MyHeritageDNA Matches

While at RootsTech last week, I was reminded that MyHeritageDNA was allowing people who had tested at other sites to upload their raw DNA data into their database for free.  I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to fish in another pond before that offer went away.  Yesterday, I received an email letting me know that the first of my DNA matches were in.


How to take a MyHeritage DNA test from MyHeritage on Vimeo.

MyHeritage was out in force at RootsTech and they have a big following, so I will be interested to see how their database develops as I obtain more matches.  Right now their test kits are on sale at a competitive price as well.

My top three matches were for ones who I already matched with at other sites, but the rest of the matches did not look familiar at all.  So I have a new set of relatives to reach out to.

It does seem as if more of these matches have the family trees than those found at 23andMe or Ancestry.

My Day at RootsTech - Saturday

Today was the final day of RootsTech, and once again another outstanding day full of good speakers and information about what is happening in the world of genealogy.

At the opening session, Tim Sullivan from Ancestry discussed a new feature coming over the next few months, Genetic Communities.  This looks like an interesting timeline of genetic clusters based on their ever-expanding database.  Will be interested to see what it shows about my genetic migration.  I still would like them to give us a chromosome browser.

Next up was CeCe Moore talking about her experiences helping solve DNA mysteries and speculating on what the future will hold with DNA genetics.  Things such as recreating the images of your ancestors based on DNA of their descendants and genetic memory might sound like science fiction today - but a lot of what we are doing with genetic genealogy now was not even imagined just a few years ago.  She shared a DNA story about her brother-in-laws discovery of his connection to Thomas Jefferson and Hemings family.  DNA research is blurring the color lines and also bringing healing and forgiveness as people find their biological relatives through DNA research.  CeCe is supposed to be coming to Fort Wayne in the next few months and I want to catch her talks.

The celebrity guest speaker today was the Cake Boss, Buddy Valastro.  I've enjoyed watching his shows on TLC and in person he is just as he appears on television.  He is an energetic speaker who told the story of his success, which has come through drive and hard work. He was inspired by his family and his Italian-American grandfathers and parents are true American stories.  Hearing him talk about how his father taught him the value of hard work and how Buddy started out cleaning toilets in the bakery explains why he is so driven and successful today.  I was a little surprised that they didn't have any family history finds for Buddy today.

After the opening session, I went into the Expo Hall and ran into Dear Myrtle and had to snap a selfie with her.  You meet so many nice people at these genealogy conferences and it's especially nice to meet someone whose blog you follow.

I did see the Cake Boss being interviewed as well at the media hub and managed to snap a couple of semi-close pictures of him.

My first session to attend today was to be Continuing Your Genealogy Education at Home, taught by Crista Cowan.  Unfortunately, I didn't make it early enough to get a good seat and the session was full!  Hopefully, I can catch it online.  That's one downside to these conferences, sometimes the classes fill up early.

I spent some more time in the Expo Hall, purchased a copy of RootsMagic for my son-in-law for his birthday and grabbed some lunch.  I ate the best darn plate of nachos I'd ever had.  Seriously.  They were so good I had to take a picture.

While having lunch, I struck up a couple of conversations with some nice folks from Idaho and a gentleman from Utah.  It's nice to be in a place where everyone there is interested in family history and sharing stories of our ancestors.  None of them had any ancestry from Indiana, though.

Because today was Saturday, it was the most packed day and there were a lot of families here with young children.  A couple of them stopped and asked to take a picture with me - they were completing a scavenger hunt for MyHeritage - must have been a contest.  So I'm out there on someone's phone.

After lunch, while charging my phone at one of the nice charging stations in the convention center, I was even asked to complete a survey by a nice young lady from BYU regarding the economic impact of the convention.  I hope my answers helped - I can say I definitely have enjoyed my time here.

My next session was entitled What is Your Revolutionary War Ancestor's Story by Ken Nelson of FamilySearch.  This talk gave me a lot of good sources to look into more of my Revolutionary War ancestry.  Helping mom work up a DAR line this past year, I have discovered that we have quite a few different lines that could be researched and proven for her, as well as for me through the SAR. One piece of advise that stuck with me was that we should check local court records for pension application information, as those records had to start at the local level.  Ken's handout will be one that I'm sure I refer back to again and again.

My final session was Helping Your Grandparents Share their Story by Janet Hovorka and Amy Slade.  Their presentation focused on some interesting ways that they have leveraged social media applications to get their family members collaborating and creating family history content.  Their handout highlighted ten apps that could be used - many that were familiar to me, but a few that I hadn't utilized.  Though they had a couple of technical issues due to internet connectivity in the room, they gave everyone some good options for bringing the generations together and preserving their memories.  The bottom line is that we all need to begin to save and share the memories before they are gone.

After that session, I decided to head back to the hotel without staying for the closing ceremony.  On the way out, cake was being served from the cake decorating contest that was held earlier in the day.  How can you go wrong with an event that ends with cake ?

My Day at RootsTech - Friday

Today was another outstanding day at RootsTech, from the opening sessions to the breakout sessions, I've had a wonderful experience.

The opening session today was focused on the African-American experience and their struggles. The Friday morning panel featured Nkoyo Lyamba, Kenyetta Berry, Sherri Camp, and Melvin Collier.

As the celebrity speaker, LeVar Burton, of Star Trek and Roots fame, told the stories of his family, including the stories of the help that his mother had provided to make sure his dreams were possible.  As he spoke about the vision Gene Roddenberry had for the future and how seeing Nichelle Nichols on the screen affected his life, he gave a though provoking speech about our human journey.  As he stated, we all stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before.  

In an emotionally moment, Thom King from FamilySearch presented LeVar with a copy of the marriage certificate of his grandparents and information about his great-grandparents, which he hadn't known previously.  He became so emotional and asked the crowd "So this is what you'all do all day?"  He was obviously touched by the gesture.

The crowd was treated to a spiritually uplifting performance by the Calvary Baptist Church choir as well before the session ended.

As the session ended, I reached out via text to my distant cousin from Canada, Yvonne Demoskoff, who I'd previously been in touch with through genealogy blogging.  Our ancestors haven't been together since 1704, when her 8th-great grandmother was captured in an Indiana raid in Deerfield, Masasschusetts.  It was so nice to meet Yvonne and her husband, Mike.  It's nice that a genealogy conference was able to bring us together.

I spent some time in the early morning hours in the Expo Hall, checking out all of the various booths and signing up for more information.  

I purchased at DNA test from LivingDNA and can't wait to see the results - that will be another blog post, I'm sure.  I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to take another test, and the fact that this test can pinpoint where in the U.K. my British ancestry might come from really sounded interesting to me.  Will let you know what I find out.

I was able to visit with Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective, and have her give her expert opinion on an old photograph.  Thanks to Dropbox, I was able to pull up a copy of the photo on my phone.  The person who had given it to me thought it was my 2nd-great grandmother.  Utilizing the hairstyle and dress, Maureen theorized that it was likely taken in the mid-1870s, which would make it too old to be my 2nd-great grandmother, but could likely be my 3rd-great grandmother.  Though I don't have a positive identification, I at least know a likely time period, and will pursue other evidence to make sure it was my 3rd-great grandmother. I also picked up one of her books on identifying photos.

I stopped by FamilySearch's Discovery Center and pulled up these interesting infographics on my maternal and paternal grandfathers:

It was interesting to see that there are only 256 individuals with the name Ord in the United States, though it didn't look like they had Indiana marked.

According to FamilySearch, there are 20,328 people in the United States with the last name of LeMaster:

For my first break-out session, I attended Preparing For Research Trips to Your Ancestral Homes by Dirk Weissleder.  He gave an excellent talk on how to plan a visit to Germany by first preparing here at home. 

One of the interesting things he mentioned was that the smaller the town in Germany, the deeper the ancestry will go as there was little immigration from Germany prior to the 1800-1850 time period.  So if your ancestors were from a smaller town, as opposed to say Berlin, they likely were living there for several generations and would have many decades of records.  He stated you should never underestimate the importance of small archives and museums in helping you discover more about your ancestral home.  You should find out as much as you can before going overseas and take time for the trip - in both an emotional as well as detailed preparation.  Time will be the most valuable thing during your trip.

My next session was entitled The Ethical Genealogist with Judy Russell.  Judy gave an outstanding lecture on some of the ethical debates and dilemmas that genealogists face.  She suggested we all check out and abide by the standards set out on the National Genealogical Society's website. DNA testing has also given rise to a whole new set of issues, but ethical dilemmas are nothing new to the genealogy world.  To be an ethical genealogist you have to tell the truth; you don't want to hurt someone unnecessarily, and you don't want to take something that isn't yours.  After hearing her speak, I can see why her lectures are always so popular, just as her blog is.

The final session I attended was Discovering Your Ancestor's War Story by Anne Mitchell.  She gave an overview of the various types of records that were created during America's wars and suggested methods and sources for finding the records.  I did like her method of creating a spreadsheet timeline of an ancestors life to chart out all the facts.  She also suggested that when you find a source to be sure to check out the other facts that it might lead to - for example, people aren't buried in a family cemetery by accident.  While I was pretty familiar with the sources she mentioned, I felt that the talk was informative and encouraged researchers to cite their sources and explore everything found before just attaching the record to a family tree.

Overall, this was another good day of discovery and I'm fired up to do more research with some of the tools and methods I've learned so far here at RootsTech.