Genealogy

 Chapter 8: Incorporating DNA Evidence in a Written Conclusion 1. The following test takers are identified as a match using the "One to One" tool at Gedmatch. Write a citation for this match. Gedmatch. "One-to-One Autosomal DNA Comparison," database report, v.2, Gedmatch  (https://www.gedmatch.com/ : accessed 4 May 2021), Kyle Lyons, kit A001234; Ron Gough, kit M002345; 22.5 cM total, longest block 22.3 cM on chromosome 1 (start-stop points: 222127692-236160966); 20.2 cM on chromosome 12 (start-stop points: 126612824-132276195). 2. Using the tables in question 7 of the "Incorporating DNA Testing in a Family Study" chapter, write a citation for the segments shared by Ira Smith (43) and Robert Smith (33). "Family Finder," database report, Family Tree DNA (https://familytreedna.com/ : accessed 4 May 2021), for Ira Smith and Robert Smith, predicted 2nd to 4th cousins; matches on chromosome 6 (start-stop points: 134769313-151510948), 19.33 cM, and chr...

 Chapter 7: Incorporating DNA Testing in a Family Study Questions 1-7 refer to the family tree of Henry Smith in Appendix A. Recipients of mtDNA of #2 unknown are circled; recipients of #1 Henry Smith's Y-DNA are highlighted. Recipients of mtDNA of #2 unknown are circled; of Y-DNA of #1 Henry Smith are highlighted 1. Assuming only end-of-line descendants are still living, is or are there any living who inherited the mtDNA of the unknown spouse #2 of Henry Smith #1? Yes, #41 Tommy Curtis. 2. Assume a living person is found and agrees to test and that the results indicate the mtDNA haplogroup is U5b1c1. Does this confirm or refute the family legend that Henry's unknown spouse #2 was Choctaw? Neither.  U5b1c1 is not a known Native American mt haplotype, so that rules out unknown's mother or her umbilical line being NA. Since that is the only line tested, the rest of her inheritance is as yet unknown. 3. Assuming only end-of-line descendants are living, is there anyone living...

  Genealogical Applications for X-DNA Chart from Appendix A; marked for X. Use for Q 1-7 1. Which ancestors shown may have contributed to the X-DNA of Ira Gerball (20)? 15, Marie Small. Men get no X-DNA from their fathers, only their mothers. Marie's ancestors are not in the chart. 4 2.  Which ancestors shown may have contributed to the X-DNA of Mandella Louise Smith (33)? Would Mandella have inherited X-DNA from all of these possible ancestors? Since Mandella is female, she got X-DNA from both her parents, 21 & 27 . The X she got from her father 27 came from his mother who is not shown in the chart. The X from her mother Mandy Wick 21 is from her parents, 12 & 16 . Again, her father Tom Wick 16 got his X from his mother who is not shown in the chart. Mandy's mother Emma Crocker 12 got her X-DNA from both her parents, 5 & 8 . And once again, her father Henry Crocker 8 got his X from his mother, but she is not in the chart. Her mother Emma Jones 5 got her X-DNA from...

 Genealogical Applications for atDNA Exercises for Chapter 5 1. Sisters with an AncestryDNA test get results; one matches to a predicted third to fourth cousin; the other does not. Should they both match? Why or why not. They could both match, or neither. About 90% of third cousins are detectable DNA matches; only about half of fourth cousins cousins. 2. Fred is testing numerous relatives in an attempt to map his chromosomes. He shares no detectable DNA with Victoria, a seventh cousin, who is a descendant of fifth great-grandparents. Can Fred conclude that these Quincy ancestors are not in his genetic family tree? No, testing one distant relative with whom he is likely not to share detectable DNA proves nothing. It is simply a lack of evidence. 3. Roy and Mike share a single 6.43 cM segment of DNA. Which company or companies will show them as genetic relatives? Which will not. At the present time, none of the testing companies will show them as matches. While AncestryDNA reported m...

 Chapter 4: Genealogical Applications for mtDNA Exercises. All the questions refer to diagrams in Appendix A: page 136 1. Which descendants shown inherited the mtDNA of Mary Ann (Smith) Jones (2) : 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 21, 22, 33.  Mary Smith passed her mtDNA to all her children; 3, 4, 5 . Her son 3 Albert, did not pass his mtDNA to his children. His children got their mtDNA from their mother, 6. One daughter, Mary 4 , had only a son, 11 . That son had mtDNA from 2, but did not pass it to his children. They instead got mtDNA from his wife, their mother, 15.  Her daughter Emma, 5 , passed her mtDNA to her daughter Emma, 12 . Emma 12's daughter Mandy 21 gave the mtDNA from 2 to her daughter, Mandella, 33 . Emma Crocker 12 also passed mtDNA from 2 to her son Max 22 . Max had a daughter who had the mtDNA from her mother, 28.  2. Ira Gerball 20 died in Vietnam. ... Which people on the chart share the same mtDNA as Ira for purposes of identifying his remains?  Three peop...

 Chapter 2 Exercises 1. The goal is to determine when Isaac Ryan first bought land in what is now Jackson County, Mississippi. Can DNA evidence help achieve this goal? If so, how.  No. However, if could help provide more evidence that the tester is related to this Isaac Ryan if preliminary family tree research makes a clear and proven case that the tester is descended from this man. DNA provides no evidence that could help with a date of land purchase. 2. The goal is to determine whether the Isaac Ryan who first bought land in 1798 what is now Jackson County, Mississippi, is the ancestor of Jonathan Ryan. Can DNA evidence help achieve this goal? If so, how.  Again, if there is a complete family tree built and proof given with other evidence, DNA can provide *more* evidence of the descendancy. Y DNA can prove or disprove a shared male line. It cannot, however, prove parentage. Neither autosomal nor mitchondrial DNA would have any use here. 3. Nathan suspects that Ethan Kil...

  Genetic Genealogy in Practice by Blaine T. Bettinger, Debbie Parker Wayne. National Genealogical Socety; 2016 Chapter 1: Basic Genetics Questions to which you will want to know the answers What are the types of nuclear DNA? Autosomal Sex: X, Y What is the other DNA which can be tested for genealogical purpose?   Mitochondrial Which test can be taken only by one sex?   Y If the mother of a family has died, which of her children can be tested for mitochondrial DNA?   Any or all of them From which parent do you get your Y dna ?  Father  Your X?   Men: mother. Women: both What are the DNA variations tested for genealogical purposes?   SNPs and STRs(Y). Both are often called "markers." What is a SNP?  S ingle nucleotide p olymorphism What is an STR?   S hort t andem r epeat How much of our DNA is identical to all other humans?   99.9% What is a DNA match?   Enough matching DNA with a person above the threshold, usually 5-10 or 20...

As the year draws to a close, it feels time to start something new in a an old container: this blog. I've been writing for my society at  https://skcgs.blogspot.com/ . I've learned a lot about DNA and how to do better research, and it's about time to tell some of the stories uncovered along the way.  I'll also be writing here for the new study group we are beginning in January, of the book Genetic Genealogy in Practice .  First though, new book for Christmas: Mastering Genealogical Proof , by Thomas W. Jones, 2013: National Genealogical Society, Arlington, VA Thank you Paul & Tara! It is a textbook, with questions at the end of every chapter.  Mastering Genealogical Proof Chapter One: Genealogy's Standard of Proof 1. What is genealogy? Genealogy is the study of families, known and unknown, by "accurately reconstructing forgotten or unknown identities and relationships of all sorts.[1] Research is drawn from all sorts of records, including those created by ...

This Veteran's Day is more special than usual because this is the centenary of the Armistice in Europe. So I was very excited to discover that my aunt Florence Estella Rawles who was born and died in Montana (1925-2007), trained for the World War II Cadet Nursing Corps in both Montana State College in Great Falls, Montana and in Providence Hospital in Seattle! It seems that the war was over before she was sent to serve, and later married my uncle Hollis McBee. When I shared this new information with some of my genealogy buddies, David got excited because he also had an aunt who served in the Nursing Corps, and also trained in or around Seattle. However, it turns out that his aunt served in the Great War, which we now call the First World War. David sent me his research on his great-aunt, which has been written up so well that this will be a guest post. "Zowitza Nicholas left Dawson to study nursing in Seattle. She joined the American nursing corps and served in France, ...

SKCGS is on the move! At the last Board Retreat, we created a twitter account and set up a blog. Follow @skcgs1 and watch the website to see the blog go live soon. Our newsletter will publish a final issue, at which point our blog will be our broadcast to the world about South King County past, records and stories and how you can help our society preserve and educate about these resources. The big story is our Seminar which is coming up Saturday, September 22 at Salish Hall on the Green River College campus in Auburn. Register now! http://skcgs.org/2018-seminar.html If you have not yet registered, please do it now!

Rootsweb was offline for some months, and is now coming back online, one piece at a time. First to return was World Connect: https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ and the Message Boards have continued to work and were not offline. http://boards.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ Now lists have been upgraded and restored, and the archives are being re-filled from backups. Find your way here: https://mailinglists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/listindexes/ . Create a new login here: https://mailinglists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/lists/setupmail . Once you have set up your account, you will be able to control list mail and how you receive it. Remember to link older email accounts as well. Washington State lists are here: https://mailinglists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/listindexes/USA/Washington/ -- including the Washington State Genealogical Society lists. If you would like to support this effort, why not become a listowner? Create a login: https://mailinglists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/lists/setupadmin and ...

I was reading the excellent genealogy blog on  https://wasgs.org/blog , and came across the Tip of the Week: https://wasgs.org/blog/2017/12/01/seattle-genealogical-society-tip-of-the-week-58/  about surname search in the National Archives Catalog . Just put your surname of interest in the search box at the top right of the home page: http://archives.gov . I did so and my first hit was an unknown cousin! I searched for "baysinger" and the first hit was  https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-lists/wa-alpha.pdf . I was both saddened and proud to read of my cousin's sacrifice and service. Using MyHeritage to search for Donald Freeman Baysinger  with the keywords of his hometown Buckley, Pierce County, Washington where my daddy used to live, led right to FamilySearch  where I found his family tree. We share gxgrandparents Peter Baysinger 1808–1886 and Elizabeth Rice 1814–1895 whose gravestone my cousin Terri placed for ...

For quite awhile, I've been cautioning people that 23&me did not want genealogists, and was not serving us. Now although they still hide the tools, they are available. First, many people have now "opened" their profiles, allowing matches to see what the match IS. Of course this is the default on all other sites. And I've figured out how to see all those opened matches on your matches page:  https://you.23andme.com/tools/relatives/#people . Sort by Open Sharing . Now for the fun stuff. Go to  https://you.23andme.com/tools/relatives/dna/  and search for your first open match. The code controlling the search is a bit funky, but keep at it and search for the rare part of the name, rather than the common part -- "hiram" rather than "smith". One can compare two other users as well as with yourself. I do that before before writing to people, so I can give them a bit of information. Be sure to scroll down below the simplified chromosome map to the...

This book by Alondra Nelson is only tangentially about genealogy and family history and sheds no light about how to use DNA to do research. It is about how our recent knowledge of the genome has fundamentally changed how we view facts about our ancestors. The modern popularity of genealogy research began with Roots as a mini-series being televised in 1977. Before then, genealogy in the US had been mostly an upper-class pursuit, by white people. Of course, the LDS (Mormon) church had long been encouraging their members to document their ancestry -- also a mostly white project. Roots changed that, and now there are large numbers of black Americans looking for their ancestors both black and white, slave and free. And many want to go beyond the racialized labels assigned by the culture and the records and the African continent to find ancestral countries or tribal groups of origin. Research both archaeological and "coroner's method" removal of graves in the "Negro ...

If you have been considering buying a DNA test to use for genealogy, here are a few things to consider. First, have you found most of your ancestors through old-fashioned research? If not, DNA might not yield you much information. That said, even if you are adopted and don't know much about your birth lineage, with a lot of work, you can make some matches, and learn more. However, the more you know, the better you will be able to use what you learn from DNA. Next, what sort of test will help you learn the most? If you want to learn more about your "surname line," that of your birth father, his father, and on up -- then you want a yDNA test, and FamilyTreeDNA is the only place to get it. You will need a male of this line to do the test; daughters do not inherit their father's yDNA. Of course, you can test a male in *each* of your surname lines, but again, this only tells you about the male lines. You will want to test as many markers as you can afford; at least ...