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

  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    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     Imagine your next DNA match is an adoptee.   You need to, “Adopt and Adoptee” and take them under your wing.   They are absolutely a cousin and that means they are family.      Adoptees only turn to DNA when all other avenues fail.  You may be their best chance at figuring out who their birth parents are.  I’ve helped dozens of adoptees, many of them starting out as my own DNA match.  Helping them has been some of the most exciting adventures I’ve ever been on.

  Video Link     How do you tell someone that they have a non-parental event in their family?   Gently, if possible.      If that person is adopted, they probably already know they are part of an ‘event’.  For every adoptee, there is another family or two who may not know that the event ever took place.  In cases of hanky-panky, the child of that infidelity may not even know.      I find that I need to lead them to the conclusion for themselves.  In the case where someone asks me to help find more information on their grandfather using DNA, I might find that there is no genetic connection to that grandfather.  I start with, “You don’t have any matches with those surnames.”  Then let that sink in.  Or when talking to an adoptee’s bio-family, I’ll say, “I’m working with an adoptee with a very strong DNA match to your family” (keeping it vague).  And let that sink in.  Let them ask the next ...

  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    Shine a light on the skeletons in your closet.   The facts need to be revealed.   One person’s dirty laundry is another person’s life changing revelation.      It may be as simple as how someone died, like my great-great uncle who chased his wife with a lit stick of dynamite or that they spent time in an orphanage, poor-house, jail or asylum. Your ancestor could have been a serial bigamist or legally had a dozen wives.  The skeletons are endless and all exciting.       On your family history journey, you need to shine your light in all the dark corners and expose the hidden history.  But do it gently.