Genealogy

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 ...

The Goosics didn't come quite as early as the Disneys, and were not as numerous as the Baysingers. Here is what I find on a search of the Warren Co. IA Genweb: WARREN COUNTY TAX LIST – 1855 in Washington Township: Goosic, Andrew Index of Warren County Marriages 1849-1899 (Brides) BRIDE GROOM DATE Goosic, Delilah Nichollson, Elisha 15 Oct 1854 Goosic, Margaret Stierwalt, William A. 14 Apr 1870 Goosic, Mary Nichelson, William 8 Aug 1866 Goosic, Sarah Basinger, Elias H. 15 Aug 1861 Wilkinson, Nora C. Goosic, James E. 1 Mar 1877 Index of Warren County Marriages 1849-1899 (Grooms) GROOM BRIDE DATE Nichelson, William Goosic, Mary 8 Aug 1866 Nichollson, Elisha Goosic, Delilah 15 Oct 1854 Goosic, A. T. Jr. [Andrew Jackson Jr.] Burner, Lavina 17 Jun 1813 Goosic, James E. Wilkinson, Nora C. 1 Mar 1877 In order to take a more global look, I went to Linkpendium's Goosic page . * Findagrave reports 54 Goosic graves, mostly in Nebraska, some in Iow...

I've loved the search for genealogy and my family's history since my children were young. I wanted to understand my roots, and why some of the difficulties my family endured happened, and how those events changed all those who were touched by them. I found young orphans, babies born before marriage, rape, and tragic death by fire among the more normal events. I've also found some family lines that are rather well-researched, which took away the challenge. For some years other projects took my time. Then, the yDNA tests became affordable, and I bought an Family Tree DNA kit for my dad for Father's Day. Because those "beginner kits" don't tell you much, and have far too many meaningless matches, I kept paying for upgrades, all the way up to 67 markers. This took his high-quality matches down to under 10, but as we followed up on these matches, we realized that this line of Cowans came from Stirling, in Scotland. The recorded part of the family went to t...