DNA is Dynamite – How to Ignite Your Ancestral Research

This webinar will explain how you can use MyHeritage labels to organize and cluster your match list. Michelle will outline different clustering strategies that can be employed in different situations and will provide step-by-step guidance to help you on the path to a more organised MyHeritage match list!

For many of us who have Irish ancestry, the major question is 'but where in Ireland?' Like millions of other descendants of Irish emigrants, Michelle Leonard has Irish ancestors who left Ireland in the 1840s-60s and on nearly all documents she can find for them their birthplaces were given simply as 'Ireland'. In many cases traditional research is not able to narrow down exactly where in Ireland our ancestors lived and trying to trace them across the seas is often a 'needle in a haystack' endeavour. In this personal case study, Michelle will outline how she managed to identify exact locations in Ireland for her Irish lines using the power of DNA testing and will provide strategies and top tips that could help you do the same.

When you receive your results from any of the major testing sites you will see a relationship prediction such as 4th-6th cousin or 1st cousin twice removed-2nd cousin twice removed. What exactly do these predictions mean though? This presentation will explain all about these predictions and provide practical advice on how to interpret and make best use of them.

DNA testing has transformed the options available to people with unknown parentage or other unknown ancestor mysteries. This presentation will explain how to use DNA results from MyHeritage to help with solving these previously unsolvable enigmas. Michelle will guide you through how to use the tools and features provided by MyHeritage specifically for unknown parentage situations from investigating MyHeritage matches, utilising the detailed shared match lists on offer, building master research trees for your projects, using the 30 helpful color-coding labels to cluster and organise mystery matches right through to identifying links and obtaining solutions. She will provide practical demonstrations of the core techniques you should employ and genuine case studies and success stories will be included to show how DNA results from MyHeritage can be used in tandem with traditional research to solve mysteries and gain answers.

In this presentation Michelle will outline her most important DNA tips with a list of her top ten things you should do if you want to make progress with DNA testing for family history as well as her top ten things you should avoid. These tips will help you be successful on your DNA journey and steer clear of common mistakes and pitfalls.

Sometimes when trying to solve family mysteries using DNA, we discover that the best matches on the mystery line also have recent mysteries of their own and the connection between the two lies on their respective mystery lines. It's exciting when there are close DNA matches on a mystery line but, equally, it can be frustrating if those matches also have recent blanks or brick walls and it's tempting to treat these kinds of matches as dead ends. In this presentation, Michelle will outline some extraordinary case studies where multiple mysteries linked together and only by investigating them all could answers ultimately be uncovered. She will demonstrate the best techniques for navigating these tricky situations and provide her top hints and tips for working with interlinked mysteries. Often if you can solve one interlinked mystery, you can solve them all!

This presentation will give an overview of the three main types of DNA tests available for family history purposes. It will explain how Y-DNA, Mitochondrial DNA and Autosomal DNA are inherited and how to use your DNA results to verify the accuracy of your family tree, connect with new cousins, break down brick walls and solve mysteries. Michelle will give practical advice, hints and tips on the best steps to take to succeed and demonstrate what can be achieved using success stories.

This short TechZone presentation will explain how to use Ancestry's 'Connected DNA Matches' tool to link DNA matches to their entries on a linked tree. The tool can be used to attach DNA match icons to chosen DNA matches, produce an instant link to the pedigree of those matches as built into your own tree and it provides a useful additional organisational option for your Ancestry DNA matches.

What is Inferred chromosome mapping and how can you use it to help narrow down DNA matches and assign DNA to ancestors? Inferred matching relies on DNA segment data so it\'s important to understand how it works before attempting to use it. This webinar will take a deep dive into this special DNA technique and demonstrate how to do it, how to get the most out of it and how to avoid common mistakes.