Nicole Elder Dyer

About Nicole Elder Dyer

Nicole Dyer is a professional genealogist specializing in Southern United States research and genetic genealogy. She is the creator of FamilyLocket.com and the Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast. She co-authored Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist's Guide and Research Like a Pro with DNA and is an instructor for the study groups of the same name. She lectures at conferences and institutes and previously served as the secretary and publicity chair of the Pima County Genealogy Society. Nicole holds a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University in History Teaching. At Family Locket Genealogists, Nicole is a project manager, editor, and researcher.

Review of Gene Heritage – a Third Party DNA and Inherited Traits Analysis Tool

May 9, 2018

Have you heard of GeneHeritage.com? The owners of this third party DNA analysis tool, E. Castedo Ellerman and Joseph Silver, contacted us and offered to show us how their company can analyze your raw DNA results and give new information about inherited traits. As you probably know, I am fascinated by inherited traits. I think it’s an especially useful way to begin teaching children about genetic genealogy. Here are some posts I’ve written about this...

8th Grade Family History Projects in North Carolina

Apr 24, 2018

I’m excited to share a guest blog post today by Kristen Ziller and Laura Richardson, two amazing teachers I met at RootsTech. They were there sharing about their 8th grade family history project at the Family Tree Maker booth. They have used their teaching expertise to craft a year long project for 8th graders to learn about their family history through primary sources family stories. Kristen Ziller at RootsTech Introduction Our journey with family history projects...

Doing a Family History Mystery at an LDS Stake Activity Day Event

Apr 18, 2018

I have a great family history activity for children to share today – teaching children to find names for the temple by doing family history research with historical records! The activity was created by Alana Anderson. Alana lives in an LDS stake near me in Tucson. She is an activity day leader and did the Finding Franklin Time Machine Activity with her group. It went so well, that she decided to create a “Family History...

Learning Family History Through Play – Blog Link Up

Apr 2, 2018

Today is the first day of our new family history for children blog link up. This one will last three months and be all about learning family history through play. Experts agree that children learn best when they are playing. What fun ways have you shared family history with children? How do your children like to play? My son enjoys dressing up and pretending. My daughter loves playing with Play-Doh and doing crafts. We have...

Should Children Take DNA Tests?

Mar 29, 2018

Should children take DNA tests? Thought leaders and genetic genealogy experts say yes. In keynote speeches and interviews at RootsTech 2018, Cece Moore, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Living DNA co-founders David Nicholson and Hannah Morden, reveal their thoughts about the booming DNA industry and how it can benefit children. Overcoming Prejudice LivingDNA is making great strides in the industry, especially in pinning down ethnic origins to specific regions within the British Isles. Yet...

Autosomal DNA and Solving Brick Walls

Mar 16, 2018

On Saturday, our local genealogy society (PCGS) learned about the power of DNA from genetic genealogist Cece Moore. Cece painted a vivid picture of autosomal DNA inheritance – that our DNA is literally made up of small pieces of our ancestors. We carry bits of them in our cells and this information can be used to help us solve long standing genealogy brick walls. Cece said that after testing with Ancestry DNA, we should sort our...

RootsTech: Sources to Research Confederate Soldiers Online

Mar 3, 2018

Today at RootsTech I’ll be teaching about Confederate soldiers and how to learn about them with online collections and articles. The online syllabus with links to collections is available here: Sources to Research Confederate Soldiers Online – RootsTech syllabus with additional resources After the class today, I will also share the slides from the presentation. I started researching my Confederate soldiers when I taught my children about Memorial Day last year. My 7-year-old son wanted...

RootsTech Presentation Slides – Source Citations and Getting Organized

Mar 1, 2018

Presenting “Source Citations, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Diana presented two classes today at RootsTech, and we are sharing her presentation slides as PDF files for you to download and view for future reference: Source Citations Getting Organized One Paper at a Time We hope these are helpful for you! It was fantastic to meet so many of you today. If you are interested in purchasing our book that launched this week on...

Book Launch Today! Research Like a Pro Available at Amazon.com

Mar 1, 2018

It’s ready! We’re at RootsTech today spreading the word about Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide, our new eBook. We hope you love it and share it with your genealogy friends. We are hoping to make a big splash today in the genealogy category on Amazon. If everyone buys the book today, it will become a bestseller for the day in Amazon’s category rankings! With your help, we can get the word out to...

Genealogy Evidence Analysis – Free Template and Lucinda Keaton Sample

Feb 8, 2018

In our Research Like a Pro study group, one of the first assignments is to analyze existing evidence. This is actually my favorite assignment. It is so fun to comb through what I’ve already gathered about a research question and look for clues to help me see where to go next in my research. I’ve been studying Genealogy Standards, a book published by The Board for Certification of Genealogists to better understand the different parts of analysis:...