We share ancestors with every one of our DNA matches. Sometimes, we can identify the exact shared ancestor(s) without much effort. Other times, we need to put in more time and energy to discover the ancestral connection. A lot of our time working with our DNA matches involves building family trees or seeing where a previously made family tree intersects with ours. Family tree building by researching ancestors back in time is the primary effort made by amateur, intermediate, and advanced genealogists. We use DNA information in addition to documentary research to build family trees. Tracing the ancestors shared with...
Wouldn’t it be great if your autosomal DNA matches were automatically labeled as maternal or paternal? This is also known as “bucketing.” It is helpful to know which side of your family a match is on before you start checking their tree for surnames you recognize or send them a message. What if I told you that you can make this happen at FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA)? All you need to do is link close matches and up to 3rd cousin matches to your tree in the correct position, and the FTDNA Family Matching algorithm will work its magic. What is Family...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about organizing your DNA matches by adding them to your Ancestry tree. We talk about building trees for your matches within one master tree so you don’t have a long list of Ancestry trees. We also go over how to add a floating or disconnected branch to your Ancestry tree to allow you to build your matches’ trees and find the common ancestor. We review privacy settings for Ancestry trees as well as MyTreeTags. Links How to Add DNA Matches to Your Ancestry Tree by Nicole Research Like a Pro eCourse Study...
Using a family tree program to organize your DNA matches is useful for several reasons. You can: – add DNA matches to your tree and link them back to your common ancestor – include DNA matches from various testing databases in one central location – check the evidence for each parent-child relationship and add documentation – build quick trees for DNA matches who haven’t shared a full tree – do descendancy research to find potential test takers – build out a match’s tree checking for more than one common ancestor Many of your DNA matches may have small trees that...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about our ancestor, Elizabeth Malissa Welch. We continue our discussion of pruning and grafting branches of our family tree by discussing the case of Malissa’s parents. We had previously concluded that Meredith and Susannah Welch of Sumter County, South Carolina were her parents, but as we revisited the conclusion, we found a different set of parents that fit the evidence better. Links Caring for Your Family Tree: How to Prune and Graft Branches Based on Sources and Analysis by Diana at Family Locket https://rootstech.org Research Like a Pro eCourse Study Group –...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about managing your family trees. Do you have your tree on several websites as well as your software program? How many places do you need to put your tree? Join us as we discuss the purpose behind sharing a family tree online, having a working tree, and using trees as tools for DNA research. Links 3 Reasons to Have Personal Genealogy Software and How to Choose by Diana at Family Locket RLP 27: Personal Genealogy Software How to Transfer a Family Tree to FamilySearch by Nicole at Family Locket WikiTree RootsMagic and...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about using RootsWeb and FamilySearch Genealogies to view family trees that users have uploaded to the internet. These resources are helpful in your “literature survey” – the search you do at the beginning of a research project to determine what has already been uncovered about a research subject. Join us as we discuss our experience with using these free family tree platforms to search and share our family trees. Links Online Genealogies: Discovering the Source by Diana at Family Locket 2018 article about how RootsWeb [was] Unavailable by Dick Eastman at EOG...
Have you ever seen a complete date and place for an ancestor’s birth, death, or marriage, but no source is attached as proof? Have you wondered where that information originated? With the proliferation of online trees and copying of data, tracing a genealogy fact back to an original posting can help verify or disprove it. Two websites can be explored to find complete family tree submissions: Rootsweb and FamilySearch Genealogies. Rootsweb When Nicole and I first began our research journey in 2003, we built our family tree in Personal Ancestral File (PAF), a computer database that let us add source...
FamilySearch.org offers many ways to discover ancestors. Below is a list of the email campaigns and discovery activities that FamilySearch has created to help users discover interesting facts about ancestors, including their occupations, obituaries, headstones, and how much we look like our ancestors. Many of these activities are perfect for youth activities or for helping children become acquainted with ancestors for the first time. How does it work? If you have an account with FamilySearch and have added your parents, grandparent, and linked in to ancestors in the collaborative family tree, then you will be able to make discoveries with...
A couple years ago, I made photo felt family trees for my nephews and niece for Christmas. I glued velcro to the back of each circle so the kids could move the family members on and off of the family tree and play. This is a wonderful teaching aid or storytelling aid that I use often when I’m teaching children about family history and relationships to ancestors. I wrote a tutorial for making your own photo family tree here, Felt Family Tree – Interactive Activity for Kids, but for those of you who are not interested in doing all the...
