The Turning of Generations: RootsTech Thursday 5 February 2016

Friday, February 5, 2016

RootsTech Thursday 5 February 2016

World's Largest Genealogy Chart

RootsTech was a long day but eventful day on Thursday. We started the day with a challenge from Steve Rockwood, president and CEO of FamilySearch. Select an ancestor or family member and think of a story about that person. Then share it with your family members in one minute or less. What a great table topic around the family dinner table! I say take it another step and record or write down that one minute story.

Ancestry recorded an on camera interview with me about researching your ancestors in the records of the Bureau of Land Management. I’ll let you know when the interview appears online. It was a fun experience. I also had the opportunity to discuss some of the AncestryDNA features with Anna Swayne. I’ll be sharing that information in future talks and blog posts. AncestryDNA has some cool and powerful tools.

My first RootsTech presentation, The Non-Scientist’s Introduction to Genetic Genealogy and DNA went well and I’ve receive some positive feedback from the talk.

The rest of my afternoon was DNA oriented. Paul Woodbury had two sessions that I attended. The first, Developing a DNA Testing Plan gave me one of those light bulb moments. If you are looking at your mitochondrial or Y-DNA matches in Family Tree DNA (FtDNA) check to see if they are also an autosomal match (Family Finder). It may help you narrow down where on your tree you might have a common ancestor.

This is an image from the Y-DNA match list. This particular match also took the Family Finder test and has uploaded a tree.

Paul’s class, Introduction to Chromosome Mapping was the last class for the day. It was an excellent review. So now I can get right back up to speed on my chromosome mapping project which has been languishing lately.

I also want to mention that The In-Depth Genealogist is running a conference special of a $25 subscription for everyone. Whether you are attending in person, virtually from home or from following the various blogs. Hop on over to The In-Depth Genealogist website or wander over to Booth 1334 in the RootsTech exhibit hall.