maltsoda
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What is a cousin?
One of my favourite things about being a genealogist is discovering new cousins. I have a lot of cousins now, some very distant, some a little closer. I have emailed back and forth with some, friended some on Facebook and even talked to some on the phone. It’s been really wonderful making all these connections.…
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Gedmatch basics: people who match one of two kits
After my sad triangulation story I felt a little adrift. What direction should I go in next? I’m counting this post as a basic post because you don’t really need to understand triangulation to make use of the strategy in this post. However, it does help to know that there is a hierarchy of trustworthiness,…
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Triangulation, Part 4: Pileups
As I mentioned in this post, I have a funny problem on Chromosome 10. I have been working on this particular segment on this chromosome for a long time now. Here you can see the green of my great-aunt, and the other colours interrupting it. I’m guessing a piece of my grandma’s DNA inserted itself…
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Mcs or Macs?
I have McBeans and McLeods in my family tree. Or is that MacBeans and MacLeods? When asked whether we are Mcs or Macs, a distant cousin who still carries the surname said that his parents registered one sibling as a Mc, and one as a Mac! Anyone with McMacs in their tree knows the frustration…
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Crafting the perfect letter to DNA matches
So you have a DNA match. Perhaps this person has a name in their tree that you’d like to know more about, or you share a lot of DNA and you want to see if you can figure out the connection. Unless the company you did your testing with has an internal messaging system, you…
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The Case of the Unknown Bigamist
Anyone else watch Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency on Netflix? If I had a genealogy business, I would call it Jennifer’s Holistic Genealogy Agency. My very first case would be the case of the unknown bigamist. I wish I could write about how I have solved this case but unfortunately I cannot. I first heard…
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Triangulation, Part 3
I have been thinking a lot about triangulation since MyHeritage upgraded their chromosome browser (you can read about that here). People have been posting about their experiences using it in some of the genealogy Facebook groups I’m a part of. The first thing I realized is that many people don’t understand triangulation (heck, I didn’t…
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Gedmatch Basics, Part 1
You might be here because you read my last post Please Upload Your DNA Results To Gedmatch and you want to learn more. Maybe you’re new to the genetic genealogy world, and you’ve uploaded your results to Gedmatch but you don’t know what to do next. Maybe you’ve fooled around with Gedmatch for awhile, but you don’t feel like…
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Please Upload Your DNA Results to Gedmatch.com
(Updated February 2020) If you’re a little bit curious about what Gedmatch.com is and why you would want to upload your DNA there, read on. What is Gedmatch? If you have already done DNA testing with another company, Gedmatch allows you to take your DNA file from that company and put it in their database.…
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Painting your matches with RootsFinder
I’m having a lot of fun exploring with Rootsfinder, but I’m waiting for when I’ve got more time and it’s got more updates (I’d really like a search function in the cluster graph) to really get into it. Since the experimental DNA tool is rather new, I’d like to explain a little bit about one…
Jennealogie 