The Best of 2022

Posted on January 6, 2023 by Roberta Estes

It’s that time of year where we look both backward and forward.

Thank you for your continued readership! Another year under our belts!

I always find it interesting to review the articles you found most interesting this past year.

In total, I published 97 articles in 2022, of which 56 were directly instructional about genetic genealogy. I say “directly instructional,” because, as you know, the 52 Ancestors series of articles are instructional too, but told through the lives of my ancestors. That leaves 41 articles that were either 52 Ancestors articles, or general in nature.

It has been quite a year.

2022 Highlights

In a way, writing these articles serves as a journal for the genetic genealogy community. I never realized that until I began scanning titles a year at a time.

Highlights of 2022 include:

Multiple ancient DNA burial sites with Y and mitochondrial DNA results
Being a guest on Shamele Jordon’s Genealogy Quick Start television program and the Research Like a Pro Podcast with Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder. I participated in several other special events with organizations in 2022 as well. (No wonder I’m tired.)
Several RootsTech articles – RootsTech offered so much in 2022 – and 2023 is going to be amazing too, both in person and virtually. You can still view the 2022 articles here.
Genetic Affairs released their amazing AutoKinship
The East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference (ECGGC) launched for the first time in 2022 and will also be having a 2023 fall conference, October 6-8. Yes, I’m planning to present there too, hopefully in person.
The 1950 census release on April Fool’s Day – I still can’t find my mother.
The Million Mito team update and also the publication of the amazing haplogroup L7 discovery paper, plus an accompanying video. At year-end, the team was honored that our paper was included in the Nature’s Editor’s Choice Collection.
Mitochondrial DNA webinar at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. That’s still available along with hundreds of other titles, here.
Ancestry’s SideView and that Ancestry only shows shared matches of 20 cM and greater which is very confusing for genealogists. Also, how to share DNA results and tree access with others, which is crucial for research.
FamilyTreeDNA’s amazing DISCOVER Haplogroup Reports tool for Y-DNA launched. Not long after that, their Y-DNA tree passed 60,000 branches.
Tips and tricks for working with Theories of Family Relativity at MyHeritage. What a great tool!
I launched the new In Search Of series to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of this blog. I then created a resource page that includes all six of the In Search Of articles to date, and there will be more in 2023. 2022 topics include:
- Discovering that (ouch) you’re not genetically related to your family
- Endogamy
- Vendor comparisons and testing strategy
- How to tell the difference between full and half siblings
- Determining match relationships,
Downloading Match and Segment files at the various vendors
Endogamy – how to tell if you have it and what to do
Vendor Features, Strengths and Testing Strategies – these details change often
Why connecting your DNA test (correctly) is important at each vendor and how to do it
Tools to determine if your female ancestor was Native American, or not.
Full or half siblings and how to tell the difference
Big Y-DNA case study with a jaw-dropping outcome
MyHeritage’s new artificial intelligence (AI) time machine lets you see yourself and your ancestors in period and historical settings. I’m still super geeked by this and you’re likely to see more from me about this in 2023. This is just pure fun!!
Basic education critical for everyone about your chromosomes and genealogy. You can’t understand genetic genealogy without understanding this basic information, and why people who match you on the same segment may not match each other. Don’t be lulled into incorrect conclusions.

Which articles were your favorites that were published in 2022, and why?

Your Favorites

Often, the topics I select for articles are directly related to your comments, questions and suggestions, especially if I haven’t covered the topic previously, or it needs to be featured again. Things change in this industry, often. That’s a good thing!

However, some articles become forever favorites. Current articles don’t have enough time to amass the number of views accumulated over years for articles published earlier, so recently published articles are often NOT found in the all-time favorites list.

Based on views, what are my readers’ favorites and what do they find most useful?

In the chart below, the 2022 ranking is not just the ranking of articles published in 2022, but the ranking of all articles based on 2022 views alone. Not surprisingly, six of the 15 favorite 2022 articles were published in 2022.

The All-Time Ranking is the ranking for those 2022 favorites IF they fell within the top 15 in the forever ranking, over the entire decade+ that this blog has existed.

Drum roll please!!!

Article Title	Publication Date	2022 Ranking	All-Time Ranking
Concepts – Calculating Ethnicity Percentages	January 2017	1	2
Proving Native American Ancestry Using DNA	December 2012	2	1
Ancestral DNA Percentages – How Much of Them in in You?	June 2017	3	5
AutoKinship at GEDmatch by Genetic Affairs	February 2022	4
442 Ancient Viking Skeletons Hold DNA Surprises – Does Your Y or Mitochondrial DNA Match? Daily Updates Here	September 2020	5
The Origins of Zana of Abkhazia	July 2021	6
Full or Half Siblings	April 2019	7	15
Ancestry Rearranged the Furniture	January 2022	8
DNA from 459 Ancient British Isles Burials Reveals Relationships – Does Yours Match?	February 2022	9
DNA Inherited from Grandparents and Great-Grandparents	January 2020	10
Ancestry Only Shows Shared Matches of 20 cM and Greater – What That Means & Why It Matters	May 2022	11
How Much Indian Do I Have in Me???	June 2015	12	8
Top Ten RootsTech 2022 DNA Sessions + All DNA Session Links	March 2022	13
FamilyTreeDNA DISCOVER Launches – Including Y DNA Haplogroup Ages	June 2022	14
Ancient Ireland’s Y and Mitochondrial DNA – Do You Match???	November 2020	15

2023 Suggestions

I have a few articles already in the works for 2023, including some surprises. I’ll unveil one very soon.

We will be starting out with:

Information about RootsTech where I’ll be giving at least 7 presentations, in person, and probably doing a book signing too. Yes, I know, 7 sessions – what was I thinking? I’ve just missed everyone so very much.
An article about how accurately Ancestry’s ThruLines predicts Potential Ancestors and a few ways to prove, or disprove, accuracy.
The continuation of the “In Search Of” series.

As always, I’m open for 2023 suggestions.

In the comments, let me know what topics you’d like to see.

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New: In Search of Unknown Family Resource Page

Posted on October 24, 2022 by Roberta Estes

When I started the “In Search of” series, I expected it to be 4 or 5 articles for people searching for unknown family members. It’s taken on a life of its own and expanded quite a bit.

As I progressed with the series, I realized that, in some cases, foundational articles were necessary before progressing to the “how to find” articles.

I’ve also added related articles – like how to sort through unexpected close matches when you don’t recognize the match and didn’t even know they existed before they appeared on your match list.

New Permanent Resource Page

I’ve created an In Search of Unknown Family Resource Page, here, to give these articles a permanent home and make them easy to find for:

Adoptees
People who discover they don’t match their family as expected
People dealing with endogamy
People who need to determine whether a sibling is a half or full sibling
People seeking an unknown parent
People seeking unknown grandparents
People who receive a relatively close unknown match

I’ll be adding several more articles over the next few months, but to date, I’ve published 8 articles in the series.

In Search of…Articles

The articles are listed in order of publication. I suggest reading them in order because the information presented and skill set is cumulative and provides you with the tools to make your search experience the most productive possible.

I wrote the article, Identifying Unknown Parents and Individuals Using DNA Matching as a primer explaining the process in general. In other words, how this process works. I recommend that you read that article first, as these article focuses on each vendors, test type, tools and step-by-step instructions for specific types of relationships.

I introduced the “In Search of” series in the article, DNA: In Search of…New Series Launches.
In DNA: In Search of…What Do You Mean I’m Not Related to My Family? – and What Comes Next?, we discussed the discovery that something was amiss when you don’t match a family member that you expect to match, then how to make sure a vial or upload mix-up didn’t happen. Next, I covered the basics of the four kinds of DNA tests you’ll be able to use to solve your mystery.
In In Search of…Vendor Features, Strengths, and Testing Strategies, we discussed testing goals and strategies, including testing with and uploading to multiple autosomal DNA vendors, Y DNA, and mitochondrial DNA We reviewed the vendor’s strengths and the benefits of combining vendor information and resources.
In DNA: In Search of…Signs of Endogamy, we discussed the signs of endogamy and various ways to determine if you or your recent ancestors descend from an endogamous population.
In DNA: In Search of…Full and Half-Siblings, we discussed how to determine if a sibling match is a half or full sibling.
In Connect Your DNA test, and Others, to Your Tree, I explained how to optimize your DNA tests to take advantage of the features offered by each primary DNA testing vendor.
In How to Share DNA Results and Tree Access at Ancestry, I wrote step-by-step instructions for providing access to another person to allow them to view your DNA results, AND to share your tree – which are two different things. If you have a mystery match, and they are willing to allow you access, in essence “to drive,” you can just send them the link to this article that provides detailed instructions. Note that Ancestry has changed the user interface slightly with the rollout of their new “sides” matches, but I can’t provide the new interface screenshots yet because my account has not been upgraded.
In In Search of…How Am I Related to That Close Match, we step through the process of narrowing down the possibilities of how an unexpectedly close match is related to you – and what to do next.

Yet to come are articles detailing the steps to identify unknown parents and grandparents. I’ll add them to the resource page when they are published as well.

Please feel free to share the resource page link, here, or this article with anyone who is searching.

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