RLP 159: RLP with DNA eCourse Part 2

Nicole (0s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 159: The Research Like a Pro with DNA Online Course, part two. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (46s):
Hi everyone. Welcome to Research Like a Pro today.

Diana (49s):
Hi, Nicole, how are you doing?

Nicole (51s):
I’m doing good. How have you been doing?

Diana (53s):
We have just been studying an article from the NGSQ, the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, and it was by Tom Jones, our small little study group focused on that for this last month. And it’s always so enlightening to get together and talk about it. Cause we all have different things that we notice in it or different experiences to talk about. How did you enjoy the article?

Nicole (1m 18s):
I liked it. It’s from the recent March, 2021. And the title of it is ‘Backtracking Longstanding Errors to Prove Negatives: William Templeton’s Alleged Pennsylvania, Military Service and Mahoning County, Ohio Burial’. So that’s a real long title, but basically he was trying to find out if a lot of published information about this revolutionary war soldier was accurate or not. And it had been published in a lot of places that he was buried in Ohio. And so he really was just looking into this ancestor of his and trying to basically check these authored and derivative sources with original records and to see what would bear out as accurate information.

Nicole (2m 7s):
So he was correcting some, some errors that have been published a long time ago. So that was a really interesting case to read about, especially, you know, because it’s part of the revolutionary war time period. So it’s pretty fun.

Diana (2m 20s):
Yeah. And it was interesting because some of the key sources were family histories that are come down through his family. And when he was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, you know, correlating the facts from his family histories, with what was published out there, they were not adding up. And several times in our study group session, we mentioned the fact that Tom always teaches if the puzzle pieces don’t fit together, something’s wrong. And so they need to fit together. So that’s basically what he’s doing is fitting this puzzle together in a way that actually works. So I would highly recommend listeners to study some of these case studies in the published journals.

Diana (3m 2s):
You really can learn a lot about methodology and get some really good ideas on how to put together a case, proving something in your own family that maybe others may not agree with at first. Right.

Nicole (3m 15s):
And it’s tricky when there’s a lot of people who have re-published the inaccurate information. So it’s just everywhere.

Diana (3m 24s):
And does that mean a true? You know, just because something has been disseminated in multiple places doesn’t mean it’s accurate. We have some real responsibility as genealogists to make our cases and get them out there in a way that other people can read them and understand.

Nicole (3m 40s):
Yes. And you know, a lot of the times with these alleged military service of ancestors from oral history, it ends up being that they’re not actually eligible for being in the Daughters of the American Revolution because they didn’t actually serve or something different happened, or it was a different man. So, you know, I kind of thought that’s what was going to happen with this article, but no spoilers. You’re going to have to read it yourself. So it had a little bit of a surprise ending for me. So go read it and check it out in the March 2021 from NGSQ.

Diana (4m 13s):
It’s great. And if you are a member of the National Genealogical Society, you can access the archives. So all the articles from the very beginning are online and you can go back and read any article that you like. And that can be fun, especially if you find something in an area that you are researching a specific state or county or a country, and it can give you some ideas of sources and methodology for your specific research problem.

Nicole (4m 39s):
Yeah. My ProGen mentor, Shannon Green said that that was something she did when she was preparing for certification. As she went through some of the major journals and found a lot of articles pertaining to the regions that she was interested in and just really studied the sources that the authors used and kind of made a list of the main sources that most genealogists used in those areas so that she could make sure she would check them too.

Diana (5m 4s):
Yeah. That’s a great methodology for study, whether you’re doing certification or accreditation, but let’s get to a few announcements. We have got our Research Like a Pro with DNA study group beginning in September, and we are recording this episode early. So when this airs, it may be full. If it is, you can join our waiting list. We always have a few people at the very beginning that have something come up and have to drop out. And so there will still be a chance that you could get in. And if a study group is not right for you, you would rather do an independent study. We have our Research Like a Pro DNA online course, always available.

Diana (5m 46s):
So you can go to FamilyLocket and check that out. And we get to continue with our guests today. Allison Kotter, who is one of our independent course members. And it’s been so fun in the last episode, we talked with Allison all about what she did to start a project. And we’re going to continue with that today. So hi, Allison, how are you doing?

Allison Kotter (6m 11s):
I’m doing great. Thank you for having me again.

Diana (6m 14s):
Oh, you’re so welcome.

Nicole (6m 16s):
Well, last time we talked about the first few steps, so just remind us what you’ve already done in the project.

Allison Kotter (6m 22s):
So when I started my project, I kind of looked at what I knew about my pedigree and what questions I wanted to overcome with DNA. And then I went through my DNA matches and I made my first go at a Lucidchart to sort everything out, clustered some matches. And I came up with an objective to find the biological father of Mary Ella Parker, who is my mother-in-law’s great-grandmother.

Nicole (6m 49s):
Perfect that’s a really good objective. And I’m excited to see you, the next steps that you worked on after that.

Diana (6m 56s):
So Allison, why don’t you read your objective for us just to refresh everyone’s memory and where, and when this was taking place?

Allison Kotter (7m 5s):
Absolutely. So I wrote, the objective of this research project is to use DNA and genealogical records to determine the biological father of Mary Ella Parker born on 22nd of August, 1877 in Baldwin county, Alabama. Mary Ella died on the 28th of December, 1950 in Columbus, Muscogee, Georgia. The test taker is three generations from the research subject and autosomal DNA will be applicable. However, third to fourth cousins may not share very much DNA, which could make verifying the exact relationship difficult. The community of the research subject also experienced pedigree collapse. So there may be multiple, most recent common ancestors with the test taker.

Allison Kotter (7m 47s):
Mitochondrial DNA is not useful in this case, as it is not an unbroken maternal line and Y-DNA is not useful in this case as it is not an unbroken paternal line.

Diana (7m 56s):
So I just want to point out that you specifically said you were going to determine the biological father. And that is something that we teach in creating a DNA objective that we are talking about genetic or biological relationships, because that is what it’s all about is getting that type of a relationship figured out. So I really like your objective.

Allison Kotter (8m 18s):
Thank you. I also, something that helped me in the course is you told us to focus on identifying a parent. So a father or a mother and not the parents, like we say a lot in traditional research because the first time I wrote it, I actually put the biological parents. So it has helped me focus more, to focus on one parent.

Diana (8m 39s):
Yes, that is a really good point that you brought up because you don’t have as many ancestors that you have to worry about if you’re just doing one line. So that is really helpful. So the next step is putting everything into a timeline, you know, going back to your traditional research and how did that work for you with this case?

Allison Kotter (8m 58s):
I enjoyed doing the timeline for this project because it reminded me why I had come to the conclusion previously that William Parker was Mary Ella’s father in the 1900 census. That’s the only source we currently have for William and Zilla’s marriage. And it says that they were married in 1875. And then Mary Ella’s death certificate says that she was born in 1877. So to me that seems pretty straight forward that she is the biological daughter of William Parker. So doing the timeline, I said, okay, well now I know why I had come to the conclusion I did. And now DNA can maybe strengthen that conclusion,

Diana (9m 38s):
Right? And remind us why you may be thought there was something different going on here.

Allison Kotter (9m 44s):
One of the cousins I had been corresponding with as I did research on the Parker family claims that Mary Ella is actually a daughter of Zilla’s first marriage through a Mr Barnes. And that she just adopted the Parker name because William raised her. So the timeline reminded me why I had come to my conclusion.

Diana (10m 3s):
Right. But we all know that sometimes the dates, even on death certificates, you know, we know census records can have incorrect ages, but sometimes dates can be off on other certificates too. Or, you know, other records like birth, marriage or death records. So that’s really interesting. And I can see why you really wanted to approach this problem with DNA because she’s right there that she could fit into either family it sounds like

Allison Kotter (10m 30s):
Right, the dates are too close, and they’re also fairly inconsistent throughout the records that I couldn’t just ignore what this cousin had said.

Nicole (10m 39s):
Absolutely. You always want to do that reasonably exhaustive research and follow all possible leads for information. So it’s great that that cousin brought that idea to your attention and that, you know, that that’s something to check out. So the next step is to practice with source citations. And so as you’re doing your timeline, you get the opportunity to put in the citation for where that event or that fact came from and write a citation. So tell us about your writing of source citations

Allison Kotter (11m 8s):
With the traditional source citations luckily, I have learned that skill through going through Research Like a Pro previously, but I always liked to follow the exercise of who created the source. What is the source? When was the source created and where is the source and where in at the source is the item of information. And I actually use that a lot. I have all these templates for when I find something on Ancestry or FamilySearch, but for things I order, sometimes you have to go through that process. So I had ordered Mary Ella’s death certificate. So I went through the process. So who created the source: the Georgia department of health. What is the source: the death certificate for Mary Ella Sutton.

Allison Kotter (11m 52s):
When was the source created: the 28th, December, 1950. Where is the source: Muscogee County, Georgia. And where in the source is the item information: and it’s that death certificate 28415. So going through that process helps me put together a nice source citation for sources that weren’t just on Ancestry or FamilySearch.

Nicole (12m 13s):
Perfect. Yes. And to make sure you guys go look at the blog post that Alison wrote about this, so you can read the citation and see more about that. But yeah, it is a really good practice to go through all the questions and, and to really think about each answer.

Diana (12m 30s):
I agree. And sometimes we get really concerned about what order to put things in. Should this be first, should that be second? And we can just stymie ourselves with worrying about small details. Whereas if you just put those basic things in an order that makes logical sense to you, then you’re fine and your citation looks great. So after you do your timeline and you do your traditional citations for your traditional sources, we also tackle some DNA source citations, and don’t really do these right at the beginning, but as you’re going through using some of the different tools, and especially when you’re writing up your report, you’ll need to do DNA source citations, and they’re kind of a whole different ball game.

Diana (13m 14s):
So what did you do with the DNA citations?

Allison Kotter (13m 18s):
Yeah, I agree. I had no idea how to approach these at first. So going through the lesson helped because I was able to see some examples. Then I realized that I just had to go through the same exercises. The answers would just be a little different. So you guys suggest in the e-course to cite some of the methods you’ve already done. So I had clustered the matches with the Leeds Method. So I decided to try to write a source citation for that. So who created the source? Well, I did Allison Kotter. What is the source? It is a Leeds Method analysis for Leslie Kotter. When was the source created? Well, it was created February 8th, 2021.

Allison Kotter (13m 58s):
Where is the source? It is privately held by me, Allison Kotter in Macon, Georgia. And where in the sourcesis the item of information. So this is where I put a little detail. I said it shows five clusters with Leslie Kotter’s, Ancestry.com DNA matches ranging from 90 centiMorgans to 400 centiMorgans. So that’s kind of what I came up with for that source citation. And then I also did one for just a DNA match since I thought that would be a source I was using a lot. And then I know you guys also say you could try and do it for all my family trees, ethnicity, estimates, WATO, Genetic Affairs, anything like that.

Diana (14m 34s):
Right. I think the, kind of the tricky part of DNA citations is that last item, where in the source is the item of information we’re used to putting something like the page number or certificate number, like with the death certificate, but DNA it’s where we put some specifics about the information. So, you know, you had put how many centiMorgans your range was, how many clusters, if you’re doing a citation for an ethnicity estimate, you had label out the different ethnicities and percentages. So it’s just a place to put those details because people can go and access our DNA results.

Diana (15m 16s):
We’re the only ones that can look at it. So for putting this in a report, we have to give a little bit more information about the DNA results within the citation. So they are just a little bit different, but it looks like you got the hang of it and your citations look great. So congratulations on conquering that. Thank you.

Allison Kotter (15m 35s):
And luckily once you do it, once you can write your template and then you can go back to it.

Diana (15m 40s):
Yes. Having all of these citations in a template helps so much. I use my templates all the time for my own work and my client work because it’s just so much faster once you figure it out. Absolutely.

Nicole (15m 53s):
So after writing citations in your timeline, the next step was to analyze those sources and information in your timeline, and really think about if it’s original or derivative and authored. And if the information is primary or secondary and think about how that makes that information more reliable, more useful, or less reliable. So tell us about that process

Allison Kotter (16m 18s):
For the sources I was focusing on that had given me evidence of William being Mary’s father. If you think about it, let’s see it was the 1900 census, which is an original source, and it’s direct evidence that he is her father and she’s listed as his daughter and it’s direct evidence of his marriage date. And then her death certificate has her parents listed as William P. Parker and Zilla T Beck. So that’s direct evidence of those being her parents. And then it’s also direct evidence of her birth date. However, if you put in the last thing, the information that’s, when you start realizing where the unreliability could come in with these sources. So for example, the death certificate, the informant on that is Mary’s daughter, Varella, and Varella was born like within the year that William and Zilla died.

Allison Kotter (17m 6s):
So she probably never knew them, which is probably why she said, oh, their names were William P. Parker instead of William E. Parker. And then also, well, I know she was not at her mother’s birth. So how do we know that that is the correct birth date? An exercise I like to do is I like to go to my friends and ask them for the year that their parents were born and they are almost always off by a year or two. They always know the birth day, but they don’t know the birth year. So I like to put a question mark around when a child is saying a birth year, along with that Mary Ella’s birth years over multiple records is pretty inconsistent. So I knew I couldn’t a hundred percent trust that death certificate a record.

Allison Kotter (17m 50s):
Along with that, the 1900 census were William and Zilla’s marriage has given us 1875. That census it’s full of question marks for the family. The birth years are inconsistent. It has step-children listed as a biological children. And so much of the information makes me think that probably a neighbor was giving that information because it does not track with the rest of the family. And as it is an undetermined informant, we cannot rely a hundred percent on the information given in that census. So this made me realize, I thought I had come to a pretty strong conclusion and while the evidence is there, I probably should continue through this DNA project to see if Mary is biologically a Parker or a Barnes.

Nicole (18m 37s):
Great analysis. I really like what you said about the 1900 census. When you take the information for the household as a whole and consider the reliability of everything together, you start to see that it is inconsistent with other census records. And that’s a really good thing to do. And to think about that, instead of just focusing on that one piece of information, you know, the fact that it says directly that she’s a daughter of William and Zilla, so good job with your analysis and how great that the analysis was able to point you in a direction where you had some questions that you needed to answer and just to continue the investigation.

Diana (19m 17s):
I agree, and we have some situations where we’ve had the same family enumerated twice in the same census within a couple of weeks. And it’s very interesting to look at the difference in the information, names, relationships are different, and it really shows that the informant makes a huge difference. So that is really key in looking at these sources to analyze every piece of information in there. So good job. Well, the next part is to look at the DNA evidence and to continue to do some analysis with that. So what did you do with analyzing the DNA that you had already been working with?

Allison Kotter (19m 56s):
So for this, I revisited my Lucidchart. I kind of wanted to add more details to it after I went through the lesson. So I colored the people on my Lucidchart, and this is all in the blog post. I’m going to try and explain it. So anyone that was a Parker descendant, I colored purple and anyone that was a Barnes descendant I colored blue. I then went through the matches and I wrote how many centiMorgans I was sharing with them. And then I went on the Shared cM Project and I put in what the average centiMorgans should be based on the relationship I was calculating. And what I found was that a lot of the Barnes’ were not really showing up as half relationships as I expected.

Allison Kotter (20m 42s):
And the Parkers were not showing up as full relationships as expected. So for example, one match, Leslie, shared 112 centiMorgans with, and I had them as a half third cousin where the average for a half third cousin would be 48 centiMorgans. Whereas one of the full 3rd cousins, which should have an average of 73 centiMorgans only shared 26 centiMorgans was Leslie. So this made me realize something might not be what it appears to be.

Diana (21m 11s):
Yeah. And I am looking at your chart and I love it. The color coding is so nice and right in the center between the Barnes line and the Parker line, you have your tester in green, is that correct? And, and her line going right straight up?

Allison Kotter (21m 29s):
Yeah. So the direct line is in green.

Diana (21m 32s):
I love that. And then I noticed that you have put some colors around your DNA matches. You’ve got red around some and green around some. So what is that the little outlining that you put?

Allison Kotter (21m 44s):
So the ones that I outlined red were ones that I thought the actual centiMorgans to the average centiMorgans was off. Whereas the ones in green, they seemed fairly similar to me. I also put in the Shared cM Project, the amount of centiMorgans and then put down the percentage chance that it would be the relationship I was expecting. So for example, the match that only shared 26 centiMorgans, that I was estimating to be a full third cousin, that’s a 9% chance that that would be correct.

Diana (22m 12s):
So you really did put a lot of detail into your Lucidchart. So that just at a glance, you could analyze this.

Allison Kotter (22m 19s):
Yeah. It’s been very helpful. I have gone back to it over and over again.

Diana (22m 24s):
Yeah. I really like to consider my Lucidchart as my research log slash timeline for the DNA evidence, because there’s something about seeing it all in front of you, that this was a step that I was really missing with my initial DNA work was being able to visualize it like this. So I think it’s such a key point

Nicole (22m 42s):
And this, this case really illustrates how difficult it is sometimes to figure out if somebody is a half third cousin or a full third cousin, because if I am remembering correctly, these do all fall within the range of possible amounts of centiMorgans to share. But it is really good that you were looking at, you know, the likelihood of them sharing that much, and then looking at the averages and trying to see what’s more likely versus is it possible,

Allison Kotter (23m 11s):
Right? Yeah. They all do fall within the correct range. So, you know, on one hand I could just ignore, oh, well they’re in the right range. But I did want to look at the average to see what was making a little bit more sense.

Nicole (23m 24s):
Yeah, absolutely. And it really highlights the fact that DNA evidence is indirect. We can’t make an absolute statement. Oh, this is showing that this is for sure a full third cousin. Most of the time we can’t do that. It’s such a combination of all of the clues put together in one case and building the case with the DNA evidence and the traditional research and what everything shows when you put it all together.

Diana (23m 57s):
Right. Well, I am just so fascinated with your case. So I’m excited that we get to revisit this in a few episodes from now and see what the next steps are and to see what you discovered.

Allison Kotter (24m 9s):
I don’t know if I can a hundred percent say without a doubt, like you said, this is indirect evidence, but I’m near the end of the project and I am definitely being pointed towards one answer.

Nicole (24m 18s):
Great. So we’ll, we’ll have to look forward to the future episodes about this, to hear the answer. We don’t want to spoil it.

Diana (24m 24s):
Right. Well, thank you so much, Allison, for coming on again and thank you for writing these blog posts. I would encourage all of our listeners to go read this series. Allison has it illustrated so well in the blog post on FamilyLocket, and you can follow her progress with each step. And if you’re interested in learning how to Research Like a Pro with DNA yourself, our e-book is available and the courses available. So we have lots of options for you to learn how to use DNA in your own research.

Allison Kotter (24m 56s):
And I would just like to say that I did not think I would be able to do it. I thought it would be over my head. And luckily the course has guided me well. So I would encourage people as well. If you’re a little overwhelmed, the course will help you get to the point where you can do this.

Nicole (25m 11s):
Oh, thank you for sharing that. I’m glad that it’s working. We studied the process a lot and have all these diagrams of like the steps and move things around. And so it’s really fun to see your success with the soap and that it’s helping you. So thank you so much for sharing and for coming on today.

Allison Kotter (25m 30s):
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Nicole (25m 31s):
All right, everyone. We’ll talk to you again next week. Bye.

Diana (25m 34s):
Bye. Bye.

Nicole (25m 35s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our Research Like a Pro online course or join our next Study Group. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com to share your progress and ask questions. Join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our e-course or Study Group. If you like what you heard and would like to support this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.