Have you heard about the latest Ethnicity Estimate tool called SideView™? AncestryDNA launched this new feature on 13 April 2022, and it has features that I think you will really like! SideView™ uses your DNA matches to help assign ethnicity estimates to two profiles representing your father and your mother. This is exciting news! This new feature, found in the “Ethnicity Estimates” section of AncestryDNA, shows you the ethnicities you inherited from each side of...
When working with your DNA, how often do you create a working plan to guide the research? We may recognize the need for choosing record collections to search, but how about choosing a DNA tool? With so many available, do we need to try them all or can we focus on just one or two that will work with our objective? I’ll share the research plan for my current research project in this blog post....
DNA Day is on April 25. It commemorates the day in 1953 when Watson and Crick published a model of the double-helix structure of DNA in the scientific journal, Nature. Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction images of DNA and research contributed to their discovery. We love to celebrate DNA Day, too! The innovation and advancements in direct-to-consumer DNA tests and tools give us the opportunity to bring our family history research to levels that could only...
X-DNA has a unique inheritance pattern, and knowing about it can sometimes help you figure out the ancestors you share with a DNA match. Men inherit a Y chromosome from their father, and an X chromosome from their mother. It is easy to imagine that an X chromosome remains unchanged just like a Y chromosome does when it is passed from father to son, but this is not the case with X-DNA. Here is a...
When you start a family history research project and want to incorporate Family Tree DNA test results in the search for your ancestors, I have a hot tip for you! Use the AutoTree tool at Genetic Affairs. I recommend you use it at the beginning of the research project. The AutoTree report gives you a headstart on grouping your DNA matches in clusters of related individuals, connecting their family trees, and it gives...
Do you sometimes feel frustrated as you try to sort out the connections between DNA matches and shared ancestors? I do, and I think we all need help with this from time to time. The AutoKinship tool at GeneticAffairs.com can quickly offer possible solutions to the problem. AutoKinship can help you construct a family tree of DNA matches from 23andMe that point to shared/common ancestors when there are few clues about who those ancestors are....
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana’s Dillard project. For the RLP with DNA study group, she is exploring the possibility that a cluster of DNA matches from her second cousin’s network graph are related through Cynthia Dillard’s parents. The MRCA of the cluster appears to be Elijah Dillard. In this assignment, Diana wrote a report. She shares some of her findings. Read her report by clicking on the link below. Transcript...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana’s Dillard project. For the RLP with DNA study group, she is exploring the possibility that a cluster of DNA matches from her second cousin’s network graph are related through Cynthia Dillard’s parents. The MRCA of the cluster appears to be Elijah Dillard. In this assignment, Diana followed her research plan and recorded her searches in Airtable. Her research log helped her organize many deeds in...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana’s Dillard project. For the RLP with DNA study group, she is exploring the possibility that a cluster of DNA matches from her second cousin’s network graph are related through Cynthia Dillard’s parents. The MRCA of the cluster appears to be Elijah Dillard. In this assignment, Diana made a research plan. First, she created a summary of known facts about Elijah Dillard. Her goal for this...
How do you wrap up a research session so that you don’t forget all the connections made? Writing a report is the perfect way to not only make sense of the research, but to also correlate the findings, both with the documents and in the DNA analysis. In this final article of my series on using DNA in the search for Cynthia (Dillard) Royston’s father, I’ll share my process for writing the report as well...