Bonus webinars

As genealogists we seek information about our ancestors from as far back in time as possible. That being said, not all researchers may be familiar with the term, but some of the most important records we find were created during the time of the Little Ice Age.

A lot has changed at 23andMe in the past few months, and we’ll review the differences and their new normal. Their best feature, the genetic tree, provides valuable family associations along with hints, as does their ethnicity segment painting. We’ll learn how to use and optimize both. My Heritage provides many helpful features and tools for genetic genealogists, including ethnicity, Genetic Groups, easy triangulation, segment information, smart matching, location and surname info, along with AutoClusters which clusters your matches into groups. They offer many filters to assist with viewing matches in multiple ways. Their leading edge tool, Theories of Family Relativity, combines DNA matches, trees and records information to create theories about your common ancestors. Next, there’s an overview of third party resources, DNAPainter, GEDmatch, Genetic Affairs, WikiTree, and FamilySearch – when and how you want to utilize each one. We close with how to create your own recipe for success. I share my own tools and methodologies.

FamilyTreeDNA, the first genetic genealogy testing vendor, beginning in 2000, is also the only vendor that provides Y-DNA (paternal/surname line for males,) mitochondrial DNA (direct maternal line for everyone), autosomal and X-DNA testing and matching. Additionally, they provide ethnicity testing and segment chromosome painting, ethnicity match comparison, a chromosome browser, group projects, time trees, advanced matching across product lines, matches map, family side matching, a match matrix of matches you select, and limited triangulation. We will discuss the added tool of X matching, which is includes with autosomal and has a unique inheritance path, creating additional hints as to common ancestors. We discuss why you want to create a genetic pedigree chart, what you will learn, and how to find information for lines that you can’t test either Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA for directly. Group projects can be and are extremely helpful. FamilyTreeDNA’s flagship Big Y-700 is the only test of its kind in the industry, provides many tools and integrates with the free Discover tool to provide unique information about your ancestor’s paternal lineages – both individually and through group projects. Lineages can often be defined quite granularly, with branches every few generations. Discover also provides both ancient connections via archaeology digs and notable connections documented through other testers. The Million Mito Project is rewriting the maternal tree of humankind and will have its own MitoDiscover soon.

In the first part of Tests, Vendors, Tools and You, we will discuss how and where to start your genealogy and DNA testing. Every testing vendor has different tools to help genealogists. We will learn how to best utilize the resources of each vendor. First, we’ll start out by discussing goals, along with an overview and best features of the four major vendors; 23andMe, Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage. We will also touch on five third party tools that will be more fully explored in the third session of this series. I’ll introduce the four types of DNA for genetic genealogy, when to use each, and a tried and true methodology to create a genetic pedigree chart. We cover the basics of ethnicity, triangulation, why you’ll want to use a chromosome browser to prove ancestors, and chromosome painting. Ancestry offers a wide variety of genetic genealogy features and tools, and we’ll discuss how to get the most out of your DNA test at Ancestry, including ethnicity, Communities, SideView, matching, shared and parental matches, common ancestors and their flagship tool, ThruLines.

What are reasonable testing goals for Y-DNA, and why do we want to take Y-DNA tests anyway? What can we discover when we test, and when we encourage our cousins to test? Where and how do we find those cousin? I’m “collecting” Y-DNA testers from each of my ancestral lines to reveal their history that has been forgotten to time – and to assure my recent genealogy is accurate. Who were my ancestors? Where did they come from? How are they related to other people, including ancient burials and notable people who lived more recently? I’m sharing several fun case studies from my own genealogy. Come join me on my journey as I discover that my ancestor is related to a burial along the old Roman Road in France, who lived there before the Romans, and what that means to me today. I’ll also share with you how I solved an adoption case within a generation with JUST Y-DNA, and how I then used autosomal DNA matches to augment and refine that information. In another case, we learned something VERY interesting!!! Oh, and I almost forgot, another of my ancestors appears to have been a retired Roman soldier in England. My Jewish friend provided that his ancestors settled in Spain and exactly when they migrated to Eastern Europe, and another tester discovered that he and a famous lineage match. Their ancestors are found in the baptismal records of the same church in England, but their common ancestor reaches back to the peoples buried beneath the Saxon tombstones outside. How did we Discover all of this??? Once you adopt Y-DNA testing, you’ll have fascinating success stories of your own too.

This webinar was presented live during the 2022 Surname Society annual conference. Ian Hartas talk will cover some of the basic techniques in how to get the best out of local BMD sites and also cover a basic walk through on them to suit newcomers.

Searching for the maiden name of our ancestress can be frustrating. This webinar presents a hierarchy of search strategies for tracing the maiden name. Begin by trying to locate a marriage record, keeping in mind the record will vary by time period and geographic location. If a marriage record search proves fruitless, a second tier of sources is recommended including children’s death records, the women’s death record, census and other sources. Finally, the webinar presents strategies specific to the maiden name search such as following the husband and learning about history where the couple lived.

A heroic rescue, a love story and a 30-foot wall of water. That’s just part of my ancestors’ experience in the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889. Come learn how to reconstruct fascinating experiences from your own family history by combining clues from your family’s knowledge, documents from genealogy websites, good historical research and Googling to fill in the gaps. All while learning the riveting story of one of the worst disasters in U.S. history.

The National Census were undertaken in Ireland every ten years from 1821 although many only have fragments remaining. The webinar will examine what remains for those years where only fragments exist and look at examples that help to build a family tree, along with the differences in the information gathered. We’ll examine the different type of returns for the Census of 1901 and 1911, such as for lunatic asylums, army barracks and prisons and examples of each of these will be shown. These records can be difficult to pin down and we will cover practical tips to help you find them. The different census forms provided interesting additional background information about the type of home and outbuildings a householder had and help to build a picture of their lives. Tips on search techniques will help to ensure you can find your ancestor and we’ll look at why you might struggle to find them or their place of residence in the census. Census Search Forms are a useful census substitute for the 1841 and 1851 Census records that were used when applying for the Old Age Pension and we will look at different examples that can expand your family tree.