Basic Skills
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What is a genetic network?
A genetic network is simply a group of DNA matches, and is the basis for all genetic genealogy work. These networks can be explored using DNA test results. Just two people who share DNA make up a network, although it is much more useful when it has many people. There are many ways to find…
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What is a Most Recent Common Ancestor?
In my post What is a Cousin? (1) I talked about how cousins are related to each other, so people could understand what “removed” means in terms of genealogy. I even linked to a handy Cousin Calculator (2) so that anyone trying to figure out their relationship to their cousin could easily figure it out.…
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Creating a Gallery Wall
I love collecting photos of my ancestors. A great reason to connect with cousins is that you never know what photos and artifacts have been passed down to them. One of the benefits of being the family genealogist is that these often get passed on to me. It wouldn’t do just to have these pictures,…
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So you want to be a professional genealogist…
I’ve been asked a few times and I see posts all the time in the Genealogy Jobs Facebook group (1) about pursuing genealogy professionally as a career. It’s definitely a challenge to shift into a different field, even if it’s something you’re already passionate about! Unfortunately, passion alone isn’t enough to guarantee that you’ll make…
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Citation Templates
Remember Mad Libs? Teachers liked them because they were a fun way to review the parts of speech, and kids liked them because they could try to be as vulgar as possible and make their friends laugh. The (noun) went to (place). The (noun) was (adjective). Citations are a lot like Mad Libs, just not…
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Waypoints and Other Layering Issues
In my last post I talked about citation basics. I had more to say but it was already getting to be a long post so I’m going to put the rest here. The first thing I want to talk about is waypoints. Back in the day, URLs were not stable. Here today, gone tomorrow. Incidentally,…
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Citation Basics
I talked about why citations are important in this blog post. Today I’m going to talk about citation basics, to make it easier to understand how the components of a citation fit together. Let’s start with the very basic of basic citations: a book. Tom Jones, Mastering Genealogical Documentation (Arlington, Virginia : National Genealogical Society,…
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Pick a Number, Any Number
In The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow, he introduces a pattern: 2,4,6. He says that you need to find out what the pattern is, but that he cannot tell you if you’re correct about the pattern, but he will tell you if you give him a pattern if that pattern matches…
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Slow is fast
“Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal (1) is one of my favourite sci-fi series. It takes place in an alternate past, where the space race becomes a matter life and death for humanity. The mantra for the astronauts is “slow is fast.” Wearing their big, bulky spacesuits in low to no gravity makes…
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Draw.io
I’ve talked about Scapple (1) and LucidChart (2) before, and now I’m going to talk about yet another charting tool, Draw.io (3). It looks a lot like LucidChart, but it’s free. You can connect it to your Google Drive account, and although I haven’t tried collaborating with anyone, given how easy it is to collaborate…
Jennealogie 