FamilyTreeDNA Tech tip of the day

Last Tuesday I watched Relative Roots's Elise Friedman's first of three webinars on DNA.  This first one was on Y-DNA. Has anyone done a DNA study? 

 I had been able to grab my father's brother dna for a sample (this was just a cheek swab), and it matched what I was able to obtain from the SMGF (Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation) of my father's results once I had something to match it with (this being my uncle's).  The Y-DNA follows the male line for those of you new to the subject.  The premise is that the male line should be the same as it goes further back in history. So when you have your test done with enough markers (these are A C G T and the repeats) getting a Test with 12 markers will give you many matches, but the Test with 67 markers limits the results to within about 8 generations.  Some of the haplotypes like my father's side is a very common one.  R1b seems to be the group out of Great Britian.  My daughter, Allison Bigelow was a bit concerned when her husband's results came back with the same group, R1b1a2. It seems like every male in Great Britian is this one.  Anyone with this haplogroup and is a Bigelow or a Newman, please contact me.



I have read many books, attended seminars and have actually talked to the FamilyTree DNA folks at RootsTech twice, just one more reason to attend and they usually have some kind of a discount.  The webinar was interactive at times, Elise would ask the audience a question and she gave the answers as we went along.  This webinar really made it very clear. It was just over 2 hours long and the time rather flew.  Well worth the $10 I paid for this episode.


 Next week, April 16th  is mtDNA which follows the mother's side.  Now this one is a fun to try and follow.  You need to be very careful with your pedigree chart on this, because you are following mother to mother to mother all the way up the tree.  On my mother's tree there were nine mother's maiden names to follow  I am trying to get to number ten.  Scottish research is fun because they do follow distinct naming patterns first daughter gets the mother's mother's name, first son gets the father's father's name and this helps make it easier to follow the tree up and Family Search has most of the Old Parochial Register's online at https://familysearch.org/  for free or you could check on the ScotlandsPeople site at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/.  This is a paid site but you get the actual copy of the parish Register. These are the extracted records from Scottish Churches.  You still need to double check these tho'.  So if you have Scottish roots give this a try.



The third episode is the Family Finder which is an automal test. This means that the results are from both parents.  This was great for me. My maternal grandfather was an only son and he didn't have any sons.  If I wanted to match some of my Wright line in Scotland I needed to do this test.  Well, two weeks after my mother's results was posted to the site I received an email from a man in Scotland.  I had my gedcom (this is a pedigree) on the site so everyone who matches and see where at.  So after checking both trees we found that my mother's father's If you were doing Y-DNA or mtDNA this wouldn't have been picked up, only through the FamilyFinder or autosomal testing.  SO, I can hardly wait for April 23 to hear more about this one.  I might have missed something.

Anyway, if you are interested in what you have read here.  Please see Relative Roots at http://www.relativeroots.net/webinars/ to sign up and hear more about this subject.  The more you know the easier it makes it.  Actually I am taking all three of the webinar series so there was a discount of $25 for all three.  These are offered throughout the year, so don't miss out.

There are many testing companies you can choose from.  I like FamilyTreeDNA, but 23 and me, and Ancestry.com also do this.  Have some fun and break down a few brick walls with finding that ancestor's match.  Good luck with your searches.

FamilyTreeDNA  http://www.familytreedna.com/
23 and me          https://www.23andme.com/