Genealogy
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1940 National Registration File
Are you researching someone who lived in Canada and was 16 years or older in 1940? If so, you need to know about the 1940 Registration File. This record provides all kinds of information about a person in 1940. You can learn about their job, jobs they are qualified to do, dependents and health. Click…
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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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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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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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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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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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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.…
Jennealogie 