal.

Most averages aren’t dramatically different for close relationships, but as you move further out, the difference in the averages is significantly greater. Beginning with third cousins once removed, and every category below that in the chart, the actual average is more than twice that of the expected average. In addition, the ranges for all categories are wider than expected, especially the further out you go in terms of relationships.

We often wonder why the relationship predictions, especially beyond first or second cousins vary so widely at the testing companies and GedMatch. In the chart above, you can see that beyond first cousins, the ranges begin to overlap.

Ranges of the same relationship degree should share the same percentages and theoretically, the same amounts of DNA, but they don’t. You can see that the cells marked in red are all 4th degree relatives. However, half first cousins show a maximum of 580, with the two following rows showing 704 and 580 – all 4th degree relatives. There’s a pretty significant difference between 580 and 704.

Through 5^th degree relatives, everyone matched at some level, meaning the minimum is above zero, but beginning with 6^th degree relatives, row highlighted in yellow, some people did not match relatives at that level, meaning the minimum is zero.

In the last 4 rows on the chart, 15^th, 16^th and 17^th degree relatives, marked with light aqua, where academically we “should” share 0% of our DNA, we see that the observed average is from 7 to 11 cM and the range is up to 29 cM.

An example of why predictions are so difficult is that if you are on the high end of the 4^th cousins range, a 9th degree relative with 91 shared cMs of DNA, you are also right at the average between 6^th and 7^th degree relatives which fall into the half second cousin or third cousin range.

Without relationship knowledge, the vendor, based on averages, is going to call this relationship a 2^nd or 3^rd cousin, when in reality, it’s a 4^th cousin. Most vendor relationship predictions are based on a combination of total shared cMs and longest block, but still, it’s easy to be outside the norm. In other words, not only does one size not fit all, it probably doesn’t fit most.

Graphs

For me, graphs help make information understandable because I can see the visual comparison.

These overlapping ranges are much easier to visualize using charts. Please note that you can click on any image for a larger view.

The values and ranges for 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree relatives are so much larger than more distant relatives, that you can’t effectively see the information for more distant relatives, so I’ve broken the charts apart, below.

This first chart, above, shows third degree relatives and closer. Note that the purple maximum for aunts/uncles, nieces/nephews is larger than the minimum for full siblings and greater than the red average or blue expected for half-siblings.

This second chart shows the more distant relationships, meaning 4th degree through 17th degree relatives, but the more distant relationships are still difficult to see, so let’s switch to bar charts and smaller groups.

This first bar chart includes parent/child through first cousins relationships, or 1st through 3rd degree relatives. You can see that the first cousin maximum range (purple) overlaps the aunt/uncle, grandparents and half-sibling minimum ranges (green.) Half sibling max and full sibling minimum are very close.

The balance of relationships are a bit small to view in one chart, but the ranges do overlap significantly. Unfortunately, Excel does us the favor of skipping some labels on the left side of the chart.

Removing the legend helps a bit, but not much. Please refer to the color legend in the same graph above. I’ve further divided the groups below.

The chart above shows 4th degree to 9th degree relatives, meaning great-great-aunts or uncles through 4th cousins.

The same chart, above, with the legend removed to allow for more viewing space. You’ll notice that at the half second cousins level, and more distant, the green minimum disappears, which means that some people have no matches, so the minimum cM shared is zero for some people with this relationship level. However, based on the average and maximum, many people do share DNA with people at that relationship level.

The chart above begins with 7^th degree relatives, half second cousins, where you share less than 1% of your DNA.

In many cases, the purple maximum range for one relationship category overlaps Blaine’s average and the expected values for other categories. For example, in the chart below, you can see that the maximum purple bar for the various 5th cousin ranges is higher than the third cousin, twice removed red shared cM average, and significantly higher than the blue expected shared cM value. In fact, the 6th cousin purple max is nearly the same as the blue expected cM for third cousins once removed. Note that Excel showed only every other category on the left hand axis, so you’ll need to refer to the actual data chart from time to time.

I’ve removed the legend again so you can see the actual stacked ranges more clearly. All of the 7th degree relatives have a minimum of zero, so there is no green bar. Furthermore, at 5th cousins twice removed, the expected shared cMs drops to below 1, so the blue bar is nearly indistinguishable.

This last chart shows the smallest group, 9th through 17th degrees, or 4th through 8th cousins.

On this final chart, we clearly see that Blaine’s actual red shared cMs and the purple maximum are significantly more pronounced than the blue expected shared cMs. Some people share no DNA at this level, which is to be expected, but a non-trivial number of people share significantly more than is mathematically expected. There are no absolutes.

Summary

DNA is not always inherited in the fashion or amount expected, and that wide variance is why we see what people believe are “false positive” relationship predictions. In reality, the best the vendors can do is to work with the averages. This also explains why it’s so difficult for us to estimate or determine how a person might be connected based just on the relationship or generational prediction. It’s just that, a prediction based on averages which may or may not reflect reality.

There’s a lot we don’t know yet about inheritance – why certain segments are passed on, often intact, sometimes for many generations, and some segments are not. We don’t know how segments are “selected” for inheritance and we don’t yet know why some segments appear to be “sticky” meaning they show up more in descendants than other segments.

Close relationships are relatively easy, or easier, to predict, at least by relationship degree, but further distant ones are almost impossible to predict accurately based on either academic inheritance models or Blaine’s crowdsourced average cM information.

Here’s a clean copy of the combined chart for your use.

Note: If you downloaded this chart on August 4, 2016, there was an error in the maximum number of first cousins trice removed. On August 5, 2016, it was corrected to read 413.

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Game of Genomes

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Roberta Estes

STAT is featuring a wonderful series called the Game of Genomes.

In this series, Carl Zimmer, a journalist, had his full genome sequenced AND managed to obtain the BAM file – which is no small feat. If you want to know why, you’ll need to read the article where he describes this saga.

In order to have his full genome sequence analyzed, Carl hand delivered the hard drive that his BAM file arrived on to a team of scientists. Turning to several individuals at universities who used him as a case study, he is referenced as “Individual Z.”

Graduate students poured over his results, and then met with Carl to tell him what they found.

The great thing about this article is that, first, Carl writes about this extremely technical topic in a way that is understandable and interesting for normal air-breathing humans. No graduate degree required.

Second, and the part I find fascinating, is that Carl’s experience lets us peek beneath the hood into the underpinnings of the world of genomic sequencing along with giving us a periscopic view into the future.

Most people don’t realize we’re still on the frontier. Carl is on the very edge of that frontier.

You can read the series here. Keep scrolling for episodes – below the graphics. To date, 5 episodes have been published. At the end, you can sign up for the next episode.

Lastly, you can view the Supplemental Materials produced by the various labs here. Those are fascinating as well – but more technical in nature.

Burning Questions

So, I have to ask…

How brave are you?

Carl was told that he had 3,559,137 “differences” when compared to the reference human genome. Difference = mutation. Some of those differences could be protective, some could be carriers of disease, meaning they don’t affect Carl but would affect a child if his wife also carried that mutation, some could be harmless, some could be disease producing, and some could be deadly.

These differences have the potential to represent the full range of outcomes – and along with the outcomes – the full range of emotional terror – from nothing to full blown panic attack.

Carl also has some “broken genes.” We all do. Mostly, they don’t matter…but some could, would and do. Carl’s apparently don’t – at least not much.

Would you want to know?

Would you want to know only if there was something that could be done?

Would this depress you or help you to plan your life more effectively?

Would this knowledge cause you anxiety or empower you? Maybe even inspire you?

Keep in mind that what we think we know today is often revised tomorrow – especially on the leading, sometimes bleeding, edge.

Read the article and share your thoughts.

Having worked on the leading edge of technology for 30+ years and genetic genealogy for 15+, I can tell you that I would jump at this opportunity in a heartbeat. I must carry two copies of the “incessant compulsion to learn” gene!

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Family Tree DNA Introduces Phased Family Finder Matches

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Roberta Estes

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Family Tree DNA has released a first of its kind tool that sorts your matches into parental buckets by utilizing tests performed on parents and close relatives.

On your matches page, if your parents or other close relatives have tested, and their tests are linked on your tree, your matches will be grouped into maternal or paternal buckets, or both, utilizing a proprietary matching and phasing algorithm. You can see the appropriate bucket icon beside the match photo, as well as new tabs at the top to allow you to view your paternal, maternal or matches to both parents.

If your parents haven’t tested, or aren’t linked, your maternal, paternal and both tabs at the top of your page will reflect “0” and they won’t be relevant to you. However, if your parents or other close relatives have tested, your tab, after processing, will show the number of individuals that fall into maternal, paternal or both match buckets. Close relatives, at this point, are defined as parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and first cousins.

This is not just a sorting of matches, based on names of who matches you and a parent, like the “In Common With” tool, but true parental phasing. Each person deposited into a maternal or paternal bucket as a match must match you and your parent or otherwise designated individual in a prescribed way including:

On the same segment
At a specific threshold

The Phasing Threshold is Higher

The threshold to be indicated as a maternal or paternal match is higher than the normal matching threshold – so some people who do match you and a parent won’t be assigned to a bucket.

Why?

Acting conservatively, Family Tree DNA wants to be positive that this person really does fall into that bucket. You’ll notice that the example individual has 3 people that match both parents. At a lower threshold, there were a lot more dual matches when the product was in testing. At higher threshold levels, people tend to distinctly fall into one bucket or the other in non-endogamous populations. It was actually surprising how many people do legitimately match both parents.

So, to be clear, there are two thresholds in play here:

The normal Family Finder matching threshold that must be matched or exceeded to be shown as a match
The phasing threshold to be shown as a maternal or paternal match

You will notice that some people who do match both you and a parent do not have a maternal or paternal indicator. That does NOT mean they don’t match you and a parent, but it does mean that the match was at a lower level, or not on the same segment, so Family Tree DNA feels that they can’t positively be assigned to a bucket. That doesn’t mean you should disregard them, but you probably should utilize the stronger matches first and scrutinize non-assigned matches closely by downloading your Chromosome Browser results.

Roughly 10-15 percent of your matches tend to be identical by either chance or population, and that percentage is higher in endogamous groups. The dual thresholds are meant to minimize those ambiguous matches, yet leave them on your match list for you to analyze. This is the best approach that provides an intuitive easy visual for those who want that type of approach, but allowing thorough analysis for those who prefer that methodology. Personally, I like using them together. The buckets are an easy way to quickly see which side your strongest matches are assigned to. Given the dual threshold approach, the fact that a match is assigned to a bucket immediately indicates the strength of the match – so it’s a quick and easy gauge.

ICW is Improved

Additionally, you can now utilize the ICW (In Common With) tool, which has moved to the top of the match list, by clicking on the check on the left of the match and then clicking on either “In Common With” or “Not In Common With” to see who else matches, or doesn’t.

You may be very surprised to see that your “in common with” list for a match from your father’s side also includes people from your mother’s side. This is, of course, a red flag as to the validity of that particular paternal ICW match – and it’s so easy to spot now with the parental icons.

Please note that if you utilize the ICW tool when you are on your “All” tab, you will see all ICW matches, but if you are on the paternal, maternal or both tab, and utilize the ICW tool, you will ONLY see people that are ICW on that side of your tree.

So, for example, John Doe, a paternal cousin, matches me and my father and has the blue paternal icon assigned. On my “All” tab, utilizing he ICW tool, I see that John Doe and I have two matches in common. One of those matches is from my father’s side and one from my mothers. It’s easy to see looking at the blue and red icons. Now, if I go to my “Paternal” tab and then perform the ICW comparison with John Doe, ONLY the ICW match from the paternal side will show. You need to be cognizant of where you are on the tabs in terms of what the ICW tool matches mean.

Eligibility

In order for an individual to be eligible for maternal or paternal matching, they must have linked themselves to their parent or other close relative on their tree, not only in terms of name, but in terms of having DNA tested. In other words, the individual on your tree has to be linked to a tested individual in the system.

The Family Tree DNA Learning Center shows how to do this here. Please read this information in the Matches Section before linking people to learn about link hints.

In some cases, if names are different, you won’t have a link hint. For example, my mother is in my tree with her maiden name, but she tested under her married name, so I didn’t have a link hint. Link hints only work when Family Tree DNA can recognize the same names. When I linked the two, meaning my mother’s kit to her name in my tree, the software changed her name to the name on her test kit. So, I’ll be changing the name on her test kit to her maiden name:)

By going to your tree and clicking on DNA matches in the upper left hand corner, you will see a list of your matches and you can select an individual and drag them to the same person in your tree. In this case, I’ve already done that with my mother, so the link is blue and I see the “already in your tree” message, but if that person wasn’t linked, the link wouldn’t show and I would see a “click and drag to your tree” message instead.

Not Just Parents

In my case, my mother has tested, but my father is long deceased, so there is no testing for him. If I have uncles or even 1st cousins, I can link them to the paternal side of my tree and if matches match both me and my paternal family member utilizing the phasing criteria, they will be displayed as paternal matches.

Summary

This is a great new tool and the first of its kind in the industry that is actually performing parental phasing as well as utilizing other family members to replace missing parents.

Family Tree DNA has been preparing for this release for some time behind the scenes with the recently revamped tree user interface and the matching update released a month or so ago. This is very exciting, especially for people who want to see at a glance without having to download a chromosome browser spreadsheet who is maternal and paternal.

Additionally, the new software allows us to link people tested to our tree. In my case, I had an ancestor only tree, so I’ve been busy expanding my paternal side of the tree to accommodate all of those cousins I’ve recruited to test because I want those easy-to-see paternal buckets and I can’t test my father.

Family Tree DNA isn’t done either, so do expand your tree and link all of the people of KNOWN heritage, meaning known cousins, who have tested, to take full advantage of this new phasing feature and in preparation for future developments yet to come!

Woohoo!!! Good job Family Tree DNA!

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Family Tree DNA Partners with Geni.com

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Roberta Estes

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I received the following press release earlier today from Family Tree DNA.

Family Tree DNA is pleased to announce a partnership with Geni, a division of MyHeritage and home of the collaborative World Family Tree. This optional new feature offers seamless integration of both platforms, greatly enhancing the accuracy of Geni’s World Family Tree and providing new insights for millions of users interested in discovering more about their family histories.

Family Tree DNA has the world’s most comprehensive DNA testing and databases. Along with the company’s advanced suite of DNA tests, the new integration with Geni provides users of both platforms the ability to help confirm genetic relationships and discover previously unknown relatives. The integration of data is authenticated and secure, allowing simple transfer of DNA results from Family Tree DNA to Geni, should users opt to do so.

This added cross-functional feature is available to users who have tested their DNA with Family Tree DNA and have a profile with Geni, but can also be utilized by anyone who registers with both platforms. To that end, the optional and error-free integration of DNA conveniently validates connections and relationships within one’s family tree. Marker data of Y-DNA and mtDNA tests is transferred—there is no manual entry of DNA information, thereby preventing human error.

Geni and its team of curators have merged publicly available Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA data into the World Family Tree, making it the most DNA-rich collaborative family tree to date. Access to all DNA features on Geni is free and user privacy is strictly maintained. No DNA raw data or marker information is displayed, and additional settings allow users to control all aspects of the way their DNA information is handled.

Users interested in DNA testing—or those who prefer more comprehensive tests— can purchase DNA tests on Geni’s DNA Testing page powered by Family Tree DNA. For users with DNA results from previous testing, Family Tree DNA’s one-click process makes it fast and easy to transfer DNA results into their Geni profile. With the integration of both platforms, Geni’s World Family Tree enables users to establish and visualize a more precise family tree along with new connections and DNA matches.

“This partnership and integration greatly increases the value of DNA for genealogy,” said Family Tree DNA founder and CEO, Bennett Greenspan. “It’s great to work with Geni and its parent company MyHeritage. DNA and family trees complement each other and come together perfectly on the World Family Tree.”

Mike Stangel, General Manager of Geni, said: “Adding DNA to the World Family Tree increases its accuracy and strengthens its position as the de facto resource that shows how everyone is related to everyone else. We are very happy to take our partnership with Family Tree DNA to the next level.”

Information on linking Geni accounts to Family Tree DNA and uploading DNA results to Geni is available here: http://www.geni.com/dna-tests/faq.

Taking a look at the Geni FAQ page, we find the following information:

What are the new DNA Integration features (released July 2016)?

We’re excited to announce that you can now import your DNA test results from Family Tree DNA to Geni, as well as upload your raw autosomal data for further processing. Geni will use your Y-DNA, Mitochondrial DNA and Autosomal DNA test results to confirm existing relationships in your family tree as well as discover new relatives. Specifically, Geni will:

Propagate Y-DNA results along the paternal lines to infer which other relatives should have matching DNA. If matching DNA is found, the line between the test-takers can be considered confirmed.
Propagate Mitochondrial DNA results along the maternal lines to infer which other relatives should have matching DNA. If matching DNA is found, the line between the test-takers can be considered confirmed.
Use Autosomal DNA matching to confirm close relationships
Guide you on what DNA tests to take to confirm relationships in your family tree
Show DNA conflicts that indicate where the tree may have mistakes, and provide guidance on other living people who can be tested to resolve the conflict
List other Geni users whose DNA matches your own, which enables you to compare trees to determine how you are related
Organize profiles into haplogroup projects

These features sound wonderful, especially relative to finding candidates for Y and mtDNA testing, but there is one piece of missing information in the FAQ.

Does Geni Sell Our DNA?

While Geni states that they don’t display your DNA results, only “matches and haplogroups,” and that your DNA information is private and secure, what they don’t say is if they will be selling or sharing your autosomal DNA results to third parties.

For additional questions, you’re directed from their FAQ page to their help page, but to submit a request form from the help page, one must login to Geni. Geni might want to rethink this policy, especially relative to DNA. Furthermore, the link at the bottom of the DNA Tests page does the same thing.

You can’t examine the fine print if you can’t find the fine print.

I do have a Geni account, so I signed on to view the DNA Terms of Service.

Here’s a quote from part of the Terms of Service document.

By submitting DNA Results to the Website, you grant Geni a royalty-free, world-wide 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. You hereby release the Company from any and all claims, liens, demands, actions or suits in connection with the DNA Results, including, without limitation, errors, omissions, claims for defamation, invasion of privacy, right of publicity, emotional distress or economic loss. This Agreement continues even if you stop using the Website or DNA Services.

And this:

By transferring any DNA Results to the Website, you hereby grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Geni the right to receive, use, modify, publicly display, reproduce, distribute, and create derivative works of such DNA Results solely on and through the DNA Services for commercial and non-commercial purposes and the Company’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the DNA Services (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.

I was concerned about the above verbiage, but then, by clicking on the Privacy Policy link on the DNA Terms of Use page, we find the following:

This very specifically says they will NOT share our DNA without informed consent and not without an opt-in. Let’s see what opt-in means at Geni.

Opt-In

For me, the answer to whether I will participate, or not, is in large part based on whether or not my DNA will be sold or “shared” with third parties without my specific permission. I have several Y and mtDNA lines that I need to find test candidates for, or even better yet, would like to know if that line has already tested. This feature isn’t offered by any other vendor today, and might be very, very beneficial if enough people participate! So, much like Pavlov’s dogs, I’m salivating.

It appears, based on Geni’s Privacy Policy, that Geni will not share our information with third parties if we don’t specifically authorize that sharing when we upload our results. That’s good news and exactly what I wanted to hear. But what does that really mean?

Other vendors depend on less than straightforward authorizations and click-throughs that say you’ve read and understand a policy and in that document are buried statements that your anonymized DNA will be shared and there is nothing you can do about it.

The Geni blog provides a lot more information about how the new interface will work, including an interesting projects feature.

Furthermore, based on this screen shot from their blog, it appears that indeed, their research opt-in truly is an opt-in and unless you do opt-in, you’re opted out.

As far as I’m concerned, this is exactly how opting in should work. Hurray for Geni!!!

At this point, I don’t see any reason to NOT participate – and the lure of finding individuals that have already Y and mtDNA tested on a specific line is very exciting.

I hear it now, brick walls are gonna fall!!!

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Lighting Candles – Bill Howard, RIP

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Roberta Estes

I received word today that one of my genetic genealogy “friends” has passed over. Dr. William E. Howard III was just known to us as Bill.

Most people didn’t know Bill was a PhD and had a distinguished career in astronomy. Genetic genealogy was his “second career,” after retirement, and he was responsible for devising the RCC methodology for determining the time to a most common recent ancestor for a group of men who have taken Y STR tests.

If you’re interested in his methodology, you can read more about it here or in the genealogy-DNA rootsweb archives and ISOGG@yahoogroups.com where he posted under the e-mails of wehoward@post.harvard.edu and wehowardiii@gmail.com and weh8@verizon.net. Bill created a YouTube video that explains this methodology which is both interesting and educational. What Bill’s methodology lacked, unfortunately, was an easy user interface.

CeCe Moore has also provided this link to Bill’s talk at the I4GG Conference in 2014, never before released except to paid subscribers, titled “Using Correlation Techniques on Y-Chromosome Haplotypes to Determine TMRCAs, Date STR Marker Strings, Surname Groups, Haplogroups and SNPs.”

This article really isn’t about Bill’s methodology, but how his thought processes and willingness to think about genetic genealogy in a different way and look at possibilities helped to revolutionize and actualize an infant field. We need an army of Bills, each contributing in their unique and individual ways.

Genetic genealogy attracts many great minds, often retired from distinguished careers with decades of invaluable experience. I think the fact that genetic genealogy is a new field, not yet defined and put into boxes of known quantities is part of what makes this field so attractive to these bright minds. There is still ample opportunity for truly meaningful and even revolutionary contributions.

Bill wasn’t afraid of scrutiny and he wasn’t afraid to fail. If you’re afraid to fail, in essence, you’ve already failed. And in the public social media world, scrutiny can be brutal.

Bill exemplified the role of a research genetic genealogist. He thought outside the box and then sought to prove or disprove his theories. He shared freely and depended on people submitting their data to be analyzed in order to refine his processes. He was willing to work with anyone at any level of experience. He was never condescending or treated anyone disrespectfully – his professional demeanor was impeccable. Far from being intimidating, Bill was very unassuming and tried to explain difficult concepts in ways that people could understand. He encouraged everyone.

Bill knew that he was ill and used his last few months to “tie up” many of his loose ends, submitting several papers to JOGG for publication. I hope that these papers can be published posthumously in order to preserve his methodologies for posterity and for others to build upon, or discard, as appropriate. That’s the way science works and Bill wanted to contribute to that process.

You left your exchanges with Bill feeling good about genetic genealogy and not diminished in any way, even if you didn’t understand or agree with his theories or findings. I feel enriched and honored to have counted him among my colleagues. It’s people like Bill that have helped this field emerge from the unknown to a dinner conversation topic at the table of strangers next to yours in a restaurant.

Bill reached for the stars – in terms of his scientific approach and methodologies as well as his enabling and encouraging can-do attitude. To me, the great generosity with which Bill approached genetic genealogy and his fellow travelers in this field, regardless of their level of expertise, is Bill’s legacy.

I hope that Bill can serve as an inspiration. We need mentors, guides and good examples – and Bill was that above anything. We are all students, everyday. Learning is lifelong, cradle to grave.

We are all diminished when the flame is extinguished, too soon. I hope that Bill’s quiet example and gracious approach to genetic genealogy, and people, serves to light other candles.

Rest in Peace, Bill.

Update 6-27-2016: For anyone interested, I know Bill Howard was active in genealogy groups along the beltway around Washington DC, into Virginia. I received word today that his memorial service has been planned, per the following message from his family.

We wanted to let you know that the family has planned a Memorial Service for my father, Bill Howard, for July 23rd, 2016 at 2pm at Redeemer Lutheran Church.

The address for Redeemer is:

1545 Chain Bridge Road

McLean, VA 22101

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Emigration to Unexpected Places

Posted on June 17, 2016 by Roberta Estes

This week while working with German records, I came across something very interesting, and as I thought more about this particular document, I realized that there is a deeper message here than is initially evident.

The document is a list of individuals who had obtained permission to emigrate from Wurttemberg, Germany between 1816 and 1822. At that time, one had to file for permission to emigrate, obtain permission, and the list of those departing was a legal document published to forewarn any debtors. This list happens to include, in some cases, the destination of the departing German citizen. It’s obvious that this information was not essential, because at least half of the entries don’t have any destination. They really didn’t care where you were going.

Some destinations are very specific, particularly if they were moving to another German town outside of Wurttemberg.

Several destinations gave locations like “to America or Russia” and sometimes “to America and Russia” and others “some to America and some to Russia.” Either the emigrants hadn’t yet made up their mind, or the German authorities really didn’t care which of the two destinations.

My ancestors were in the “America” group, but I never thought about Germans migrating to Russia. In general, my assumption has been that migration was generally westward, and Russia is significantly east of Germany.

Even more interesting are the entries that say Kaukasus which is dramatically distant. The Caucasus is just north of the Middle East, in the area considered Eurasia, the dividing line between Europe and Asia, between the Black and Caspain Seas. In 8 cases, they gave the name of the town, Odessa, which is in the Ukraine on the Black Sea. So, Russia may not mean the closest portion of Russia – although no part of Russia was close to Germany. Russia as a location may indeed mean traveling thousands of miles east and south. Not exactly the direction in which we think of relatively contemporary population migration.

There were 3605 records total, many without additional information. But those that do provide additional information are quite interesting:

327 America (including North America)
501 Russia (some say Georgian, one says Crimea)
112 Kaukasus (one says Russia – Kaukusas)
11 Asia (1 says Russian Asia)
16 Poland
17 Austria
8 say Odessa, which is in the Ukraine on the Black Sea.

Some name other German towns.

A couple of people are noted as Separatist, one is divorced, two are single females with illegitimate children. Several are noted as widows or widowers. One says “with wife without permission.”

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this list are locations not listed. No other countries are listed, other than what is shown above. South America is not listed. No place in southern or western or northern Europe is listed. Neither is Scandinavia.

I would never have thought about “backward migration.” In genetic genealogy, unless you are one of the Vikings who basically invaded pretty much anyplace in Europe and the Mediterranean that could be invaded, we think of settlement and migration as moving northward and eastward into Europe out of the Middle East, Asia and the Caucasus. I have never, not once, thought about people from central Europe migrating back into Eurasia, back into the Caucasus from southwestern Germany – over 2000 km or about 1300 miles. They did, however, and became known as the Black Sea Germans.

Georgia, on the other hand, is even further – about 3680 km or 2300 miles.

At 10 miles a day in a wagon, it would be 230 days to Georgia or 130 days to Odessa. You had to really, really want to go there.

On the other hand, the trip to America was “just” 600 km (370 miles) or so to Rotterdam where you boarded a ship, sailed and waited, probably seasick, for between 2 and 3 months to arrive. You then climbed aboard a wagon again to your final American destination which was probably relatively close to your port of arrival – at least compared to the Caucasus.

We’re not surprised to find “German” DNA in America of course, but finding “German” DNA in the Middle East or the Caucasus could well lead to interpreting the data incorrectly if we adhere to the model of only forward (nearing northward and westward) migration. In these records, we find documentation that significant backwards migration did occur, and relatively recently. We can’t assume that where DNA is found today is where it originated nor that the expansion area follows the generally accepted direction of population migration.

Of course, we’ve always know that about destination locations, like the British Isles for example, but we don’t often think of places in Russia and the Caucasus which was at that time under Russian rule as immigration locations for European emigrants. That small stream of Russian emigrants, over time added up to a significant population. The first Russian census was taken in 1897 and it showed 1.8 million Germans living in Russia.

If you’re interested in further information, there is a very interesting website that includes a history and map of German Russian settlements from the 1700s and 1800s.

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Ancestry Refines New Ancestor Discoveries (NADs)

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Have you noticed a change in the number of your New Ancestor Discoveries (NADs) at Ancestry lately?

Twice in the past month or so, there has been a pretty dramatic shift. When Ancestry implemented their new matching code, about May 3^rd, my NADs increased significantly, from about 8 to 21 or 22. None of these seemed to be relevant. The two NADs that I could figure out were either a result of my ancestor’s sister being the wife of the NAD, or individuals that I match on other lines that just happened to also be descended from another common ancestor, who had nothing to do with me.

Let’s talk for a minute about how NADs are created.

When you match someone genetically, and you also share a common ancestor in your tree, a Circle is formed of all of the people who match other people who also share that same ancestor.

This example of my Henry Bolton Circle shows the people in the Circle that I match with the strong tan lines. Each of these people match others in the circle as well. The people I don’t match are greyed out. In this case, there are 14 total individuals who match someone else genetically who also has Henry Bolton in their tree. I match 5 of those individuals.

Genetic match + Tree match = Circle (within Ancestry’s parameters)

Now, let’s say that a new person who does NOT have Henry Bolton in their tree matches some number of the people in the Henry Bolton Circle. If the new person matches enough people, Henry Bolton will be assigned to them as a NAD. Keep in mind that if two of Henry’s children married someone from the same family line – the new person could be matching because of those secondary family lines, and not because of Henry. Because they all match genetically, and the matches share Henry in their tree which includes them into the Henry Bolton Circle, Henry Bolton is assigned to the new person as a NAD.

So in essence if you match multiple people in a Circle, and the Circle ancestor is not in your tree, you will have that “ancestor” assigned as a NAD.

Genetic match with multiple people in Circle but no tree match = NAD (within Ancestry’s parameters, which just changed)

With the number of new testers and the recent code change, many people saw their number of NADs double or triple recently.

Thankfully, Ancestry has refined their code to be “tighter” relative to NADs.

Ancestry provided information to the bloggers group yesterday about how they have refined their code in the past few days following feedback from the user community.

In order to determine New Ancestor Discoveries, we created an algorithm with criteria that connects people to DNA Circles based on their DNA matches. This algorithm was created last year when we launched New Ancestor Discoveries and with the rapid growth of the DNA database, we are finding it needs to be updated. As DNA Circles get larger and more DNA matches are delivered, more people are connecting into the DNA Circles, which results in more New Ancestor Discoveries, but with a decrease in accuracy. So, we are updating the criteria to make it more conservative and increase the accuracy of New Ancestor Discoveries. So, you’ll need more connections into a DNA Circle to get a New Ancestor Discovery. These updates will result in a significant decrease in the number New Ancestor Discoveries, but with an increase in accuracy. Some populations may experience larger decreases. We will continue to monitor and adjust this as necessary to ensure these provide meaningful discoveries for our members.

You will likely see your NADs be reduced as a result. Mine went from 22 to 4 yesterday.

The good news is with the tighter requirements, those 4 NADs are more likely to be relevant to me…well…except for Robert Shiflet who is the husband of my ancestor’s sister.

Even though this bad NAD is frustrating, I do know how and why the Robert Shiflet NAD has occurred – and it’s a great example. It’s a matter of names, both first names and surnames. Robert Shiflet’s wife was Sarah Clarkson, or Claxton. How one spells that surname has been questionable for more than 150 years. One of the Claxton/Clarkson men’s widows had to apply twice for his military pension application because the name was “sometimes spelled Clarkson.”

In one tree, the person shows Robert Shiflet’s wife’s name as Sarha Clarkson Shiflet (yes Sarha, not Sarah), with Shiflet as her last name. Another tree shows her as Sallie Clarkson, her nickname. Another as Sarah “Sallie” Clarkson. Another as Sarah A. Claxton. Furthermore, in several trees, there are no parents shown for Sarah, Sallie or Sarha, so while Ancestry clearly shows the DNA matching, it’s impossible for them to connect the dots between Sarah and my tree without accurate, consistent and complete information. Ancestry can’t help what is, or isn’t, in people’s trees. I wrote about how to optimize your tree to obtain the best matches in this article.

The good news is that now the NADs shown on our account should be easier to figure out, because our connection to that group of people will be stronger than in the past. Just remember that those people are not necessarily ancestors, despite the name “New Ancestor Discoveries,” but you are connected to individuals in that group in one way or another – and possibly through multiple or different ancestors or relationships.

For example, I’m not related to Robert Shiflet by blood, but I am related to his children genetically through his wife, the sister of my ancestor. Convoluted? Yes, but there is a genealogy hint in there someplace and now you stand a better chance of finding it!!!

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Blogging – Ins and Outs, Dos and Don’ts

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Lunenburg County, Virginia courthouse

As you know, I’m always encouraging everyone to commit those family stories to paper, and from that to electronic publication. Why?

First, because if you don’t, who is going to? No one else has your perspective, your experiences or your voice.
Second, think about how grateful you would be to have something like that from your grandmother, or great-grandmother, or great-great-grandmother. Or even her neighbor or fellow quilter or church member – because it would reflect day to day life at that time and place. You would understand her life better through that window.
Third, because you can utilize the information to inform people of DNA matches (within the bounds of privacy of course), as I do in each one of my 52 Ancestors stories. Every single of those stories has some sort of DNA aspect, even if it’s just begging for testers in that line.
Fourth, it provides you with the opportunity to share new research, and correct old research that has perhaps become ingrained in your family stories, and needs to be weeded out.

The bottom line is that these stories function as cousin-bait – and those cousins may have more information, pictures, stories and DNA that you don’t have.

Given all of the encouraging I’ve been doing, I was pleased to receive a note from my cousin, Robin, asking about blogging. She wants to start an ancestor blog (yippee) and before doing so, asked me the following questions:

Five things we need to know to create a good blog?
The five biggest mistakes we need to avoid?

Now I have to tell you that one of the things I like best about Robin is that, being a (retired) lawyer, she knows exactly how to ask questions to get the information she needs. She also really knows how to research and sharing Estes research with her over the years has been a true joy, even though our lines diverge several generations ago, in the late 1700s, back in Lunenburg County.

Yep, that’s the Lunenburg Courthouse in the photo above, of significance to both Robin and me.

Can I tell you a little family secret?

I probably shouldn’t tell you that Robin’s ancestor’s lived on F***ing Creek. And yes, that’s exactly what you think it is – and it’s not Fishing Creek. I didn’t believe that at first, being just sure it was someone’s bad handwriting in the deed records, or a bad transcription, but after seeing the original, that’s exactly what it says, in several deeds. After seeing the original, I learned to trust Robin’s work – it’s impeccable – although she struggled with exactly how to record that name for posterity. By the way, that creek has now been renamed Modest Creek if you’re looking for it on a current map – because I know you’re off Googling this right now.

But wouldn’t you just love to know HOW it came to have that name in the first place? Robin’s ancestor’s journal might have told us that – if they had written a journal. Perhaps the neighbor’s journal would have said….if they had kept one. Today, that journal might just be a blog.

Maybe someone just referred to the creek by that very descriptive adjective so often that the name just stuck. For example, “yea, that f***ing creek is flooded again.” Too bad no one recorded that oh-so-interesting tidbit. You may not have that particular creek in your family history, but I guarantee, you have something every bit as intriguing!!! So, record it!

Ok, back to Robin’s questions.

Blog Versus Website

One of my friends decided to do a website for her genealogy group. She selected Weebly as a free platform to create a website, and when she was finished, she e-mailed me to ask me how I “got that e-mail part” to work. I asked what she meant, and what she really wanted was a blog, not a website, because she wanted people to be able to subscribe to receive articles when they were written.

Blogs do that – meaning provide a platform and tools for automated e-mails to subscribers of articles. Websites don’t. With WordPress, you can create both a blog AND a website, and a blog within a website, or just a blog – but with a website builder that is not blogging software, you can’t. So don’t get confused before you even get started.

People subscribe to blogs either via e-mail or RSS feeds. Websites, people visit. You can have both a website and a blog with WordPress, but you can’t have both without blogging software.

Creating A Good Blog

Blogging Platform – I’m a huge fan of WordPress. I chose WordPress in 2012 after comparing WordPress and Blogger, the two premier blogging sites to utilize. One of the ways I made my decision was that I looked for “how to” articles for converting “WordPress to Blogger” and “Blogger to WordPress.” As it turns out, there were a lot of people looking and providing instructions for how to convert TO WordPress and very few wanting to convert FROM WordPress. Another factor was that a couple of my friend bloggers could never get photos to work correctly utilizing Blogger.

I chose WordPress and I’ve never regretted that choice. Their product is great, their support, which I’ve needed very rarely has been responsive and accurate. I couldn’t ask for a better experience.

Education – Anyone who knows me knows I hate to read the manual – generally because I have to slog through so much I don’t care about to get to the part I do care about. But in this case, it’s worth it. I bought the WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson and I loved it. The great thing about the Dummies books is that they are arranged so that you don’t have to slog through things you don’t need to get to what you do need.

Don’t like books? There are also lots of Youtube videos available. Just remember, anyone can produce a Youtube video and put it online, so the content may or may not be high quality, accurate, up to date, or what you need.

Free vs Paid – WordPress offers free blogs and paid blogs. What’s the difference? The free sites have a few restrictions – but they may be perfect for you.

First, they will have ads on your site that you can’t control. You may not care, but then again, you might. Your site might not have ads until it gets popular.

Second, you cannot have your own domain name – meaning a name that you pick yourself. This is an example of a genealogy site that I created for the Speak Family Association through WordPress that is a free site. You can see that the url for the blog is through WordPress.

https://speakfamily.wordpress.com/

This blog is an example of a blog I created where I purchased the upgraded package for $99 per year that includes the ability to select a domain name of your own choosing, assuming no one else has already selected that name.

However, you can always move from a free to a paid site with a new domain name – BUT – any links to the old site name will no longer work. If you think you may want your own domain name, it’s best to do it in the beginning.

Third, free sites are restricted in other ways. For example, you have a limit on the amount of space you can utilize for photos and such.

This blog provides a good description of the differences, including the chart below.

In my case, the Speak Family Association site is the Beginner or free site. This blog is the Premium site and once I use my entire 13 GB of space, I’ll need to upgrade to the Business level – but I still have a long way to go.

One last point to ponder in favor of the free blog platform. If you have a paid blog, and you should suddenly meet your demise, unless you’ve left the important information with someone, like the signin ID and password, AND unless they contact WordPress and change the contact e-mail to their e-mail address, and they pay the yearly fee, your blog will become ancient history in less than a year after you do. A free blog, on the other hand, will be out there “forever,” whatever that means in today’s technological world.

To Host or Not to Host – You can host your own website, meaning on your own server. If you don’t know what you are doing – don’t. I don’t. I utilize WordPress hosting and have never regretted that choice. Translated, this means that you’ll want to select the WordPress.com and NOT the WordPress.org choice.

Experiment – I started a “test blog” that I could have fun with, not publicize, and delete if necessary. It also allowed me to experiment with themes, pictures and how to combine words and graphics. Themes, in case you are wondering, are free “formats” for your blog that allows your header at the top, sidebars, etc. Yes, there are themes that are available for purchase as well, but all of the ones I use are free. You’ll need to experiment to see which one fits your needs the best.

I didn’t want to experiment on my “real blog,” appearing like the novice I was. Plus, I had always wanted to do this particular quirky little project – Things That Are Pink and Shouldn’t Be. And yes, please feel free to send me pictures.

Pitfalls

Lack of Focus – I have a total of 6 websites, blogs or a combination of both. Most of you don’t know that. Why? Because each blog should have its own focus and flavor.

Here are 5 of 6 of my blogs. The sixth blog is omitted because I have set it up as a private “family blog,” primarily for when we travel. No, I’m not putting everything out on Facebook for the world to see – but I do want to share with my family so I created a private blog.

Speak Family Association – free – https://speakfamily.wordpress.com/

Native Heritage Project – premium – https://nativeheritageproject.com/

Things That Are Pink and Shouldn’t Be – free – https://toopink.wordpress.com/

Victory Garden, Day by Day – premium – https://victorygardendaybyday.com/

DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy – premium – https://dna-explained.com/

Rambling vs Composing – The good and bad news is that you have no editor.

When I wrote for a technology magazine, some years ago, I had an editor with whom I had a love-hate relationship. My work was proofread and dissected with a magnifying glass and tweezers. Therefore, I rewrote a lot AND my column had to fit into a specific column space on the page, so I had a word range to hit. So she made me stop using works like so, therefore, but and however. (Take that Judy.) But Judy was right, every one of those words could be omitted from this paragraph without changing the meaning one bit.

On your own blog, you can ramble all you want – but if your users can’t follow your logic or get bored, you’ll lose their attention. If you use poor grammar, incorrect (or no) punctuation, or misspell words, you’ll drive some of your readers insane – and you won’t appear very professional or accurate – calling into question the quality of the information you are providing.

Some of my articles on DNAeXplain are long, and I realize that, but for the reader who is engaged in that topic, they are necessary – because they are an educational sequence. My editor would probably disagree. But certainly not all articles are lengthy and I break long articles apart with section headings, relatively short paragraphs, lists, charts and bullets.

My editor used to always ask me, “does it really need that” and “what does that word or sentence add?” “Is that really in the right place.” Yep, I loved/hated her, especially since I hear her in my head now!

Photographs and Graphics – While it’s easy to compose in a word processor (I use MSWord), because you can just copy/paste, for the most part, into WordPress, that doesn’t work for pictures and graphics. It also doesn’t work for a lot of special characters, fonts, colors, etc. Now, there may be a way to handle the special fonts and such, but it hasn’t been important enough for me to figure it out.

What I did need to figure out was how to deal with pictures. Here’s my secret to success.

I drop pictures into my word document where I want them to appear in the article, then label them underneath, like the courthouse picture above. I then save the picture to “my pictures” with that title (right click, save as).

When you copy/paste your article into a new blog posting, the words “Lunenburg County, Virginia courthouse” will copy over, but your photo won’t. You’ll need to click on the “add media” button to upload that photo from your system just above those words in your blog article – to make it look just like your Word document article.

Screenshots are another challenge. What’s a screenshot? That’s when you want to take a picture of something on your computer screen. Every picture in this article, except for the courthouse and the picture directly below, is a screen shot of my computer screen, after cropping and resizing a bit.

I simply take a screen shot (prnt scr button or alt+prnt scr button) and then (right click) paste the results into my document, just like a picture, using the same technique. Generally, after saving the image to your computer, you’ll need to do some sort of editing (generally cropping) before uploading the photo to WordPress.

I use MS Office or MS Paint for photo editing, depending on what type of editing I want to do. Both are free with the Microsoft Office platform and easy to use. MAC people tell me it’s even easier on that platform, but I’ll have to take their word for that! You’ll need to become familiar with some basic photo editing software so you can at least crop the ugly from the edges of photos, screen shots and old documents.

Spreadsheets are the last challenge. I use these a lot in the genetics arena. You can copy/paste from a spreadsheet as a picture. Check the paste options. Once it’s a photograph in your word document, just treat it like any other photo.

Ok, now you see why I wanted a trial blog, right?

Really, it’s not difficult – but there is a bit of a learning curve. I’d say less than a day if you purchase the book. It’s actually very easy and WordPress steps you through the process.

You can probably do it in less than an hour or two if you just want the basics, so I don’t want to discourage anyone.

Automated Spam Software – Do NOT, and I mean do NOT either disable or forget to enable the automated spam filter provided free by WordPress – Akismet. All blogs are targets for spammers. There’s an entire industry out there built around this sleezy practice. Akismet grabs most of them and you’ll never even have to look at the spam.

This is a screen shot from my DNAeXplain blog dashboard.

I want you to notice that Akismet has intercepted almost a million spam comments.

My blog has been in existence almost 4 years (3 years 11 months) which means Akismet has saved me from over 21,000 spam comments per month, or over 700 per day. People post all kinds of website links that are certainly not in your best interest and often contain malware that is harmful to anyone who clicks on them. Akismet grabs most of them, but can’t always tell, because some people are shifty.

Allowing Automatic Comment Posting

In light of what we were just discussing regarding spam comments, never, ever enable comments to post without your approval. There are generally three options.

Approve nothing, meaning let all comments post without approval (bad).
Let comments post once you have previously approved a comment from this poster (spammers know about this).
Approve all comments before they post. This is the option I use.

The good news is that WordPress e-mails you the comments so you can just click to approve, trash, or report as spam – and you can do it from your phone too.

How do you know if the comment is genuine if it just says something innocuous like “great article?” Look to see if they have a domain name, which is reported to you by WordPress. Now, I didn’t say to click on the domain name. Often, just the name or location will tell you all you need to know. So, my advice is to never click on the domain names. If in doubt, don’t let the comment post – it’s that easy. You’ll develop a sense of what is a valid comment and what isn’t.

Here’s an example of me replying to a commenter. My comment is a comment as well. You can see my domain name and my e-mail address, plus the IP address is shown below the commenter’s e-mail address, so you have several tools to help make your decision. Generally, you’ll know immediately from the content. And let’s face it, there some comments that are from legitimate people that you may not want to let post through.

Summary

I hope you have found this useful, and that you will give blogging a shot. If you think it’s “just for young people,” it isn’t. A lot of retirees use blogs as their online voice, and if they knew how easy it was, a lot more would be using this technology. It’s truly not difficult, but like most things, a little preparation makes for a lot less frustration and a lot more enjoyable, and successful, experience.

And don’t forget, because it is online, it’s easy to fix an error or add something later. In my case, it’s a lot easier than finding the file in the file drawer where no one else can see or share the info.

I love blogging because I believe genealogy as well as genetic genealogy is about sharing and collaboration. Robin’s blog is up and going already and she has published 5 new articles. Isn’t there something you’ve been meaning to write about?

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Disclosure

Thank you so much.

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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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Disclosure

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers