DNA Tests

Tags

ancestors, DNA, genealogy webinar, relatives

There will be nothing new and earth shattering in this post! Simply trying to reduce my ignorance about DNA by researching DNA testing and results, along with reviewing my notes on DNA webinars I attended.

DNA is an abbreviation for Deoxyribonucleic acid.⁽¹⁾ You’ll probably never need to know that unless it comes up in a trivia game, or you want to impress someone!

We were all born with 46 chromosones, well, most of us anyhow.  People with Down’s Syndrome were born with a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21.

Our mother gave us our X chromosome, and our father contributed our X or Y chromosome. Our sex is also determined by our father: X = female. Y = male.

That’s the basics — most likely learned in your junior high science class. Pretty simple to follow.

My first exposure to DNA education occurred in 2013 when I attended a Legacy Family Tree webinar by Ugo Perego entitled “The New Frontier in Genetic Genealogy: Autosomal DNA Testing.” Since it was listed as an Intermediate/ Advanced Level webinar, a lot went over my head. I am reviewing my notes from his webinar to try and decide which test and/or company to choose for my DNA testing.

Ugo explained the major autosomal DNA tests available to genealogists, how they work and what to expect from them in order to reconstruct our genetic family history.⁽²⁾ He emphasized that DNA testing is to support what we’ve discovered in our genealogical research, not to replace it.

Figure out who needs to be tested. If you want verification of your paternal side of the family, have a male get the Y-DNA test. It can help you find people in your direct line of your father’s side of the family. That’s Dad, grandfather, g-grandfather and so on.

If you’re more interested in your maternal side of the family, a female should take the mtDNA test. It can help you make connections with the direct line of your mother’s side of the family. Mom, grandma, g-grandma, etc.

He talked about the four DNA testing companies: 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, Ancestry, and Genograhic Project, and their differences. Two points I remember:

1. 23andMe is a private company (with money) so tests are generally cheaper.
2. Ancestry’s very new to DNA testing. There had only been 120,000 people who tested with them. [Bear in mind, this webinar was presented in May of 2013.] He also expressed his opinion that their testing was not as accurate as 23andMe or FTDNA.

At his company website, you can read more about these testing companies. If you’ve never heard of Dr. Ugo A. Perego, here’s his bio:

• CEO for the Salt Lake City-based Genetic Genealogy Consultant
• Scientist affiliated with the DNA laboratory of Professor Antonio Torroni at the University of Pavia in Italy
• Previously a senior researcher with the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation
• Earned a PhD in Genetic and Biomolecular Sciences⁽³⁾

He knows what he’s talking about, I think! He has presented four different webinars at FamilyTreeWebinars. I will be reviewing notes from other webinars and posting more soon.

What about you? Have you had your DNA tested? Are you thinking about having it done?

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1. Wikipedia
2. Family Tree Webinar
3. Dr. Perego’s Presenter Details

 

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Webinar: Genealogy on the Go with iPads and Tablets

Tags

genealogy webinar, Legacy Family Tree

Run, do not walk, right over to Legacy Family Tree’s website and register for this FREE webinar coming up this Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015.

If you have one of these devices and you do genealogy research, I guarantee you’ll learn something new from Lisa Louise Cook during her presentation.

And while you’re there, take a look at all the topics they’re covering in 2015. It’s mind boggling all the information and education they provide, all for free.

Upcoming Webinars

Tags

genealogy webinar, Legacy Family Tree

In the past, I’ve attended a lot of Family Legacy Tree’s Wednesday webinars. But this week I decided to branch out a little.

Tuesday, June 10

“Plotting, Scheming and Mapping Online” presented by Cyndi Ingle

Webinar Description: The Internet is a source for a variety of maps and geographical tools that will help you in your research. From new maps and atlases with online driving directions to old gazetteers with county lines and ancient place names, the Internet has them all. We’ll explore those resources, ideas for using them, and integrating them into your research routine.

Registration: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3486718851035076865. This webinar is presented by the Illinois State Genealogical Society and is sponsored by FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org).

Wednesday, June 11

“German Internet Research: A Launching Place for Your Research” presented by James Beidler

Webinar Description: Internet research for German ancestors is not as fully developed as it is for North American or British ancestors, but don’t let that stop you! There is a significant subscription site, along with some important indexes, original and compiled, records online. Fortunately, the number of actual records online is growing at a significant rate. Other German genealogy sites provide important information about places or sources. Indeed, your research will suffer if you don’t use the Internet for your German research.

Registration: http://www.familytreewebinars.com. This webinar is presented by Legacy Family Tree.

Thursday, June 12 from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm (GMT-06:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada)

“US Research Series: United States Vital Records” presented by Yvonne Sorenson.

Webinar Description: Learn how to use U.S. vital records to document the lives of your ancestors. Learn where to find vital records, how to use them and what information can be found in these valuable historical records.

To join the meeting, visit: http://ldschurch1.adobeconnect.com/fhluscanada/. This webinar is presented by Family Search.

There are plenty of other webinars available to expand your genealogy knowledge and expertise.

 

Wednesday Webinar

Tags

genealogy webinar, Legacy Family Tree

Today’s Legacy Family Tree webinar is a little unusual, at least it’s not somewhere I’d have thought to look for ancestors. It’s entitled, “Using Tax Lists to Solve Genealogical Problems“.

Truly, is this something you’d use to help in your genealogy? I must admit, it wasn’t at the top of my list of places to look….or at the bottom either!

But one thing I have learned from watching Legacy Family Tree Webinars is the speakers generally have a lot more knowledge and information about ferreting out ancestors and facts about their lives than I do.

The description of today’s webinar says, “Benjamin Franklin is said to have stated, ‘The only things certain in life are death and taxes.’ Taxation can take (and has taken) many forms. The mission of this presentation is to discuss some of the ways in which our ancestors were taxed, the records that were created, and where we might find those records. Additionally you’ll learn how those tax records may help you solve some of your genealogical questions.” The presenter is Linda Woodward Geiger.

Curious about it? Why not register to attend the webinar this afternoon?

Wednesday, May 28, 2014
2:00 pm Eastern
1:00 pm Central
12:00 pm Mountain
11:00 am Pacific
6:00 pm GMT

If that isn’t possible with your schedule, the webinar will be free to view for the next week before it is placed in the archives. Just check Family Tree Webinars to find it. Geoff usually has it up online less than 60 minutes after it finishes.

Next webinar is on June 11 entitled: “German Internet Research: A Launching Place for Your Research,” by James M. Beidler.

Homestead Act of 1862

Tags

genealogy webinar, Thomas MacEntee

Have you used the Homestead Act of 1862 to further your genealogy research? If your ancestors passed through or lived in the MidWest in the late 19th century, you should consider this resource.

One farmer said, “The government bet us 160 acres against five years of our lives that we could not stick it out.” The opportunity to acquire a farm at no cost except for the registration fee encouraged farmers and would-be farmers to venture out onto the Great Plains.⁽¹⁾

The Homestead Act, enacted during the Civil War in 1862, provided that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. Claimants were required to “improve” the plot by building a dwelling and cultivating the land. After 5 years on the land, the original filer was entitled to the property, free and clear, except for a small registration fee.⁽²⁾

This week I attended a Legacy Family Tree webinar entitled, “The Homestead Act of 1862 and Genealogy” presented by Thomas MacEntee. He explained how undeveloped land west of the Mississippi (plus or minus a few states) was offered to qualified applicants. You paid a $10 registration fee, followed the government guidelines, and then after the specified time, filed for a deed title.

The paperwork generated by this process contains a wealth of information for genealogists. And it’s not just the people who filed and successfully acquired land. It also contains information about witnesses, affidavits, receipts, and notices. So if your 3rd-g-grandfather lived next door to someone who acquired land through the Homestead Act, he could have been a witness, or signed an affidavit for that person.

Thomas briefly went over this process. The claimant form contained 44 questions, and the witness form had 28 questions, both of which contain a gold mine of information for genealogists. Talk about putting flesh on the bones of your relatives. Wow.

One of the first places to check is the Bureau of Land Management’s General Land Office Records. The search process is fairly simple. In the past I had located cash entry certificates for my 3rd & 4th g-grandfathers. But what I didn’t realize at the time was the legal land description that was included farther down on the page, as well as a map. I love maps! Thomas also explained the legal land description in a way that I could finally begin to understand it, you know, all that numbered section, township, range stuff.

The BLM website only contains records about completed homesteads. If your ancestor started a claim, but didn’t finish it, didn’t qualify or abandoned it, you need to check tract books and order records. This is where it gets tricky.

He went on to explain about tract books and how to obtain records. However, my note taking ability could not keep up with all of his directions. But if this is something you want to learn about, watch the archived webinar for free until Monday, April 28. After that, you need to be a member to view archived Family Tree webinars — well worth their introductory price of $49.95/yr since it currently has 237 hours of genealogy instruction and 627 pages of instructors’ handouts.

I really enjoyed the webinar and learned a lot about the Homestead Act. One of the last things mentioned was when it ended. Bet you can’t guess the date. I was surprised to learn it ended in 1976. And Alaska was allowed to continue until 1986!

So the Homestead Act was not limited to the 19th Century. It was still alive and well in the 20th Century.

from the Wikimedia Commons

A Milton, North Dakota, photographer took this picture of John and Marget Bakken and their two children, Tilda and Eddie, in front of their sod house in Milton in 1898. John Bakken was the son of Norwegian immigrants, who homesteaded and built a sod house in Milton in 1896. This sod house was used as the basis for the design of the Homestead Act Commemorative Stamp in 1962.

Since living persons cannot be represented on US stamps, the children were blocked out by a haystack. Ironically however, John Bakken was still alive at age 92 when the stamp was issued.⁽³⁾

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⁽¹⁾ National Park Service: Prospector, Cowhand and Sodbuster
⁽²⁾ Our Documents
⁽³⁾ Wikimedia Commons

A Little Rant on Covert Advertising

Tags

ancestry research, DNA, genealogy webinar

Have you noticed in free webinars about any genealogy topic, the best case scenario is always presented? There’s all these marvelous success stories about wonderful discoveries in newspapers – “you’ll never find this anywhere else” – when they’re talking about newspaper subscriptions.

Maybe they’re talking about capturing memories and how you need this technology, or storage space online. Or software, which if you buy, will make your life so much easier, and your relatives will be envious, even the ones who were never interested in family history before will begin researching.

Or if it’s a subscription service for records, somehow, some document they found led to a long lost cousin who had trunks of papers and photos. Now they’re had a reunion, and met more cousins, and they’re about to be featured on the evening news or some tv show…..

Hello? It ain’t that way for everybody researching their ancestors. Most of us struggle to have a daily discovery, let alone an earth shattering one.

Why can’t they make webinars and educational seminars more realistic? Do we need over-the-top optimistic half-promises to force us to buy a product? Is that what it’s come down to in our ad-saturated hyped-up society?

There is hardly a place in our everyday lives where we are not subjected to ads. TV, radio, billboards, even the internet is saturated with ads screaming to get our attention. Can you imagine if our ancestors were suddenly transported from their farm into this screaming madness? Their brains would probably explode from over-stimulation! Yet we live in this bubbling ad cauldron every day, week after week, month after month.

You wonder what precipitated this rant? I’ll tell you: Discussions with my cousin about the effectiveness or usefulness of DNA testing.

I don’t want to spend the money to tell me the obvious.
I want to know what I don’t know.
~quote from my cousin

Her feeling is she already knows where she’s from, so why dump money in a black hole? My idea is that DNA testing is still fairly new, and how much can they really tell you? And how many long-lost cousins am I going to find when such a small fraction of the genealogy community has had this done?

Are my cousin and I just resistant to pressure and trends? Or is it a lack of education on our part? Are we one of the ones who hesitates at every new technology? Or have you had similar thoughts?

Maybe our vantage point is warped! Should we be seeking how we can help others down the road instead of wanting instant answers from our DNA testing?

We are interested in hearing from people who have done DNA testing and how it’s helped you. Or those of you who are still lagging behind, waiting to see how it all pans out.

Huh? Curling is in my Ancestry??

Tags

genealogy webinar, History, Scotland

Gotta say, curling is not high up there on my sports to watch, mostly because I know nothing about it. So I was surprised to read a few days ago that curling started in Scotland.

1860: Curlers on the ice in Ayrshire, Scotland

Until early adulthood, I can’t say I’d even heard of the game. But other Scottish hobbies or traditions were not passed down, so why should I be surprised about this? My Scottish ancestors were only 4 generations back, yet while growing up I was never told about them.

It wasn’t until I got into genealogy that I discovered my Scottish heritage. I was almost shocked because other nationalities WERE discussed and taught to me as a child.

But I digress. According to Odd Wisconsin, a part of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s website, curling’s roots started during the 19th Century in Scotland. It was brought over by Scottish immigrants. For a period curling nearly died out in America, but when ice-making was invented in the 1930s, it’s popularity was revived.

In Wisconsin it used to be played on the rivers. On New Year’s Eve in 1850, the first curling match supposedly was played on the Wisconsin River by “a reminiscing band of Scotsmen, full of nostalgia and perhaps of New Year spirits!”

Play started in DePere on the Fox River when Robert Jackson, a Scotsman, brought it over when he immigrated from Scotland in 1848.

By the early 1890s, the first granite stones were imported from Scotland. Modern curling stones are still made of granite from Scotland (Ailsa Craig, an island off the Ayrshire coast) or Wales (the Trefor Granite Quarry).

All of which makes me wonder, did my ancestors play curling in the Old World? If so, did the tradition carry over in the New World? Did they become too busy eking out a living to continue their old games? Or did they just become Americanized?

1853: Curling club in Perthshire, Scotland

You can read the whole Odd Wisconsin curling article here.

Webinar Wednesday: Bonds

Tags

ancestry research, genealogy webinar

Judy Russell presented a Legacy Family Tree webinar yesterday called, “The Ties That Bond.” She’s a lawyer, so Bond refers to those legal documents presented as a surety (don’t quote me on that – me and legalize are still learning to live together).

You’ve heard of Bail Bonds, right? Well, there’s also Marriage Bonds, Bastardy Bonds (no longer used!), Appearance Bonds, Official Bonds and many others.

Anyhow, the point of the webinar was, you can use bonds to find family members, their friends, neighbors and associates – and their stories.

Where can you find these bonds? View her post over at The Legal Genealogist.

This looks like another possible brick wall buster! If you haven’t used this little known genealogy source before, watch her webinar:

The Ties That Bond – Free to view until February 26, 2014.

Good news though if you miss the free viewing: the above linked page lists all kinds of legal dictionaries and other books to help you decipher your family’s bonds.

So learn a new skill, go check it out.

It’s Webinar Wednesday!

Tags

canada, canadian research, Family Tree Webinars, genealogy webinar, Kathryn Lake Hogan, Legacy Family Tree, webinar

Don’t forget today is Webinar Wednesday over at Family Tree Webinars. Today’s topic presented by Kathryn Lake Hogan is:

Ten Reasons Your Ancestor Was in Canada

When you hit a brick wall in your research it’s time to consider Canada. Even if you think your American or immigrant ancestors were never in Canada, discover ten reasons why they actually may have been there. Learn how and where to find the Canadian or provincial records that will help you fill in the missing pieces of your ancestors’ lives.

You still have enough time to register. It starts at 1:00 Eastern. No worries if you miss it tho. It will be free in the Archives for a week after it’s broadcast. Geoff usually gets them edited and up within an hour after they end.

And because I’ve run out of time with the post I was going to put up today and am short on time, I’m reblogging a neighbor’s post from today. Don’t miss it – it’s a great read.

Think you have no Ancestors related to Canada?

Tags

ancestry research, canadian research, genealogy webinar

Think again! Maybe they weren’t born in Canada, but perhaps they visited or lived in Canada. Did you have relatives who lived in the Northern half of the US, especially those border States? Check out this upcoming webinar: Ten Reasons Your Ancestor Was in Canada.

When you hit a brick wall in your research it’s time to consider Canada. Even if you think your American or immigrant ancestors were never in Canada, discover ten reasons why they actually may have been there. Learn how and where to find the Canadian or provincial records that will help you fill in the missing pieces of your ancestors’ lives.

Kathryn Lake Hogan will present this webinar on Wednesday, January 29 [1:00 Eastern] through Legacy Family Tree Webinars. She specializes in Canadian research, and the last webinar I attended by her was very informative. Helped me find one of my lost relatives who moved over the border into Alberta. I had searched for 5 or 6 years and could not locate where he landed, or if he even stayed there.

It’s free to participate in Legacy Family Tree Webinars, but you do have to register. Then the webinar is free to watch in archives for the week after.

Have a relative who’s disappeared in your tree? Give it a whirl. At the very least, you could put new tools in your genealogy toolbox!