Genealogist?    I'm talking to folks in my neck of the woods about what they think a genealogist is.  Their answers may surprise you.

  Can't Dance     Those little things you do to loosen up before recording or after a flub. No footage is wasted. The audience loves to see behind the scenes material.

  Diet Hack    You’ve probably seen all those scam diet advertisements. I’m here to tell you to ignore all that nonsense.

  Intro Video    The Genealogy Channel. A video channel dedicated to all things DNA and family history, with content for all levels.

  Finding Family    Adoptees are not alone in facing unique challenges in tracing their biological roots, every non-parental event comes with a challenge. We'll use DNA testing to provide essential clues and connections to unravel these events going back multiple generations.

  Validate    So, you think you’ve got a rock-solid family tree. Think again. You will never know how good or bad your family tree is until you validate with DNA matches.

  Skeletons    Would you like to uncover hidden family relationships, dredge up ancestral secrets, or expose the skeletons in your family tree? DNA can help.

  Stone Walls    Sometimes you run into a stone wall in your family tree. You can use DNA to go around those stone walls.

  Find the Living    As genealogists we spend most of our time dealing with the departed and chasing ghosts. But sometimes we need to find the living and that can be more difficult than finding the dead.

  Color Code    Grouping your DNA matches with colors and surnames is an extremely valuable technique that can streamline your genetic genealogy research.

DNA Reference    Creating a DNA reference tree involves using your DNA matches to establish a framework that shows their genetic relationships.

  Video Link    Managing a second family tree as a scratch pad can be a helpful approach for genealogists to test theories, or keep track of speculative information without impacting their main family tree.     Ancestry allows me to create as many family trees as I want.  So, I do.  I have a tree for my main family and I have trees for specific projects like everyone who has ever lived on my street.  I have one family tree that I use as my scratch pad.  It’s where I check family lines before I add them to my main tree.  My scratch pad tree is used for all my research.    It’s so easy to add additional trees.  Just go to Create and Manage trees and select Create a new tree.  It will ask you to add a new home person (the first person for the tree), you can enter any name.  You will also need to enter at least the father or the mother.  It will ask you whether the tree should be public or private.  For my scratch pad tree, I make it private.  No one needs to see my notes.      Now wheneve

  Video Link   &    Quick Reference    Mike's 20 rules for genealogy in one complete video. Enjoy!     You don’t have to live by my rules, but you should create and live by your own set of rules to guide your research and solve your family history mysteries.      Download the Quick Reference Guide!

  Video Link      Get your DNA tested.   This is where the adventure begins.   If you’re taking a DNA test just to get your ethnicity, you’re in for a rude awakening and you’re missing out on 99% of the fun and excitement that testing provides.   Depending on who you test with, your ethnicity results will literally be all over the map and the testing company will change your ethnicity every year, good luck with that.       The best part of DNA testing comes from the cousin matches that you’ll get. Those matches will help you validate your family tree and shake all the skeletons out of the closets.   Even if you’re not interested, get tested for that special someone in your life who is documenting your family history.

  Video Link    DNA never lies.  Some people would like to think that the labs can make mistakes (they don’t) and some people would like to hope that the DNA results are wrong (sorry).  DNA can make the connections when paper records don’t exist.  The answers you want won’t be found in any dusty old books.  DNA can reveal the facts that may have been intentionally hidden and explain how you are related to everyone else.      Because DNA never lies.

Video link    Y our ancestors lied. Your parents probably lied to you when they said, “Don’t have sex before you are married, we didn’t “.  I call BS.  Look at your family tree and you can find all the shotgun weddings.  Take the date of first-born child minus their marriage date and oops, do the math.  Then your family starts lying about those dates not knowing that the genealogists in the family will eventually have access to the records.  A family tree based on lies is a work of fiction.  It is our job as genealogists to get to the facts, whatever they may be.

  Video link     We are all cousins.   We are all descended from the same small pool of individuals who were the first modern humans. We are all from Africa.  If anyone tells you a different story, then they have an agenda.  I don’t care what your skin color is, or your religion or your politics, we are literally family.  We need to start acting like a family. OK, I’m done here.