DNA
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Genealogy Abbreviations and Terms for Beginners
This post is not intended to be comprehensive, but as a starting point for people just getting into genealogy. If you want a more comprehensive list of abbreviations and terms, I highly recommend checking out this page on Rootsweb for genealogy terms and this page on DNA Geek for genetic genealogy terms. 1C1R – first…
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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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Clustering at Genetic Affairs
Clustering is all the rage! It all began with the Leeds method, a way to manually cluster your matches using the shared matches functions. It involves making a spreadsheet and colour coding your DNA matches until you have groups of matches. If you’re lucky, you end up with 4 distinct groupings, one for each grandparent.…
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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…
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DNA in a Nutshell, Part 2
I watched this amazing video from the Rootstech 2018 conference and it made me feel that my post DNA in a Nutshell was incomplete. In that introductory post I talked about how we inherit DNA and provided a link that has some great pictures. Even if you don’t want to read the article, looking at the…
Jennealogie 