RLP 164: RLP with DNA eCourse Part 5

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 164, the Research Like a Pro with DNA e-course part five. 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 (48s):
Everyone and welcome to Research Like a Pro.

Diana (51s):
Hi, Nicole, how are you doing today?

Nicole (53s):
I’m doing good. I’ve been wrestling with DNA GEDCom and trying to get it to download matches that can make a network graph. And every once in a while, things don’t work the way I want them to. And so it’s frustrating, but it eventually worked. And I created a network graph for the video and they had the most pedigree collapse I’ve ever seen for someone from the Southern states. It was crazy. Her parents are related. And so all of the clusters are over, oh, shoot. She wants to work on her paternal side. So I tried to remove the clusters that were maternal and that helped a little bit, but still it’s just so many connections between the clusters. In fact, when DNA GEDCom downloads the matches, it creates an in common with spreadsheet for all of the shared matches of all the matches for the range you put in.

Nicole (1m 39s):
And I put in 15 centimorgans and up, and usually that’s fine. But this time when I opened the spreadsheet, Excel said it couldn’t load all of the spreadsheets. I had to use like a spreadsheet splitter program and it split it into five different files because Excel will not open anything past about a million rows. And she had so many shared matches, so many connections between her matches that she had over 4 million rows that needed to be. So I had to do 37 centiMorgans and up, and that worked much better.

Diana (2m 16s):
So before you were doing 20?

Nicole (2m 19s):
15

Diana (2m 19s):
0 15, okay.

Nicole (2m 21s):
Yeah. So the number of matches fit just fine. It was like 50,000 matches or something, but then the connections between the matches were so many that it was too much for one spreadsheet.

Diana (2m 32s):
Oh, my word, that is super interesting. What locality?

Nicole (2m 40s):
Kentucky

Diana (2m 40s):
In Kentucky, we have had some client projects too, with that pedigree collapse and running the network graphs and DNA to tree have seen so much pedigree collapse. I’m trying to figure out how to work with it. So it’s good to figure it out though.

Nicole (2m 56s):
Not the strategies we’re employing is using other people’s DNA that are related to the research subject. So she has her aunt and first cousin. So we’re going to focus on their DNA results. They’re also one generation closer. So it’s, you know, if you can look at other people’s, they might have less of that relatedness

Diana (3m 16s):
That’s whole great tip. Yeah.

Nicole (3m 18s):
So what have you been doing?

Diana (3m 20s):
Well in the last week, I’ve given four presentations to societies, zoom calls and then two webinars, one for the Southern California genealogy society. And then when on timelines and evidence analysis for Family Tree Magazine. So that’s been fun. It’s been kind of intense getting those ready and preparing, but now they’re all done and they were all great. It was fun.

Nicole (3m 50s):
That’s great. I really like your lecture about timelines and evidence analysis. It’s really an important step.

Diana (3m 56s):
It isn’t, it’s a fun case study. It’s a Swedish man whose identity was merged with another one that led the family off in the completely wrong place for discovering more about him. He had disappeared from Sweden and they knew only that he went to the United States and all their research thought that he ended up in 1930 in Massachusetts. But when I separated out the identities, it turns out he went to Canada and his last record, there was 1926. So, you know, it’s a big difference if you are researching in Canada or Massachusetts. So hopefully they’ll be able to make more progress now that those merged identities were separated, but it really was the timeline that made the huge difference.

Nicole (4m 35s):
Yeah. That’s really good that the timeline could help you separate them out. And often that’s what we have to do when we’re working with people at the same name. Yep. Well, for announcements, we just wanted to remind you that our study group for the fall with DNA is happening in a couple of weeks. So if you still want to register and join us, you can also, if you want to get on the waiting list, you can email us. And then for the next study group in the spring, we’re doing Research Like a Pro with DNA again, and then in the fall, we’ll have the traditional Research Like a Pro study group. So just looking ahead, and there’s an email list you can join. If you want to get updates about steady group information,

Diana (5m 16s):
We’re excited to get started and I’m excited to do a new project. It’ll be so fun. Well, today we’ve got Alison Cotter back. Hi, Alison.

Nicole (5m 24s):
Hi. Thanks for having me back.

Diana (5m 26s):
You are so welcome. This is our final podcast with Alison, and we’re going to find out all about the writing process and what she discovered when she wrote up her project. So just review for us a little bit about how your project went, cause you did the Research Like a Pro DNA e-course.

Allison Kotter (5m 46s):
Right. And so that was nice because I just did every lesson as a step. I started with knowing nothing about DNA, then I still don’t know too much, but I was able to complete my project and come to a conclusion, at least for this phase of the research. So I did my Lucidchart, my analyzing did some research, and I found that all the centiMorgans for my matches and the test takers I had were not matching up exactly as they should, if the traditional work I had done was correct.

Diana (6m 22s):
Oh, that’s always at first, it’s very unsettling. And then you just think, okay, I’ve got to dig in and figure this out.

Allison Kotter (6m 29s):
Yeah. And it’s exciting to get the right answer. I’ve been dealing with these names for so long. And I like that I’m starting to sort out their puzzle to a more correct way. Right.

Diana (6m 42s):
And it is really good to find the answer. I know sometimes we just have to sit with it for a little bit and think about, oh, okay. So all of my previous work, my preconceptions were not accurate. Oh, dang it. But now I’m going to find the right answer. It happens to all of us.

Allison Kotter (6m 58s):
Yeah. It’s part of being a genealogist for sure.

Diana (7m 3s):
Absolutely.So how did you get started in writing your report?

Allison Kotter (7m 6s):
for me I think the hardest part of writing your report is starting to write it. So I like to sit down and write a very casual kind of outline, like as if I was talking to one of my friends and explaining my project to them, that helps me figure out a logical way to explain the project. So when I do that, I don’t write any footnotes or anything. It’s just as if I was sending an email to a friend and then I make that into my outline. So that’s normally how I start my writing.

Diana (7m 37s):
Oh, I really like that idea.

Allison Kotter (7m 39s):
Yeah. Helps me get over my nerves of writing the perfect paper from the get go too.

Diana (7m 45s):
Okay. Good idea.

Nicole (7m 47s):
Let’s get a reminder of what your objective was for this project.

Allison Kotter (7m 51s):
The objective of this research project was to use DNA and genealogical records to determine the biological father of Mary Ella Parker born on the 22nd of August, 1877 in Baldwin County, Alabama Mary Ella died on the 28th of December, 1950 in Columbus, Muscogee, Georgia. And the test taker is three generations from the research subject and autosomal DNA will be applicable. The community of the research subject also experienced pedigree collapsed. So there may be multiple, most recent common ancestors with the test taker. Mitochondrial DNA is also not useful in this case, as it is not an unbroken paternal line and why DNA is not useful in this case as it is not a broken paternal line.

Nicole (8m 35s):
So basically you’re using autosomal DNA to help you figure out the parents of Mary Ella Parker.

Allison Kotter (8m 41s):
Correct. And she is the great grandmother of my mother-in-law. So I was using my mother-in-law’s DNA. And then in the last step, I also got her father’s DNA. So my grandpa in law, and then one of the other cousins that I working with shared his DNA with me too.

Nicole (8m 59s):
That was really great that that happened. Yeah. So when you’re writing your research report, I’ve noticed sometimes I’m tempted to adjust my research objective with what I had found during the project, so that it’s more accurate, but kind of realized, you know, I have to keep it the same as what I started so that I know what my starting point was. And then I can kind of correct it as I go along. But I think it is a good idea to kind of revisit your objective and just make sure that you put it at the beginning of your research report and in that kind of thing, what do you think?

Allison Kotter (9m 30s):
Yeah, it’s helped me putting it at the beginning because as I start writing, sometimes I get really excited about writing some fun fact I learned or something. And if you go back and read the objective, you’re like, well, is this helping me with my objective? You know, or is this a separate objective that I’m answering here? So I think it’s really important to be very clear with your objective and have it at the beginning of your paper so that both you and the reader are on track.

Nicole (9m 59s):
That’s a good point.

Diana (10m 1s):
I really liked what you said about what fun facts should you put in? What should you leave out? You know, staying focused on that objective, always something to keep in mind that we want to have everything being supportive of that objective because we do discover some interesting things. And sometimes if the objective is to learn everything about an ancestor, then of course we’d put that in. But in this case where you’re really focused on finding the biological father, we had to probably cut some things. Well, let’s talk about the next part, which is the results summary. How did this work out for you?

Allison Kotter (10m 37s):
So I wrote the results summary last after I finished my paper. So I kind of went through each of my sections and found my conclusions, but I liked this section because genealogical papers and especially with DNA are not light reads. And a lot of times your client, or for example, like my family, my mother-in-law, they don’t have a lot of background in genealogy. And so it can be overwhelming when I hand them a 20 page report and all they want is the answer. And so I like the results summary, cause it can just bullet point. What we found for this, what I wrote was that I reviewed the traditional genealogy, which showed that Mary Ella was the daughter of William Parker and Zillah Beck.

Allison Kotter (11m 21s):
And then I conducted multiple Leeds Method analysis for my test takers, Leslie, Phillip and Mark and I identified the genetic networks that I needed to use in the project. And then I calculated the average centiMorgans shared between each test taker and the descendants of the Parkers versus the descendants of the Barnes. And then I identified a group of matches between Phillip Sutton and a mark that indicated a paternal link between the two test takers. And I explored the likelihood that Mary Ella is the biological daughter of Sarah Barnes, who was an unwed 17 year old girl at the time of marriage.

Diana (11m 58s):
I like that. You just put that right in there at the beginning, you didn’t try to make this a mystery and, and give a big to them thing at the end. The reason why I liked that is because then it’s in the reader’s head. And as they’re reading through your paper, they’re looking for the evidence that’s going to show that. I think it’s a good preparation.

Allison Kotter (12m 20s):
Yeah. And I think that sometimes I think my writing is really clear, but if you’re not used to genealogy or DNA, it, you can maybe get lost in the centiMorgans. And so you might not understand, oh, this is the conclusion we came to. Hopefully you write it also later, but I think it can get easy to get lost in the paper if you’re not comfortable with the subject.

Diana (12m 43s):
Well, it’s repetition. You need to see it again and again and again, to understand what’s happening here. So, so good job. And I noticed that you did what we recommend, which is using those action verbs, such as reviewed, conducted and calculated. I really liked that because I think it helps to propel the reader forward. Was that hard to try to write that with the active verbs?

Allison Kotter (13m 6s):
I’ve been through Research Like a Pro a few times and I’ve have a growing list. So when I read other papers, I’m like, oh, I like that one. Or, you know, things like that. So that’s helped is having a growing list and reading other examples helps me with my writing.

Diana (13m 24s):
That is such a good idea. And I have found that as I read the National Genealogical Society quarterly articles that I have been highlighting the active verbs all through the writing, not just like in a summary of results. They’re doing proof arguments, so they do a different format, but I love seeing how they use the active verbs to state things. So getting rid of so much of the was ans is, and the are, you know, using words that really help the reader to get more out of it than that act voice though. Good job. Okay.

Nicole (14m 0s):
Well, the next section of the report is for the background information. So tell us what you included there.

Allison Kotter (14m 8s):
Yeah, here, I just kind of wrote about what we’ve been talking about in the other podcast, which is where I had decided that traditional genealogies showed that William Parker and Zillah Beck were the parents of Mary Ella Parker. However, I was communicating with the cousin who explained that Mary Ella was actually the daughter of Zillah’s first husband, Mr. Barnes, and adopted the Parker name because William Parker raised her. So I explained that in the background. And then I also explained that the sources show that Mary Ella was born in 1877, William and Zillah were married in 1875. Therefore it seems that she was most likely a Parker.

Allison Kotter (14m 49s):
However, the DNA is going to tell us if that’s true or not. And I also went through the DNA background. So I showed how we were connected to each generation back. And then the DNA showed that we were related to Zillah Beck, but it did not clearly show who Mary Ella’s father was. And so I showed that all through Lucidchart diagrams in my background and the report is available on the blog post, which I think is linked to this episode as well.

Nicole (15m 20s):
Yeah, that’ll be great. So everyone can go and see your Lucidchart diagrams. Did you have to break those up so that they would fit into your report?

Allison Kotter (15m 29s):
Yeah, I at first had like a pretty big one and then I actually had Diana review my paper and she said, I think this would be better, a little broken up so that we could read it. And I was showing it to some other people too, and they all agreed. So I think my background has four different Lucidcharts that I just have split up to try and be really clear about what I thought the DNA was showing at the beginning.

Nicole (15m 52s):
That’s a helpful way to start the project to just kind of show that the generations that you have traced through documentary records are also being proven through the DNA that gives you such a good starting point for the rest of the research.

Diana (16m 8s):
I think that’s also helpful because if you’re starting with the known generations, if your family’s reading it, they’re familiar with these people. They’re like, oh, okay. That’s grandma. That’s great grandma. So they’re understanding how the Lucidchart diagram works or whatever diagram program you’re using. Then when you get further on in the report and you’re bringing up all these unknown connections, they still can see how it lines up and how it works. So I think that’s a great idea to start with the known and introduce them to the methodology and to the charting. Well, let’s talk about another step in writing the report and that’s to list out the limitations.

Diana (16m 52s):
And then also, you know, sometimes we want to put in the methodology what we used for this project and explaining that to the reader. So what’d you do for that?

Allison Kotter (17m 1s):
So here I read a few different papers just because I had never written a section like this before. So I wrote this little splurge that explains the autosomal DNA is only good for up to six to eight generations back. And that the way I worked through this project is that I would look at what the testing website would report with centiMorgans. And the testing website normally tells you what they think the relationship is, but you have to figure that out specifically through the pedigree. And so building back pedigrees and comparing them with other matches and your own pedigree is kind of how you figure out the relationship between you a DNA match, which can then lead to proving your family relationships and finding missing ancestors.

Diana (17m 47s):
It’s really important to explain how this works. If someone has never used DNA at all they have no clue what you’re talking about. And you’ve got to do so much explanation. It’s a lot different in a report that’s going to be read by family members or clients without DNA experience than perhaps publishing it like a proof argument in a journal where you assume that your audience knows all about DNA. So for these reports, we need to be really good at explaining things. And I think one of the tips, and you mentioned this before that when you get something really good written up, it’s a good explanation, save that in a document and reuse it because if we continue working with DNA in different projects, we can use those good explanations over and over.

Diana (18m 35s):
Right.

Allison Kotter (18m 35s):
Right. I wish I had included also in this section about pedigree collapse. I deal with that later in the paper, but I think it would have been good to explain right here, just so that the reader understood what we were dealing with,

Diana (18m 50s):
Especially in this case, because that is the severe limitation. That’s a good idea. Well, so the next part after you’ve discussed the limitations and methodology is to put together the findings. So how did you organize this? Sometimes that’s tricky. Right?

Allison Kotter (19m 7s):
I kind of went back to, oh, right when I’m explaining this to my friend, what do I want them to understand first, before I get into the meat of my research? So I got three sections. One was we’re viewing all the genealogical evidence for Mary Ella Parker’s family. So I kind of touched on it in the background, but I felt like there was more than I needed to get into the meat of then just what I wrote in the background. And then I had the DNA evidence of Mary Ella Parker’s family. So then I started going into the DNA and what conclusions I’d come through that. And then my last section was Mary Ella. Parker’s exact relationship to the Barnes family.

Allison Kotter (19m 48s):
So that’s where I explore. Well, is she a biological daughter of Zillah or is she actually the granddaughter of Zillah and the daughter of the 17 year old unwed sister?

Diana (20m 3s):
Yeah. So doing your explanatory email type writing first helped you to formulate how you really wanted to organize the findings. That’s great. And I find with the DNA projects that it’s so helpful to lay the foundation with the genealogy first, which is exactly what you did and then to get into the DNA. And sometimes I like to weave it back and forth so that the reader gets a little bit of a break in between the DNA and get, get back to some genealogy. But you know, it is every project is different and you really have to use what works best. Yeah.

Allison Kotter (20m 40s):
I’m working on my second DNA project right now and it’s for somebody else. And I’m finding, I’m explaining it in a completely different way than I did in this project.

Diana (20m 49s):
Yeah. Isn’t it so interesting every project and not only with DNA involved, but even just a research project, strictly genealogy, I find that I organize different ways, completely dependent upon what the finding is, what the objective was, the client, you know, all of those things come into play.

Nicole (21m 8s):
So, so with DNA evidence, there’s kind of a lot of different things we have to talk about and display. So tell us how you discussed your Leeds Method analysis, and also how you shared some of the data. That’s kind of trickier to include in a genealogical report where we’re used to doing more narrative.

Allison Kotter (21m 28s):
So I went back through my Leeds Method analysis and kind of explained that this is a clustering method that’s supposed to show your four grandparents. Then I shared the Leeds Method analysis I did for each test taker showing that Leslie showed five groups, okay,that’s pedigree collapse. Leslie’s father showed 15 groups that’s severe pedigree collapse. And then Mark, who didn’t have any overlapping with Leslie and Phillip’s Leeds Method analysis, I did his, and he had the four distinct groups. So I kind of explained that process. And then I start using this method where I started taking the average amount of DNA shared between each of the test takers and the Parker or Barnes descendants.

Allison Kotter (22m 14s):
So I explained that in narrative, and then I also included a table that way we could kind of see it and you could read about it to understand what I was doing.

Nicole (22m 23s):
It’s such a great idea to do a table and it just makes the data much easier to digest when you can see it in that format.

Allison Kotter (22m 30s):
For me, even while writing it, when I made the table, I started understanding because I have the average amount of centiMorgans shared between Mark and the Parker descendants and Mark and the Barnes descendants. And on average, Mark was sharing 33 centiMorgans with the Parker descendants and 109 with the Barnes descendants. Okay. So Mark seems to be closely related to the Barnes. Well, then you go to my mother-in-law, Leslie, and she is sharing about half the amount with the Parker descendants then the Barnes, so 24 cM on average with the Parkers and 55 with the Barnes. So once again showing she is more related to the Barnes’. And her father’s DNA showed the same thing.

Allison Kotter (23m 12s):
So making the table kind of helps me figure out where I was going with all of this.

Nicole (23m 18s):
Its amazing how in the report writing, we often can see more clearly what we have found. And it’s kind of funny because, you know, by then we’re done with the project and we’re writing up what we found. And then we, we like have these aha moments. It just shows how important writing is. You know, if you never do the writing part, you really miss out on some of those connections that come from compiling and correlating all the data.

Allison Kotter (23m 41s):
Yeah. I never know what my conclusion is until I start writing. That’s what I’ve learned. I think I, but I never know until I start writing,

Diana (23m 51s):
It is so funny. Sometimes I think, well, I should start writing right at the beginning. And I agree that, you know, you can certainly write up your background information at the beginning, you know what you’re starting with. And I think that actually is really good because sometimes you don’t realize that there’s some significant clue hidden in that background information that you thought you had analyzed everything, but when you start writing it and you’re like, oh, wait a minute. This is telling me something. So I like to do the background first, but then I really do like to do quite a bit of research so that I wrapped my head around the whole project before I start writing. So I know other people have different ways of doing it, but I think we all have to just practice and see what works the best.

Allison Kotter (24m 30s):
Yeah. I kind of feel like it changes project to project for me too. Sometimes as I’m working through it, I’m like, oh, I need to write while I do this. But other times I kind of feel like where I need to wrap my head around the whole project before I can even start writing.

Diana (24m 46s):
Yeah. That’s a great point. Really, each project is unique and we need to be flexible, I think is a key thing there. Well, after you’ve explained all your findings, then you get to write the conclusion and I love doing the conclusion. How did you feel about this one?

Allison Kotter (25m 2s):
So I felt good about it because when I started the project, I didn’t think I was going to have an answer. I really wanted to get to the next generation back of either the Parker or the Barnes, whichever she was related to. But I didn’t realize that that’s its own project that just figuring out if she was a Parker or Barnes would take this much. So with my conclusion, I just went back through my report and I explained that while the traditional research shows her as a daughter of William Parker, the DNA does seem to show that she is related to the Barnes family more than the Parker family. And that when you combine the two, what I think makes the most sense is that she is the biological daughter of Sarah Barnes, who was 17 years old and unwed at the time of her birth.

Allison Kotter (25m 50s):
But anyways, it’s all explained in the paper and I have all these likelihoods filled out and I have future research that I’m going to be doing to try to show that that’s who I think is her mother.

Diana (26m 2s):
Now, isn’t that fun when you get to that concluding part of the whole project, and then you have all these ideas for the next steps. It’s just really satisfying to know that you’ve brought something to an end and that now, you know what to do going forward. You don’t have this just open-ended project. That’s never going to end. Do you finish this phase? And now you’re ready for the next, right? Yeah.

Allison Kotter (26m 24s):
And I don’t think I would’ve ever thought to even pursue Sarah Barnes as Mary’s mother without doing this project first. And especially without writing it up because I wasn’t even on that track during my research phase, it wasn’t until I started writing and really looking at the numbers and the dates where I thought I missing something. There’s a different answer here.

Diana (26m 49s):
Exactly. Well, you know, for our listeners, explain why there is still going to be some Parker DNA showing up or why you’re going to have some matches with some Parker surnames, because if you’re proving that he’s not the father, why is that coming through the DNA?

Allison Kotter (27m 5s):
That’s a great question. So him and Zillah got married and they did have their own biological children. And so we are sharing with those biological children probably has half relationships, but I haven’t been able to find any matches with any other Parkers besides those Parkers. To be fair, I haven’t found matches of any other Barnes, but the relationships are looking like they’re half relationships with those Parker siblings and full relationships with the Barnes siblings that I had found through the traditional research.

Diana (27m 38s):
Great. I remember that from our previous conversations, but I wanted to clarify because that can muddy the waters and make it confusing when you are seeing these surnames coming through the matches and they’re just coming down through those half siblings, we always have to be on the lookout for the hats. They can mess us up a lot. Yeah. And

Allison Kotter (27m 58s):
Now I’m wondering, well, are all the Parker kids that I thought are Parker kids, Parker kids? And so I’m actually collecting DNA from descendants of each of them. I’m trying to, at least I’ve got a good bit so that I can try and figure out exactly how this family worked out. I’m a little obsessed with this family.

Diana (28m 18s):
We all have our families that we obsess over. I love it. So just give us in a nutshell, kind of, kind of your future suggestions that you’re going to continue with.

Allison Kotter (28m 29s):
I would like to try Y-DNA, if possible, especially from one of the Parker’s sons, because this could possibly get past William Parker and that could have helped me clearly say, oh, we’re not related to this line or maybe we are. And then I really want to focus on Sarah Barnes. I know very little about her. I have her in the 1880 census. I know of some of her kids and then she dies. And then there’s a family story about who she was with like the husband. So I just really want to do focus project on her. And then I also want to do a DNA focused project trying to conclude is Mary Ella the daughter of Sarah Barnes and who could her father be?

Allison Kotter (29m 13s):
So my plan for that is to get other descendants of Mary Ella, because right now I have Leslie and her dad who are both descended from Mary Ella, but we have a lot of pedigree collapse actually from the other line. So I want to get DNA from other Mary Ella Parker descendants. I have DNA from Mary, from Leslie and her dad. But then Mark is actually descended from one of Mary Ella’s half sisters or full sisters or something like that. And I want to get other Mary Ella descendants in order to find out who her dad is specifically. And then I also, in my research phase, I found this couple Frank Ward and Mary Brooks, and I still haven’t found how they are connected to the tree.

Allison Kotter (29m 60s):
So I want to do a project on that.

Diana (30m 2s):
Wow. Well, those sounds like some great ideas and you have a lot of projects in your future on this family.

Allison Kotter (30m 11s):
Definitely.

Diana (30m 11s):
but it’ll be interesting. And so are you prioritizing those projects?

Allison Kotter (30m 15s):
Yeah. Right now, because I’m kind of on the DNA kick, I am collecting DNA of other Mary Ella descendants and figuring out who the father is just because that’s where my head is. I just did this project. I’m excited to figure it out. So that’s what I’ve been working on right now.

Diana (30m 33s):
That’s a great idea. And that could actually break open some of these other questions that you have and give you ideas on those.

Allison Kotter (30m 40s):
So yeah, in order to do that project, I need to kind of do a lot of traditional research on Sarah Barnes. So I’m kind of combining those two.

Diana (30m 50s):
Yeah, that sounds great.

Nicole (30m 51s):
Well, I’m excited to see where this research takes you and it’s true that once you really dive into a research project on a family, you do kind of get obsessed with them and you want to continue and, and keep working on the targeted testing and really find out what the answer is. So I’m glad that you’re able to keep going with that and getting some more test takers. It’s exciting.

Allison Kotter (31m 13s):
I’ve been surprised at how willing people have been to help. I don’t know if everyone’s always that successful, but so I made my report and I shared it with a bunch of these cousins. And I said, Hey, if you’re interested in helping me with this question, like this would help. And they’ve been super helpful.

Nicole (31m 30s):
That’s great. I think it helps a lot to send them the current state of the research by sending them the report and, you know, letting them know that you’re a competent genealogist who understands how DNA works, that really inspires confidence in people. And they want to help a little more, I think.

Allison Kotter (31m 45s):
Yeah. I think it’s helped having the report and not just being like, hey, you don’t know me, give me your DNA.

Nicole (31m 52s):
So you’re focusing on finding independent child lines to test through Mary Ella Parker.

Allison Kotter (31m 58s):
Yeah. That’s what I’m doing right now. I’ve gotten a few. I also have some descendants of Mary Ella siblings, whether they’re half or full. And I thought their DNA could also help me make things more clear as well, just because I’ve noticed that they have a little less pedigree collapsed than the Sutton line than Leslie and her father.

Nicole (32m 19s):
That’ll be great. And then the more coverage that you get of Mary Ella Parker through her descendants, hopefully it’ll become more clear all of those ancestors that she has, you know, that are kind of on that alone and known father side.

Allison Kotter (32m 34s):
Yeah. I actually think like you were talking at the beginning, I think I’m going to try and network graph next, figure out my unknown clusters. Exactly.

Nicole (32m 44s):
Yeah. That was a really helpful tool. Even when there’s pedigree collapse, you can still work with it. So hopefully it’s useful for you. Well, thank you for coming Alison. And when, you know, maybe a year has passed, it would be fun to have you back and get an update on how things are going with this case.

Allison Kotter (33m 1s):
Yeah. And hopefully by then, I’ll have at least gotten to a point where I can submit my fourth-generation generation project with it too.

Nicole (33m 11s):
Great. So that’s for accreditation?

Allison Kotter (33m 13s):
Yeah. That’s the goal, which this kind of messed up my generations if it’s true. So I need to figure that out.

Diana (33m 23s):
Oh no, sometimes it works out like that. Well, you’re learning so much in the meantime.

Allison Kotter (33m 27s):
Yes. Yeah. No, that’s why they have you do it for accreditation is because you learn while you go.

Diana (33m 34s):
Absolutely.

Nicole (33m 36s):
You might have to go around Mary Ella Parker go to one of her siblings.

Allison Kotter (33m 39s):
Yeah. I was actually thinking that I’m like, I might want to change lines if possible.

Diana (33m 45s):
And it does make it more simple. You totally could do that.

Nicole (33m 50s):
Well, thank you again for coming and we hope you have good luck with the continuation of this research. Thanks to all of our listeners. And we’ll talk to you guys again next week,

Diana (33m 57s):
Alright. Bye.

Nicole:
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