Basic Skills
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Township 1, Range 4W
If you’re Western Canadian, you will definitely want to check out the Library and Archives Canada database Land Grants of Western Canada, 1870-1930. Using this database and other information I have, I was able to use this map to figure out where the land my ancestors owned actually is. The square in the picture is…
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Before there was social media there was just media
As part of my Ancestry membership I have a basic membership to the website Newspapers.com. I upgraded to the premium membership when I realized that I did not have access to many of the newspapers. Recently I broke down and got a membership to Newspaperarchive.com. While Newspapers.com has newspaper archives for the newspaper where I…
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Thrulines
Ancestry has unveiled a new DNA tool and I have thoughts. DNA circles has been replaced with something called Thrulines. Thrulines attempts, based on all the trees in its database, to figure out where your DNA matches fit into your family tree. In order to use Thrulines, a few elements must be in place. Obviously,…
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Obituaries
My grandmother collected obituaries. I imagine as one gets to be a certain age, it is kind of inevitable to have a collection of them. After she passed away, my uncle sorted through them. Some he couldn’t figure out why she had kept. Some were former colleagues, or family members of former colleagues. One obituary…
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What’s the use of a chromosome browser?
Ancestry doesn’t have a chromosome browser and I think it’s part of their success. Their idea is to break down genealogy into something easily digestible that the majority of the population can enjoy -no special skills needed. What happens when someone leaves the protective world of Ancestry and sits at the table with people who…
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DNA and privacy
There’s been a lot of news articles and news show segments about DNA testing and privacy, and we all know I feel about that: What I want to do here is help people make an informed choice about DNA testing, and that means facts, not fearmongering. There are three basic concerns when it comes to…
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What is the best DNA test?
The old saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter how you get there.” The same is true for DNA testing. A better question than “What is the best DNA test?” is “what are my goals for doing a DNA test?” There are a lot of testing companies out there, but…
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Don’t touch the settings!
Here is a parable, and like all parables, the point is not if it really happened but the lesson we can learn from it. Once upon a time, someone asked Picasso why he could get away with making art the way he did, and other people could not. Picasso grabbed a piece of paper and…
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Are DNA tests accurate?
Thanks to talk shows, a lot of junk science, pseudoscience and a general misunderstanding of how science works is proliferating. Wine is good for you wine will kill you coffee is bad for you coffee is good for you fat is bad except sugar is worse than fat and on and on and on… What’s…
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We all have two family trees
I read somewhere that 50% of people do a DNA test for the ethnicity estimate. Which probably explains why 50% of the questions in the Facebook genetic genealogy groups I’m a part of start with “I did a DNA test and why does it say I’m X when I’m not X?” Or conversely, “why doesn’t…
Jennealogie 