Really Big News: MyHeritage Upgrades Its Consumer DNA Tests to Whole Genome Sequencing

TEL AVIV, Israel; LEHI, Utah; HOUSTON and FREMONT, California, October 14 , 2025 — MyHeritage announced today a landmark move to whole genome sequencing for its at-home DNA test, MyHeritage DNA.  Leveraging sequencing technology from Ultima Genomics and processing at the Gene by Gene lab, MyHeritage is the first major consumer DNA testing company to adopt whole genome sequencing at a scale of more than one million tests per year.  The enriched data will empower MyHeritage to deliver more accurate ethnicity analysis and DNA matching, and unlock opportunities for future innovation in consumer genomics and genetic genealogy.

Whole genome sequencing reads almost the entire human genetic code, covering around 3 billion base pairs (nucleotides).  This is superior to the standard genotyping arrays used by most consumer DNA tests, including MyHeritage until recently, which read only about 700,000 base pairs.  More data enable deeper insights across all types of genetic analysis.  Whole genome sequencing is now being applied to most new MyHeritage DNA kits currently being processed at the lab, and to every new MyHeritage DNA kit sold moving forward.  MyHeritage DNA kits already processed with the older genotyping array technology will not be reprocessed with whole genome sequencing.  Customers whose MyHeritage DNA kits are processed with whole genome sequencing will be able to download their entire genome from MyHeritage at no cost, in CRAM format.  They may also unlock additional insights by uploading their data to other trusted genetic service providers that support such uploads.

Due to its high technological potential, MyHeritage has been eying whole genome sequencing for years.  A pioneering study by the MyHeritage Science Team published in 2020 validated whole genome sequencing for reliable relative matching at scale.  Following that study, MyHeritage has been collaborating closely with Ultima Genomics since its emergence from stealth mode in mid-2022, and later jointly with Gene by Gene, to prepare the scientific and logistical foundation for upgrading the MyHeritage DNA processing pipeline to whole genome sequencing using Ultima’s technology.  The upgrade was completed successfully and creates new opportunities for MyHeritage to deliver deeper insights into ethnic origins, family connections, and genetic genealogy without any price increase to consumers.  The upgrade to whole genome sequencing makes MyHeritage's DNA offering more compelling.

“This is a pivotal moment for genetic genealogy,” said Gilad Japhet, founder and CEO of MyHeritage.  “We are proud to take this pioneering step into whole genome sequencing together with Ultima Genomics and with our longstanding partners at Gene by Gene.  MyHeritage customers will enjoy the fruits of this technological upgrade for years to come through increased accuracy, deeper insights, and exciting new products.”

“MyHeritage’s move to whole genome sequencing marks a major milestone for consumer DNA testing,” said Dr. Gilad Almogy, founder and CEO of Ultima Genomics.  “It demonstrates the scalability and maturity of Ultima’s innovative technology and accelerates the immense value that whole genome sequencing can bring to consumers.  It has been a pleasure collaborating with MyHeritage over the past few years, and we are proud to work together with them and Gene by Gene to bring genetic genealogy to new heights for millions of consumers worldwide.”

“The transition to whole genome sequencing represents the most ambitious project in our years-long partnership with MyHeritage,” said Dr. Lior Rauchberger, CEO of Gene by Gene.  “We are proud to help set a new standard in consumer genomics and support the growth of what will soon become the world’s largest database of whole genomes.  The rollout is centered at Gene by Gene’s state-of-the-art laboratory in Houston, Texas, which will house a large fleet of Ultima UG100™ sequencing instruments.”

Privacy Commitment
MyHeritage is committed to the privacy and security of its customers' data.  All genetic data are encrypted and stored securely, and MyHeritage does not sell or license data to third parties.  MyHeritage strictly prohibits the use of its platform by law enforcement.  All genetic samples are automatically destroyed by the lab after processing, except those stored securely for customers who have enrolled in the MyHeritage DNA BioBank service.  This provides customers with peace of mind not offered by most other major DNA testing companies.

About MyHeritage
MyHeritage enriches the lives of people worldwide by enabling them to uncover more about themselves and where they belong.  With a suite of intuitive products, billions of historical records, AI-powered photo tools, and an affordable at-home DNA test, MyHeritage creates a meaningful discovery experience that is deeply rewarding.  The MyHeritage platform is enjoyed by more than 62 million people around the world who treasure and celebrate their heritage.  MyHeritage is committed to the privacy and security of its customer data and is available globally in 42 languages.

About Ultima Genomics
Ultima Genomics is unleashing the power of genomics at scale.  The company's mission is to continuously drive the scale of genomic information to enable unprecedented advances in biology and improvements in human health.  With humanity on the cusp of a biological revolution, there is a virtually endless need for more genomic information to address biology's complexity and dynamic change — and a further need to challenge conventional next-generation sequencing technologies.  Ultima's revolutionary new sequencing architecture drives down the costs of sequencing to help overcome the trade-offs that scientists and clinicians are forced to make between the breadth, depth, and frequency with which they use genomic information.  The new sequencing architecture was designed to scale far beyond conventional sequencing technologies, lower the cost of genomic information, and catalyze the next phase of genomics in the 21st century.

About Gene by Gene
Gene by Gene is a world leader in genetic testing services with more than 20 years of experience.  Its laboratory holds accreditation from multiple agencies, including CAP, CLIA, New York State Department of Health, California Department of Public Health, and AABB.  With a cutting-edge laboratory and highly trained team of experts, Gene by Gene is committed to excellence in the field of genetic analysis.

Contacts

MyHeritage
Margaux Stelman
+972 52-953-4295
pr@myheritage.com

Ultima Genomics
Vikki Herrera
(408) 206-7009
vikki@oakstreetcommunications.com

Gene by Gene
Josie Zohny
jzohny@acmarketingpr.com

Looking for Mr. Mundy (or a variant thereof)

Mount Munday (north aspect)*.  Maybe I'll discover I'm related to these Mundays!

Yesterday, to celebrate Father's Day on Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver asked us to write about four generations of our fathers, going back to our great-great-grandfathers.  I still have two men missing in that list:  my paternal grandfather's biological father and his father.  I've been searching for them since I determined through Y-DNA testing that Mr. Sellers was not my grandfather's biological father.  And until yesterday, I had been calling that great-grandfather Mr. X.

But I have made progress!  Just a day or two earlier, I was reviewing my father's DNA matches on Family Tree DNA, and I noticed something significant:  Instead of only one match at 111 markers, there are now four.  All four are named Mundy or a variant.  When you add the man on GEDmatch who matched my father, that makes five named Mundy/Munday/etc.  I call that a trend.

And so I decided to start calling my great-grandfather Mr. Mundy.

He has a name!

Today I spent some additional time looking around to see what else has happened since I had time to work on this particular problem.

One of the matches on Family Tree DNA has posted a family tree going back a few generations.  I used that information to search FamilyTree on FamilySearch.  FamilyTree is the big collaborative tree that everyone can contribute to and argue about.  It's FamilySearch's attempt to create the family tree of the human race.

I realize that not all of the information on FamilyTree is reliable.  Much of it has no sources, or the sources are a little sketchy.  But I figured it couldn't hurt to see where it would take me.

It took me several generations back, eventually to a Nicholas Mundy said to be born about 1645, although no one seems to know where.

Coincidentally, one of the pieces of information on Family Tree DNA led me to a Munday surname study.  And on that site, my father has been linked to the very same Nicholas Mundy based on my father's Y haplogroup and the research people have been doing.

There is a note on the site that my father's grandfather is still unknown and the connection of my father to the Nicholas Munday line is still a guess.

But that's still progress!

One of the tasks I had set for myself in researching the best possibility I have found so far for my grandfather's biological father is to order that man's divorce file, just to see if there is any information in it that can help.  I guess I better get going on that!

*Photo by Andre Charland, April 3, 2005.  Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Autosomal DNA Matches Descend from Your Eight Pairs of 2nd-great-grandparents?

My participation in tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver is not going to be pretty.  Or fun.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  How many autosomal DNA matches do you have descended from your eight 2nd-great-grandparents (they would be your third cousins)?  Do you know how they are related to you?  Have you corresponded with them?  Why are your numbers high or low?

2.  Share the number of your autosomal DNA matches for each of your 2GGP and answer my questions above on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a comment on this blog.  Share the link to your post on this blog, so readers can respond.

Oh, this is going to be painful.

First, I need to mention a couple of clarifications.

I do not have eight 2nd-great-grandparents.  I have sixteen 2nd-great-grandparents, as does everyone else.  I have eight pairs of 2nd-great-grandparents, which I'm pretty sure is what Randy meant (and what I changed the title of mine to).

And not all of my autosomal matches who descend from any given pair of 2nd-great-grandparents are going to be my 3rd cousins.  I can have other relatives in addition to 3rd cousins who descend from one pair of ancestors.  If the question was intended to be "How many autosomal matches do I have who are identified as 3rd cousins?", that's significantly different from what Randy wrote, and he wouldn't have to ask, "Do you know how they are related to you?"  Maybe he started with one idea and it morphed into another.

Now that I've cleared the air on that (once an editor, always an editor), on to the disaster of my response for this challenge.

I have mentioned before (particularly when the question of DNA comes up) that my mother was Ashkenazi Jewish and that Ashkenazi Jews suffer from high degrees of endogamy due to lots of intermarriage.

Well, on Family Tree DNA, my current results show that I have 24,697 autosomal matches.

I'm sure that the vast majority of those are on my maternal side, and I have no idea (and probably never will) how they are specifically related to me, due to endogamy and the lovely obstacles that can exist for doing Jewish research in the former Russian Empire in general, particularly in the former Grodno guberniya, where three of my lines go back to.

For reasons unknown to me — I have not actually done much with my FTDNA matches in quite a while and have not kept up with all of the announcements — 1,525 of those matches are identified as paternal, 38 as maternal, and 710 as both.

I have very few matches on FTDNA where I have identified the specific relationship I have with them.  So I have no idea how FTDNA has come up with the numbers of matches that are paternal, maternal, or both.  I'm pretty sure I have not identified 38 relationship matches total, much less 38 on my maternal line alone.

And there is absolutely no crossover in a genealogically relevant period of time between the paternal and maternal sides of my family.  Absolutely none.  Period, end of report.

So I have no idea how FTDNA has identified 710 of my matches as being both paternal and maternal.  That is just flat-out wrong.  Unless there is another way to interpret "paternal and maternal" that I'm not coming up with on my own.

On top of all that, I don't even know one set of my 2nd-great-grandparents, because I as yet have not identified the biological father of my paternal grandfather.  If I don't know who that great-grandfather was, I don't know who his parents were.

As for the number of matches I have who are descended from my eight sets of 2nd-great-grandparents?

To quote Randy:

The number of autosomal DNA matches I have on FTDNA with a known common 2nd-great-grandparent is:

NONE.

The number of autosomal DNA matches I have on AncestryDNA with a known common 2nd-great-grandparent is:

Three total.

• James Gauntt (1831–1899) and Amelia Gibson (1831–1908):  2

• Mendel Hertz Brainin (c. 1860–1930) and Ruchel Dwojre Jaffe (c. 1866–1934):  1

Some days it's just not worth chewing through the straps.

I do have additional cousins who descend from various of my 2nd-great-grandparents and for whom I know the exact relationship who appear as autosomal matches in both databases.  I have corresponded with almost all of them.  Several of them I was able to determine the exact relationship only because I corresponded with them.  Some I recognized by name and knew the relationship immediately.

The huge numbers of matches on my maternal side I already discussed above.  I don't really know that I would characterize the numbers of matches on my paternal side as being particularly low.  It's more that I don't know the exact relationship for most of them.  That is due mostly to a lack of response when I have reached out, particularly with matches on AncestryDNA.  I attribute that to the fact that many, many people who test at Ancestry do it strictly for the cutesie-poo (and mostly useless) pie chart and don't care about anything else.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Be a Time Traveler

I think Randy Seaver has previously posted a challenge similar to that of today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but it's an idea that deserves to be revisited multiple times.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  We all wish that we knew more about our most elusive ancestors — the ones we might not know the surname for, or the one who was probably adopted, changed his name for some reason, or lived through war or a natural disaster.

2.  Be a time traveler.  Where would you go, whom would you speak with, what would you ask them?

3.  Share your time traveler adventure on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a comment on this blog.  Share the link to your stories on this blog, so readers can respond.

Randy didn't state this was only one trip, but that's how he wrote his response, so I'll stick with that.

Since I'm time traveling only one time, I have to choose to be there when my cousin Raymond Lawrence Sellers was adopted.  This probably took place in Cumberland County, New Jersey, with a small chance of it having been in Burlington County, New Jersey instead.  Raymond was born September 23, 1945 and apparently was surrendered for adoption by my Aunt Dottie soon after that, possibly before the end of October 1945.  So those are my estimated time and place.

As for whom I would speak with, I'll try to cover the bases.  I want to talk with the adoptive parents and anyone else who participated in any steps of the adoption.  If it was a documented adoption through the court system (the second version of events that I was told), that would include a presiding judge and any administrative personnel who observed the process or handled paperwork, either in the court system or at the adoption agency.  If it was an informal adoption to friends or extended family (the original version I heard), then probably the only other individuals would have been additional family members or friends who were there.

The one question that I would be asking is the name given to Raymond after adoption.  Without that piece of information, my research has been stalled for the almost 10 years that I have been trying to find him.  New Jersey still keeps its adoption records sealed since 1941.  My aunt registered with New Jersey as being willing to speak with Raymond if he ever contacted the state to try to find his birth parents.  Not only have we never received any communication from New Jersey, Dottie died in 2021.  I have not checked with the state to find out what alternatives might be available for contact given that fact, because I'm not optimistic that there are any, but I still need to do so just in case.

If I can learn Raymond's new name, I can try to trace him through his life.  I can look for school records, marriage records, birth records (of possible children), and death records.  I might find out he died young as a child.  But I also might discover that he married and had several children and grandchildren.  I concede that I consider the latter unlikely, as I have not been alerted to any DNA matches, and I have all of the databases covered with close and fairly close relatives who should match Raymond or his next generations if they test.  So either no one among Raymond and his possible progeny have tested, or it was only him, and he either has not tested or died without testing.

But even if the answer were that he died young and had no children, no one to connect with, I would finally have an answer and could tell his siblings, particularly my cousin Pattie, who since Dottie passed away has been the primary standard bearer hoping for a resolution to the search.  I'm sure that, even posthumously, Dottie would appreciate that we knew what had happened to the son she gave up.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Was Your Biggest Genealogy Wild Ancestor (Goose) Chase?

I'm sure everyone has had at least one wild goose chase that would qualify for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver, right?

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  All genealogists are human, and most of us have made gone on wild ancestor (goose) chases in our genealogy research careers.  What was one of the wild ancestor chases in your research?  Explain the situation and how you (hopefully!) solved the puzzle.

2.  Tell us about your biggest genealogy wild ancestor (goose) chase in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

I've written previously about my biggest wild ancestor chase.

Way back when I was 13 and started researching my family, my father, my aunt, and my grandfather told me that my great-great-grandmother was Kate Moore and treated her name as though it were her maiden name.  So that's what I wrote down and then began to look for.

I searched for a Kate/Katherine/Catherine Moore marrying a Sellers and having a son named Cornelius Elmer Sellers for years and couldn't find her.  I searched lists of marriages and other records with no success.

I even bought a book about the Moore family of Burlington County, New Jersey, because that's where my family was from.  I found a Catherine Sellers who married George W. Moore, but that didn't fit what I was told, which was Kate Moore marrying a Sellers.  I kept the book, though.

Not long after I had read the book and decided it didn't have the person I was looking for, I spoke for the first time with my grandfather's last surviving sibling, Aunt Betty, the baby of the family.  After warming up to me, she was giving me information about the family when I said something about her paternal grandmother, Kate Moore.  She responded, "Well, you know that Moore was her second husband."

Well, no, I didn't know that.

Aunt Betty explained that her father's father had died young and that her grandmother had remarried, to George W. Moore, a few years after that.  That's when she became Kate Moore.  And George and Kate had a son, Howard Evans Moore.

Whoops!  Time to restart all my research!

That conversation was on a Sunday.  The next day at work, we were having our staff meeting and talking about what we done over the weekend.  I was telling them about my talk with Aunt Betty when I suddenly remembered the book about the Moore family, which was still sitting in my van a month after I had read it.  I jumped up, ran down to the van, got the book, and ran back into the office.

I excitedly found that entry about Catherine Sellers marrying George W. Moore and looked to see if they had had any children.  Well, whaddaya know?  They had a son named . . . Howard Evans Moore!

So I accidentally had found Kate Moore after all.  Her maiden name, by the way, was Catherine Fox Owen.

The second half of the wild goose chase, however, came when I learned through DNA testing that my grandfather — and by extension my entire family line descended from him — was a Sellers through informal adoption.  Elmer Sellers was not the biological father of my grandfather; he had married my great-grandmother when my grandfather was seven months old and had raised him as his own.  All the research I had done on the Sellers family, back to Hans Georg Söller, born in 1615 in Weinheim, Baden, had been on my adoptive line.  Still my family, just not in the way I had originally thought.

I'm still working on that part of the puzzle.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Genealogy Goals for 2025

It's the beginning of the year, so it's time to think about what we want to accomplish with our genealogy, thanks to prodding from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. 

1.  What are your genealogy goals for 2025?  Consider genealogy research, education, organizing, service, writing, and whatever else you care to share.

2.  Tell us about your goals in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status  post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

My list is never as long as Randy's, but I'm not retired yet.  Most of my goals are the same as or similar to the ones from last year.

• Maintain regular posts on my blog.  I did a lot better in 2024 than the previous two years, so I'm hoping I have a rhythm again.  I have several ideas for posts already scheduled in my calendar.

• Finish going through the scans of the photo bonanza I received from my sister.  I probably made it halfway through last year.

• Work on finding a way to do more research on the man who probably isn't the son my aunt surrendered for adoption in 1945.  Even though I no longer think the mystery man is my missing cousin, he does resemble a known family member, so I want to determine if there is a connection.

• Get back to researching my unidentified biological great-grandfather.  Find more information on Bert Mundy, particularly a photograph, so I can either rule him out or keep him as a contender.

• Work on new genealogy presentations.  I have some ideas I've been batting around for a while that I need to finish.

• Continue my volunteer work with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and Genealogical Forum of Oregon African American Special Interest Group.

• Continue researching my own family.  I need to devote more in-depth research time to that and follow up on the many clues and document trails that I've discovered during the past few years.

• Determine a systematic way to go through my family tree databases and look for errors, omissions, and items that need to be updated.

• Continue to encourage my brother to start doing the number crunching that's necessary to really do good DNA analysis.  In particular, I'm hoping that work might help us discover who our mystery great-grandfather is (see above).

• Continue my genealogy education through Webinars.  Maybe try to go to an actual in-person genealogy event this year.

• If I really get caught up on other things, return to going through the documents relating to Emma Schafer and the constellation of people around her.  I used the documents as my Treasure Chest Thursday posts.  I began the series on July 20, 2015.  My last post was August 25, 2017, just before I moved to Portland.  Whenever I do get back to these I'll probably have to read through the entire chronology to refresh my memory adequately.

That's eleven items.  I think that's enough to keep me busy for the year.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Most Frustrating Research Challenge

This week's challenge from Randy Seaver is one of those Saturday Night Genealogy Fun questions when I know right away what my answer is.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  One of the goals of every genealogy researcher is to solve difficult name and relationship problems.  What is one of your most frustrating research challenges that you have not yet solved? 

2.  Share your challenging problem on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post.

Yup, didn't even have to think twice.

Definitely, my most frustrating research challenge that I have not yet solved is determining who my paternal grandfather's biological father was.

I have been writing since 2016 (is it really eight years already?!), when I showed with Y-DNA testing that my father (and by extension my grandfather) was not biologically a Sellers, about my search for my grandfather's biological father.

"I'm Apparently a Sellers by Informal Adoption" was when I announced the results of the Y-DNA testing, way back on February 6, 2016.  I compared my father's Y-DNA to his male cousin's and easily determined that they did not descend from the same man in a genealogically relevant timeframe and that my family branch are not biologically Sellerses.  And so began the hunt for my grandfather's biological father.

I wrote about the initial research on December 3, 2016, coincidentally for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:  "Who Is Your MRUA?" (MRUA means "most recent unknown ancestor.")  My MRUA is my great-grandfather.  My father matched two men named Mundy at 111 – 4 markers, so I focused my search for a viable Mundy.  Suzanne McClendon, one of my readers, went to town on finding newspaper articles, and we identified a likely candidate as a man named Bertram Mundy.

Another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic encouraged me to write about my continuing research.  I posted "Research Grief" on September 9, 2017 (a mere eight days after having moved to Gresham, Oregon).  At that time I had researched back two generations of the Mundy family and found no living descendants after following them forward in time.  I was planning to go back another generation in my search.

About a year and a half after my December 2016 post, Randy used the same topic for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  For the May 26, 2018 version of "Who Is Your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor (MRUA)?", I wrote an update of where I was on my research.  I had not researched further back on Bertram Mundy's family tree, but I had come up with some other things I could do, such as get a copy of Mundy's divorce file and try to find anyone who was related to him to inquire about family stories.

Since that post, I have done some additional research.  After researching back four generations and finding no living descendants, I have abandoned the idea of tracking a Mundy cousin down and paying for an autosomal test.  Anyone I could find at this point will be so distantly related that the likelihood of sharing enough DNA to be relevant is very small.

My new goal is trying to find a photograph of good old Bert Mundy and comparing that to my grandfather and father's looks.  Not as scientific, but yes, I am grasping at straws.  I also still need to obtain Bert's divorce file to see if anything is mentioned about philandering.  Finding my great-grandmother's name in the file would be a smoking gun, but I'm not holding my breath on that.  And there is still the off-chance I might find some documentation of Bert having traveled to the Philadelphia area around July or August 1902.

One other thing I have done is ask a couple of friends who do search angel work for adoptees if they can help.  One said yes but then had a baby shortly afterward and is kind of busy with other things still.  It's possible that someone with more experience with DNA might be able to gain more information from what I have, which is not only my father's DNA but also that of two of his half-sisters, all of them children of my grandfather and each from a different mother.  So that's still on my list.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Genealogy Highlight This Past Week

As if I weren't far enough behind, I actually finally caught COVID!  So I've been isolating and recovering and trying even harder to catch up.  Thank goodness I had a ready answer for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge today.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission:  Impossible! music!):

1.  What was your genealogy-related highlight of this past week (or two weeks)?

2.  Write your own blog post, leave a comment on this post, or write something on Facebook.

By an amazing coincidence, my genealogy highlight this past week is also related to an AncestryDNA match who has an adoption in his line.

I've been corresponding with Edward for three and a half years now.  He matches my sister (whose kit I manage) at a much higher level than he does me.  We've been trying to figure out what names we might have in common, based on what he knew of his tree.

The big news came a few days ago, when Edward sent a message saying that he had been able to identify his paternal grandfather.  So now he has new surnames to add to the mix.  Unfortunately, we still don't have any that match in recent generations.  Currently the most promising lead is Asay, going back to the 1700's in each of our lines.  Hurray for old Quaker names in New Jersey!

But now I need to step up my research on my Asays!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Genealogy Search/Research Did You Do Last Week?

I'm very happy that Randy is now feeling healthy enough to resume posting on his blog, but I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't catch up with any additional old posts yet.  I'll just keep trying!  Here is this week's challenge:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music here) is:

1.  What genealogy search/research did you do last week?  Did you have a research goal or plan?  Tell us about one or more search/research session.

2.  Write your own blog post or add your response as a comment to this blog post or in a Facebook Status post or note.

Aw, man!  Well, I didn't do much this week, but I did do a little research.

I worked some more on finding people in the 1950 census, not for my own family, but for that of a friend.  He had remembered that a cousin had put together a short family history and finally dug it out.  Based on the mostly accurate information in it, I was able to find my friend's great-grandmother and her second husband in the 1930 and 1940 censuses and then the second husband as a widower in the 1950 census.  I discovered they were Germans from Russia, which I actually have a fair amount of experience researching.  Now I'm hunting for them in Canada in earlier records.

The other research I did was trying to figure out how a DNA cousin who showed up on Ancestry is connected to me.  I have a total failure there so far.  The surname doesn't appear anywhere in my family tree, and I can't find any connections yet.

Obviously I am far behind Randy in my accomplishments this week!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Are Your Top Autosomal DNA Matches in Your Tree?

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver has us checking results in our DNA databases.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission:  Impossible! music!):

(1) Have you done an autosomal DNA test?  If so, at which testing company/ies?  

(2) Of your top 10 DNA matches on any site, how many are known relatives, and are they in your family tree?  No names, but give a known relationship if possible.

(3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post.  Please leave a link in a comment to this post.

Okay, here we go!

1.  I have done autosomal DNA tests at AncestryDNA, Family Tree DNA, and 23andMe.  I have also uploaded results to MyHeritage.  (And one of these days I really need to send in my already-paid-for test from LivingDNA.)

2.  My top 10 matches at each site:

AncestryDNA:  I don't see anything that says how many matches I have.  Maybe someone can tell how to find that.  My top 10 matches are:
• Sister
• Brother
• Half-sister
• Half-aunt
• 1st cousin 2x removed
• 2nd cousin
• 1st cousin 1x removed
• 1st cousin 2x removed
• 2nd cousin
• 2nd cousin

I know who all of these people are, and all but the last are in my family tree.

Family Tree DNA:  I have 15,552 matches (very easy to find!).  My top 10 matches are:
• Father
• Half-aunt
• Half-aunt
• 2nd cousin 1x removed
• Unknown
• Unknown
• Unknown
• Unknown
• Unknown
• Unknown

Those six "Unknown" relationships are listed as 2nd–4th cousins by FTDNA.  They're all on my Jewish side and are likely further back than that, maybe about 4th–6th cousins.  I will probably never know exactly how I am related to them.  (One of them shows as a match to me in three different databases.)  The first four on the list are in my family tree (and I know them), and none of the rest is.

23 and Me:  I have 1,500 matches (also very easy to find!).  My top 10 matches are:
• Half 1st cousin
• 1st cousin 1x removed
• Half 4th cousin
• 2nd cousin
• 2nd cousin
• Unknown
• Unknown
• 2nd cousin
• 1st cousin 2x removed
• 2nd cousin 1x removed

The two "Unknown" relatives in this database are both listed as 2nd cousins.  One is on my paternal grandmother's side, which could mean I have him in the family tree, but he is listed without a surname on 23 and Me, so I can't pick him out.  The other is on my mother's side and is almost definitely not in my tree.  The eight identified relationships in the top 10 are all in the tree.

MyHeritage:  I have 29,679 matches, almost twice as many as on FTDNA!  My top 10 matches are:
• Father
• Father (with different stats!)
• Sister
• Brother
• Nephew
• Half-aunt
• Half-aunt
• Half-aunt (same as one just above, again with different stats)
• 1st cousin 1x removed
• Half 4th cousin

I know all of these individuals but the last one, and all are in my tree.

Although not one of the questions Randy posed at the beginning, what does this indicate?

• I appear to have tons more matches than Randy does. :)
• On Ancestry and MyHeritage, I know who my top matches are (although I don't know why two of them are duplicated on the latter).
• I know most of my top matches on 23 and Me.
• I have more matches unknown to me on FTDNA because of Jewish endogamy.
• I need to do more with my 23 and Me matches because of the cool tree they've etxrapolated based on matching segments.  That could be helpful to my research.

A DNA Success Story

I have written previously about my searches for my paternal grandfather's biological father, possibly a Mr. Mundy, and for the son whom my aunt gave up for adoption in 1945, both using DNA as the most promising tool.  So far I haven't made any real progress on either of those, although I continue to search and look for new approaches (hope springs eternal).

I have had another DNA search going on in the background, one I haven't posted about.  My sister had a son in 1981 and gave him up for adoption.  A few years ago, she asked if I could help try to find him.  So I gave her all the warnings (informed consent!) and bought an Ancestry DNA test for her.  When the results arrived, I downloaded her data and put it on GEDMatch, Family Tree DNA, and MyHeritage.  And waited to see if she had any close matches.

That waiting came to frution last month.

She has a match indicated as "son."

He reached out for contact via his girlfriend, who sent a message through the MH system (paraphrased):  "Hi, you show up as my mother.  Are you willing to talk with me?"  When I read the message, I shouted out, "Oh my god!"

I then immediately called my sister.  When I read the message to her, she shouted, "Oh my god!"

I guess we really are sisters, huh?

And I wrote back saying yes, she was indeed willing to talk with him and was looking forward to it.

That turned out to be a pretty nice Christmas present for both of them.

They have spent the past month talking a lot, from what I hear.  And this past week my sister flew out to see him in person and help him celebrate his 40th birthday.

I guess it makes a good birthday present also.

And yes, I do have permission to tell their story and post their photo on my blog.

RootsTech 2020: I'm Back in Salt Lake City!

Yes, it's that time of year:  time to travel to beautiful Salt Lake City and join something like 25,000 other genealogists for that over-the-top production known as RootsTech!

I'm here because I was again fortunate enough to have the program committee accept one of my presentations for the conference.  My talk isn't until Saturday, however, so I have been attending other people's talks and learning all sorts of interesting things.

The conference started Wednesday morning, bright and early at 8:00 a.m., but I decided I couldn't face the world quite that early.  9:00 sounded much more reasonable.  That's when I went to a discussion session organized by FamilySearch.  They were talking to people who volunteer in their communities doing things related to genealogy.  The idea seems to be to find ways volunteers can help each other, both in joining forces and in sharing ideas.  It was an interesting and refreshing way to start the day.  I look forward to seeing what comes of it.

After I enjoyed a leisurely buffet lunch, I attended an informative session with Lara Diamond, who spoke on how to find relatives in Russian-language records if you don't speak (or read) Russian.  She discussed why it's helpful to learn how to recognize terms and your ancestors' names so you can identify them in records (coincidentally, some of the points I will be making in my Saturday presentation).  She also mentioned Genealogical Translations, a free translation group on Facebook that appears to have replaced one that was closed last year, which was great news.

Thursday morning at the conference once more started at 8:00, but I still couldn't make myself get going.  This time I began my day at 9:30 with Thom Reed's presentation about a FamilySearch initiative called Reclaiming Our African Roots.  One focus is preserving records and collecting oral histories in several sub-Saharan countries, many of which were the sources of people captured for the historic slave trade.  As much as I have enjoyed working with Thom over the past few years in relation to Freedmen's Bureau records, and while I hope the initiative does well, I have to admit I was frustrated at the use of marketing hype and imprecise terms used to generate enthusiasm.

An interesting and potentially very useful talk was given by Amy Williams, an academic at Cornell University, who spoke about a method to reconstruct an ancestor's genome by using the DNA of that person's children.  I'm hoping to be able to use the process to put together my mother's genome using my DNA and that of my two siblings, but I need to get conversant in Linux first.  The program used is not currently designed to conduct the process using DNA from half-siblings but might be in the future, so maybe one day I'll be able to do the same for my grandfather using the DNA from three of his children, each of whom had a different mother.  That could be extremely helpful in my search to find his biological father.

Of course, one of the best things about going to conferences is getting to see your genealogy friends face to face.  So far I've been lucky enough to run into Thomas MacEntee, Luana Darby, Sheri Fenley, Elizabeth O'Neal, Tierra Cotton-Kellow, Alice Burch of Utah AAHGS, Randy Seaver, Robinn Magid, and Nicka Smith (in addition to Lara and Thom) and finally have met Ellen Kowitt, Kim Thurman, and Rebecca Koford in person.  I can hardly wait to see who I run into during the rest of the conference!

Tierra and Janice at Wednesday's ProGen gathering

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019

I always have fun with lists of questions for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but I have to admit I've never heard of the word "geneameme" before.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission:  Impossible! music!):

(1) Jill Ball reconstituted her "Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019" on 30 December 2019 and invited readers to participate.  

(2) This week, let's contribute our answers to her questions about our genealogy accomplishments in 2019.  Copy the questions below and add your own responses.

(3) Share your responses on your own blog, in comments on this blog, or on Facebook.  Please leave a comment on this post so readers can find your post, and please let Jill know about your efforts by e-mailing her at jillballau@gmail.com.

Here are mine.

1.  An elusive ancestor I found was:

I did not discover the names of any unknown ancestors in 2019.

2.  A great newspaper article I found was:

I found several interesting newspaper articles about my cousin Sam Brainin on Newspapers.com, including one about a bad car accident he was in as a child.

3.  A geneajourney I took was:

I took three geneajourneys, to RootsTech, the Ohio Genealogical Society conference, and the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

4.  I located an important record:

Yes!  I found the passenger list for my great-great-grandmother Ruchel Dwoire (Jaffe) Brainin immigrating to the Untied States with four of her children.

5.  A newly found family member shared:

A cousin I discovered through a DNA match shared lots of information on his branch of the family, plus a photograph of my great-great-grandparents Gershon Itzhak Nowicki and Dube (Yelsky) Nowicki from about 1915, while they were still in Russia.

6.  A geneasurprise I received was:

When I posted a family photograph that I love but didn't know who was in it, one of my cousins recognized her grandmother and grandaunt, which was totally unexpected.  Plus the photo is probably of her father's bris!

7.  My 2019 social media post that I was particularly proud of was:

I am glad I took the time to write up all my family connections in "Now That's What I Call a Blended Family!"  It takes a genealogist to keep track of a family as complicated as mine.

8.  I made a new genimate who:

I've gotten to be friends with someone who comes regularly to the African American Special Interest Group at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon.  We're even working toether on a few genealogy projects.

9.  A new piece of technology or skill I mastered was:

Well, not quite mastered, but for the first time I was the speaker for a Webinar, and I did all the computer stuff for it.

10.  I joined:

Well, I rejoined the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.

11.  A genealogy education session or event from which I learnt something new was:

I always learn something from every conference and Webinar, but one of the standouts last year was Judy Baston's presentation on the Vilna Ghetto Library, which I attended at the IAJGS conference.  It was fascinating to see the kinds of documentation that have survived.

12.  A blog post that taught me something new was:

Jennifer Mendelsohn's "No, You Don't Really Have 7,900 4th Cousins:  Some DNA Basics for Those with Jewish Heritage" has incredibly useful information on how to work around the overabundance of matches that endogamy produces.

13.  A DNA discovery I made was:

For the first time, a DNA match connected me with someone on the Jewish side of my family I was able to place in my family tree immediately but didn't know already.

14.  I taught a genimate how to:

I did 25 presentations at conferences and genealogical societies, in addition to my volunteer work at the Gresham Family History Center and "Helping Hands" sessions for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.  I think I taught several "genimates" how to do a lot of things.

15.  A brick wall I demolished was:

I had been looking for my great-great-grandmother's arrival into this country for about 20 years (see #4).

16.  A great site I visited was:

"Old Photographs of African Americans" is a site that displays unidentified photographs for free.  People have been able to find their relatives' photos, which is wonderful.

17.  A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was:

I found a copy of London:  Then and Now by Diane Burstein at a thrift store, and it was a bargain.

18.  It was exciting to finally meet:

Like Randy, I also can't think of someone new and exciting I met in 2019.  I'm sure there was someone, but my memory is blanking.

19.  I am excited for 2020 because:

I am really looking forward to working more on figuring out who my paternal great-grandfather Mr. X was.

20.  Another positive I would like to share is:

I'm always excited about a new year of opportunities to learn about and share genealogy!

Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles: A DNA Match on My Jewish Side Whom I Didn't Already Know!

A couple of months ago I logged into my Ancestry.com account to check out my DNA matches.  I don't do this often (probably not as often as I should), mostly because I've gotten used to finding no useful information.  The close matches are all relatives I know already, the distant matches are too far away to be viable at the moment, and most of the in-between matches are on my Jewish side, which means they are actually distant anyway.

This time I saw a person estimated to be a 1st–2nd cousin.  The last name was Novick, a known Americanized version of Nowicki/Novitsky, one of my Jewish family names.  I think a 1st–2nd cousin match is the closest I've ever had on my Jewish side for someone I didn't already know, so it definitely got my attention.  I sent a message with some basic information about the family including the name of my great-great-grandfather Gershon Itzhak Nowicki and hoped for the best.

He actually responded!  And we are related!  In a definable, trackable way!

My great-great-grandfather was his grandfather.  What AncestryDNA had estimated as a 1st–2nd cousin relationship is actually 1st cousin twice removed.

His branch of the family is one for which I had almost no information.  I had his father's name with approximate birth and death years and the name of one child, whom I have learned is the oldest in the family (and she's 98 and still alive!).

We batted e-mail messages back and forth with names and dates and other tidbits about family members.  Then out of the blue my phone rang.  He had found my phone number and decided to call!  So then we spent a couple of hours on the phone talking more about family.

I've learned lots more about his branch of the family.  He sent some photographs, too, includng the one above, which is of his grandparents (my great-great-grandparents) and his father in 1915, still in Russia.  Previously the only photo I had of my great-great-grandparents was this one:

where they look quite a bit older.  I had not considered where this photo had been taken, but now I'm thinking it might have been in the United States.  If that's the case, I can bracket it between 1922, when Gershon and Dube arrived in New York, and 1936, when Dube died in Brooklyn.

And now I want to meet my newfound cousin in person.  I would have loved to try to travel over the holidays, but who wants to visit Long Island in the winter?

IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Cleveland, Ohio

So here I am in lovely Cleveland, Ohio.  I think it hit 89° today, with something like 90% humidity.  I really, really hate weather like this.  Then why have I come to Cleveland in July?  For genealogy, obviously!

Yesterday (Sunday) was the first day of this year's IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.  It is the 39th conference, although it hasn't been held every year.  Even though it is Cleveland in July, I can deal with that more than I could the expense of last year's conference in Warsaw, so I'm glad I am able to attend.

I unfortunately had a late start on Sunday, so I missed both of the morning sessions, which was very disappointing.  I had particularly been looking forward to hearing Vivian Kahn's talk about Hungarian Jewish immigration into Cleveland, especially since both sides of her family lived there.  I did have an enjoyable time walking through the exhibitor hall, visiting vendors and many research groups that had tables for the afternoon.  The highlight of the day was the keynote address by Daniel Goldmark, Director of the Center for Popular Music Studies at Case Western Reserve University.  His presentation was about Jews in popular music, ranging from Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson to the Beastie Boys, Gene Simmons, and more.  He sometimes regretted playing snippets of songs, as most people in the audience started singing along almost immediately.  It might not have been the most genealogically oriented keynote I've heard at a conference, but it sure was fun!

I wrapped up the day with a meeting of Jewish genealogical society newsletter and journal editors.  I always try to schedule one for the conferences I attend.  This year we had six people representing five societies (and two people were unable to attend but spoke to me about the meeting).  As usual, it was a combination of networking, brainstorming, and kvetching.  There's still one society that does print only, with no electronic version of their publication.

Monday began with the first of my three presentations.  I was so happy that the first session of the day began at 9:15, instead of 7:30, as it was at one conference!  The topic was "Jewish Genealogy:  How Is This Research Different from All Other Research?"  Rather than being an introduction to genealogy, it focuses on the aspects of Jewish research that are unique and different from researching other groups.  About 50 people were in attendance, which was nice to see.  One of the attendees was a lovely woman who has been researching her family for 40 years but only recently discovered she has a Jewish line.  She and several others told me at the end that the talk was very helpful and informative, which I am always gratified to hear.

I went to the Belarus Special Interest Group meeting because the well known Miriam Weiner was scheduled to be the presenter.  I've never heard her speak before, so I don't know if today was surprising or not, but all she did was show how to use the Routes to Roots site.  On the positive side, I did get a copy of a 1937 map of Grodno, which will be helpful for research.

IAJGS offered its mentoring program again this year, where they ask speakers to volunteer some time to help attendees with research questions.  The mentoring area is really cramped this year, with a small number of tables and lots of volunteers, but I found a table with two attendees who came up with lots of questions for me.  They have several new avenues of research to work on now.

I was able to fit one DNA talk into my schedule.  It's the first time I've heard Bennett Greenspan of Family Tree DNA talk.  He is an entertaining speaker, even on the (somewhat boring) technical aspects of Y-DNA that were his topic.  I'm not sure if what I learned is going to necessarily help me in my research, but I do understand how the matches work much better.

For some local flavor (since I missed Vivian's talk), I next went to a session on the Jewish presence in central Ohio.  The presenters discussed Jewish immigration into the area beginning in the 1830's and going through Soviet Jewish immigration late in the 20th century, and showed images of many documents and artifacts held at Ohio History Connection and the Columbus Jewish Historical Society, including a mohel's record book covering 1873 to 1904.  Both repositories hold a wide range of items that would be helpful and beneficial to many genealogists researching their families.

Today ended with a get-together of professional genealogists who are at the conference.  We introduced ourselves, talked about our research specialties, and did a lot of networking.  One of the few (I think there are two?) Jewish Certified Genealogists was actually in attendance.  One topic that came up was how it would be beneficial for attendees at the IAJGS conference if there were more sessions on methods and foundational topics, rather than everthing being focused on Jewish genealogical topics.  It has been learned over the years that few people who attend IAJGS go to general conferences where they would learn more about those other topics.

My commentary on days 3 and 4 of the conference is here, and that on days 5 and 6 here.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Ellen's Questions, Part 4

Tonight for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun we're wrapping up the last of the 20 questions we started three weeks ago (although I'm very surprised Randy Seaver did not pick the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing as his theme this week).

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission: Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted 20 questions on her Hound on the Hunt blog three weeks ago — see Even More Questions about Your Ancestors and Maybe a Few about You (posted 27 June). 

(2) We will do these five at a time, with Questions 16 to 20 tonight (we did questions 1 through 5 three weeks ago, 6 through 10 two weeks ago, and 11 through 15 last week).

(3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.

Okey-dokey, here are my responses.

16.  If you’re into DNA, which would you say you work on more?  Genealogy or DNA?  Or about the same?

Definitely more on genealogy.  Most of the time DNA isn't sufficient to give you a complete answer, so if you don't work on the genealogy, you won't know how all those cousins are connected to you.  And you have to do regular genealogy for all the people who haven't done DNA testing!

17.  Do you think that your genealogy is ever really done?

Oh, heavens, no, not for me.  How could it be done?  You would have to do such exhaustive research on even one line to be able to say authoritatively that there really were no other records available anywhere that could help you learn more information about that family.  And I'm nowhere close to that on any of my lines.  But if someone began genealogy research to answer a specific question and nothing else, then that person could be done when the question was answered.

18.  Did you ever search an ancestor’s name on the Internet and you were surprised at what you found?

I search for ancestor names a lot to see what pops up.  I have found lots of things, but I'm not sure I was surprised.  After all, that's what I was trying to do, right?  But I can't recall any great revelations that blew me away.  On the other hand, I have been surprised to see what's online about myself when I search for my name.

19.   Do you ever feel like your ancestors are nudging you in the right direction in your research?

The only time I've ever had that feeling was when my father, my stepmother, and I went to the cemetery to look for my great-grandmother's grave.  It was a small cemetery, and the three of us spread out in different directions:  I went straight to the back, my father went to the right, and my stepmother went to the left.  Just as I arrived near the back fence, my father called out that we should probably be looking for a flat stone, because my grandfather, who had taken care of his mother's burial, was well known for being cheap and probably would not have paid for a standing stone.  Right after he said that, I looked down, and I was standing right by her stone — which was flat, just as my father had predicted.  I realize that isn't quite "research", but that's the best I have.

20.  If you could give one piece of advice to someone new to genealogy, what would you tell them?

You mean besides, "Prepare to lose all your spare time to this hobby"?  I think it would be to talk to the oldest members of the family as soon as possible and ask as many questions as you can think of; write down everything from your interviews.  Once those family members have died, their memories are gone.  And my second piece of advice is to get as many photographs identified as possible while older family members are alive, because they have the best chance of recognizing who is in those photos.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Ellen's Questions, Part 3

In this week's challenge for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, we continue to follow up on a previous one.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted 20 questions on her Hound on the Hunt blog two weeks ago — see Even More Questions about Your Ancestors and Maybe a Few about You (posted 27 June). 

(2) We will do these five at a time, with Questions 11 to 15 tonight (we did 1 through 5 two weeks ago and questions 6 through 10 last week).

(3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.

Okay, these are my answers.

11.  If money weren’t an issue, where would you go to do genealogy research?

All over the world!  I would go to Ukrainian archives and hire interpreters to find information about my Gorodetsky and Schneiderman (and maybe Kagan) family lines.  I would try doing research in Moldova with more interpreters, looking for my Gorodetskys.  I would visit the Latvian archives with yet more interpreters, desperately trying to find even one measly document about my Brainins and Jaffes.  I would go to archives in Belarus (yes, more interpreters) to see if any of the record sets listed on the Routes to Roots site include any of my Mekler, Nowicki, Yelsky, or related relatives.  If I found addresses in any of those records, I would look to see if those buildings had survived.  In Belarus I would also search for records and information about the families of my many Mekler cousins with whom I am now in contact.

It would be ineresting to go back to Cuba, now that I have a little more information about my Cuban cousins, to try researching in person, instead of having to rely on e-mail communications with my researcher there.  At least I can read Spanish fluently and understand spoken Spanish fairly well.

And that's just my mother's side of the family!

For my father's side, I'd like to go to Manchester, England (where my brother has been able to go, once) and research the Dunstans and Winns (and I wouldn't need an interpreter there).  If I could trace the Dunstans back to Cornwall, that would be my next stop.  I should also go to New Jersey to do archives research on all of his other lines, because they were all in New Jersey for such a long time.

And after all that I would probably take a break to determine my next destination.

12.  Do you ever feel as though you’re the only person researching your family?

At this point, yes.  A cousin in Ottawa, Canada was doing research for a while, even going to the point of creating a legal-sized two-page questionnaire that she sent around to all the relatives there (I am very fortunate that she made photocopies of all of the pages for me).  I don't think she is pursuing that anymore.  Other than the occasional random forays my brother makes online (which almost always produce something substantive and useful), I'm it.

13.  Why do you think you’re interested in your family history and other family members might not be?

I used to actually listen to the stories that my mother and grandmother told about family when I was a little girl.  For whatever reason, my brother and sister were apparently not as interested.  So I was already primed when, at the age of 13, I had a junior high school assignment to trace my family back four generations.  I still have that purple mimeographed piece of paper and the notes I took at the time while interviewing family members.  That assignment is what got me hooked.  I think being open to the stories and then starting so young, when I had so many older relatives who were still alive and could tell me information themselves, was a rare combination.

14.  Do you intend to write about your genealogy/family history findings?

You mean like a book?  Oh, heavens, no!  I hate writing.  But I do manage to post to my blog on a (semi)regular basis and share a lot of the family stories and discoveries that way.  And I have shared family trees with so many cousins I lost count.  If I could find someone who wanted to do the writing after I did all the research, that would work much better for me.  And then I could edit the manuscript, because I love editing.

15.  Did you ever make a genealogy mistake that caused you to have to prune your family tree?

One mistake, and one discovery via DNA.  The mistake was relying on the information in the IGI to identify my great-great-grandmother Lippincott's parents.  I happily researched the parents that were listed and went back quite a ways.  But as more records became readily available and I did more research, I discovered that there were two girls of almost the same age with almost the same name, my great-great-grandmother and another one.  That, of course, meant that I had to fully research both women.  I was finally able to determine through church records that the parents listed in that IGI record were those of the other Lippincott, not mine, even though the marriage date and husband were correct for mine.  Someone accidentally combined info from two records!  So out went the one line of Lippincotts and I began work on the correct one, which I have not been able to document as extensively, but at least I'm pretty sure they're actually mine.  The two lines will probably end up connecting some generations back, because you can't go anywhere in New Jersey without tripping over a Lippincott because they've been there so long and are interrelated, but I'm not worried about that yet.

The other "pruning" came when I demonsrated through DNA testing that my grandfather's biological father was not the man his mother married.  I actually haven't taken those people out of my family tree, because Elmer Sellers was the only father my grandfather knew, and I put years and years of work into that research.  But I have discontinued further research in that direction and now focus on determining just who my grandfather's biological father was.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Ellen's Questions, Part 2

For this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver, we're picking up right where we left off last week:

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted 20 questions on her blog — see Even More Questions about Your Ancestors and Maybe a Few about You (posted 27 June). 

(2) We will do these five at a time, with Questions 6 to 10 tonight (we did 1 through 5 last week).

(3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.

Okay, here are my answers.

6.  How many DNA companies have you tested with or transferred to?  Have you tested at all the five major companies?

I have tested my autosomal DNA with AncestryDNA, Family Tree DNA, 23andMe, and Genes for Good.  I have a LivingDNA kit that I have not yet mailed in, and I think I have another test from someone else that I haven't completed yet.  I have transferred my autosomal results to GEDMatch and MyHeritage.  I have also done mtDNA testing with Family Tree DNA.

7.  Do you have an ancestor who had a successful business?  Is it still in business?

The longest-lasting business and the one that was most recently active (that I know of) was my paternal grandfather's stamp, coin, and rubber stamp shop in Niceville, Florida.  It was called Sellers Stamp Shop.  He started it decades ago, and it was there when my family moved to Niceville in 1973.  My first job was working for my grandfather in the shop.  I think it was still operating when Grampa passed away in January 1995.  It is no longer in business, however; the shop died with him.

8.  How long ago was your last “genealogy/DNA happy dance?”

I think my last genealogy happy dance was about two years ago in 2017, when I connected with a second cousin on my paternal grandmother's side who was able to fill in lots of information I didn't have about one of my grandmother's sisters.  I'm still waiting for her to write back to me again, though . . . .

9.  Did you ever discover that a friend was also a distant cousin?

If you count **really** distant, yes.  I have found that a few of my Jewish genealogy friends show up as my cousins on FTDNA, but they're all listed as distant, and because of endogamy the relationship is probably even further back than the listings suggest, so the odds of us actually being able to determine the specific relationship are Slim and None and Slim just left town.  And Tony Burroughs says that if you can't say what the exact relationship is, it just doesn't count.

10.  Do you have a genealogy brick wall?  Do you think you will be able to use DNA to work past it?

I have no genealogy brick walls. :)  That's because I define a brick wall as a question for which I have checked every available resource and still can't find the answer.  There isn't a single one of my research questions for which I have checked every resource, so none of those questions ia a brick wall yet.

As for the second half of this question, for research on my father's side, yes, there's a good possibility that DNA might be helpful in some instances.  On my mother's side, which is Jewish, not likely.