Video Link    When genetic genealogy websites hand you lemons, write your own programs. What tools should we consider to be the minimum standard for genetic genealogy?  

  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.  Fo...

  Video Link     You need a DNA reference tree.   This can be your main family tree or a specially built tree.   It contains you and all your DNA matches and serves as a map to all your interconnecting family members.  With your reference tree and the use of Shared Matches, you will be able to identify that next mystery DNA match that has no family tree.  Who do they match?  How close in centiMorgans is their match?  Refer to your reference tree and bingo that’s where they go.

  Video Link     You need to be tenacious and never stop researching.   I don’t always find what I’m looking for, but that doesn't deter me.  I’ll take a break and come back later.      Perhaps I just need to wait for another DNA match or another set of documents to get digitized.  But I always come back.  Some of the brick walls or non-parental event puzzles have taken me years to solve.  Eventually I get there. And will you too.  Don’t ever stop, because there will always be more family to find.

  Video Link     Get settled. In today’s class we’re going to talk about the Transitive Law of Genetic Genealogy.      Imagine you have a DNA match to person A, let’s call him Andy.  You also match person B, let’s call him Bob.  When you look at your Shared Matches for Andy, you see Bob on the list of people with DNA in common.  If A=B and B=C (you’re C), therefore A=C.  There is a very high probability that you, Andy and Bob all share a common ancestor.  If Andy and Bob have good family trees, somewhere back in time you will find a common great-grandparent.  Their common great-grandparent is probably your ancestor also.     Most of the time when we process these connections it’s an obvious relationship that we already know about.  Sometimes though, you stop and say, “Wait a minute, I know all my great-grandparents and that’s not one of them.”  Surprise. You’re going to need a bigger tree. ...

  Video Link     Some family history sites like Ancestry and MyHeritage allow you to color code and tag your DNA matches.   If you haven’t done this yet, stop and go do it.      OK, Ancestry and MyHeritage, if you are listening, I need more colors.  I have a lot of branches to tag. All you other websites out there, git off yer ass and make color tagging available.  As I figure out how a DNA match fits into my family history mystery, I tag it with a color and a surname.  If I get a bunch of matches that share DNA with each other, but I can’t determine which surname they belong to, I mark them as a mystery group.      When I get a new match, I look at the Shared Matches and can quickly see based on color tags where they belong.  Those mystery groups I’ve been collecting could come in handy later to solve non-parental events and uncover other hidden secrets.

Video Link      One of the best things I can do for my family tree is to validate every branch using DNA.   If you are like me, my first family tree was based on anecdotes and genealogical records only.   Good bad or otherwise.      For every surname in your tree, you should be able to find DNA matches to confirm the connection.  You should be able to validate at least 5 or 6 generations back.  If you can’t validate, you may need to test your siblings or cousins to give you a more diverse set of matches.  If that still doesn’t work, you might have a hidden adoption or illegitimacy issue.  You probably have a genetic gap in your tree.      Time to start looking at your mystery group matches for means, motive and opportunity.

  Video Link     Is your family tree healthy? Too many people build their trees by copying from someone else’s tree.   Zero references.   I see people making connections from a child to parents based on the name only.   “Oh look, that name is close enough. Those must be my great grandparents.”   Nope.      Just a little more research would have shown that the child in the birth record used died a few years later and couldn’t have been your ancestor.      Try, please try to get as many record references as possible.  Otherwise, your tree looks like Frankenstein’s monster with parts that don’t fit.  Double and triple check your connections before you move on.  OK, and no more stumps, fill something in!      You’re making more work for me to fix it.  I’m done, I’ll get off my soapbox.