During the last in-person class I taught at RootsTech, on Saturday afternoon, I asked attendees which tech announcements they were most excited about. The answers included Ancestry’s upcoming clustering tool, FamilySearch’s new catalog, Ancestry Networks, and the FamilySearch Together app. These are just a few of the many exciting announcements made at RootsTech 2025! It’s fun to see so many companies announce new technology that will help us with our genealogy research. Here are a...
With the release of the new DNAGedcom 4, many are wondering the best way to use the tool. David Grawrock, CG, one of our Family Locket Genealogists team members is sharing a helpful tutorial for using this tool. After gathering DNA matches and shared matches into a spreadsheet, you can make network graphs with Gephi and perform other analyses. -Nicole Matches Congratulations, you’ve got your DNA results back and you want to use them in...
One of the challenging parts of using DNA evidence in genealogical research is that it involves discovering information about living people. These living people are the sources for the DNA information we would like to use as evidence. They take a DNA test, then we analyze the match information and use it as evidence to answer a genealogical research question. As we go about finding DNA evidence for our research questions, there are at least...
In the ever-evolving field of genetic genealogy, researchers are constantly seeking innovative ways to analyze and interpret DNA data. Airtable.com, a versatile database platform, is a flexible solution for logging DNA evidence in a genealogy research project. Airtable introduced AI tools for paid users earlier this year, and now, as of July 2024, AI tools are also available for free users! Update: the “generate text” Airtable AI feature is not for the free plan, but...
If you’ve taken a DNA test and want to contribute to the genetic genealogy research on your ancestors, adding your DNA information to the collaborative WikiTree is an excellent place to start. Rest assured, you won’t be uploading any raw DNA. You’ll simply add your haplogroup if you took the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA tests. For autosomal DNA, you’ll note where you have tested – Ancestry, FamilyTree DNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage, or Living DNA. This will...
Do you have instances of multiple relationships, such as double cousins, or pedigree collapse, in your family tree? If so, the new third-party DNA tool BanyanDNA can help you analyze the amount of DNA you share with your cousins. Leah Larkin introduced Banyan DNA in December of 2023, and in that blog post she wrote: BanyanDNA is unlike any other tool for genetic genealogy. Not only can it help you identify an unknown parent, grandparent,...
Have you wondered how DNA segment data could help with a research project? I have been working on a chromosome map in DNA Painter for several years and gradually added matches that I’ve identified descending from one of my ancestral couples. For my Cline DNA research project, I’m seeking genetic evidence confirming my hypothesis that John C. Cline is the father of Clemsy (Cline) Weatherford. Using the segment tools that are part of GEDmatch’s Tier...
If you have tested your DNA at Living DNA or uploaded a kit there, you may have wondered how to use the site best. With a much smaller pool of DNA test-takers, you probably don’t have many close matches, and without family trees, it has been difficult to identify common family lines. Two new tools released recently, however, give us more options for discovering and grouping our matches – the chromosome browser and the matchbox,...
Can segment patterns help you differentiate matches with paternal grandparent from a maternal grandparent? A tool at DNA Painter helps you do just that. The tool is called Library of Matches – https://dnapainter.com/tools/lom, developed by Cody Ely. In a blog post titled “Introducing the Library of Matches,” from May 2022, Cody shares how he came up with the tool. He was working on an unknown parentage case and was trying to determine if a 333...
Steve Little, one of our Research Like a Pro with DNA 4 Study Group members, wrote this guest blog post about how he uses diagrams to help visualize the multiple relationships with his DNA matches. He is from a community of mild endogamy — Appalachia. I hope his insights will help anyone dealing with multiple relationships with DNA matches, pedigree collapse, and endogamy. -Nicole Don’t panic! At first glance, the swirling tangle of lines below...
