Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 227

by Lisa Cooke | Mar 13, 2019 | 01 What's New, Genealogy Gems Podcast

Genealogy Gems Episode 227

This episode is all about the biggest announcements coming out of RootsTech 2019. Highlights include:

All the major announcements from MyHeritage and Ancestry at RootsTech 2019
Exclusive interview with MyHeritage DNA Product Manager Ran Snir about their newest genetic genealogy tools The Theory of Family Relativity™ and AutoClusters.

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News: Major Announcements Made at RootsTech 2019

Ancestry Announcements:

Historical records:

Ancestry just released over 5 million Mexico Catholic records and 1 million new France Census and Birth, Marriage, Death records and have several U.S. statewide projects underway, from New York to Hawaii. They also released US WWII Draft Cards from seven states. By early next year, the full set of WWII Draft Cards – all 33 million — will be exclusively available on Ancestry and Fold3.

DNA Tools:

MyTreeTags™:
“MyTreeTags™ allows you to add tags to people in your family tree to indicate whether your research on them is confirmed or verified, or to record personal details, like “never married.” You can also create your own custom tags to note that a person immigrated from Denmark or worked as a blacksmith. You can even use filters as you search your tree to see everyone with the same tag. MyTreeTags™ is one way we can help you save time and enrich your ancestor profile.” You can join the MyTreeTags™ and New & Improved DNA Matches beta at https://www.ancestry.com/BETA

New & Improved DNA Matches:
“We have redesigned the DNA Matches experience to help you make more discoveries, faster. Now you can easily sort, group and view your DNA Matches any way you’d like. New features include color coding and custom labeling offering you more control over how you group and view the matches, quicker identification of your newest matches and new ways to filter your matches.

ThruLines™:
“ThruLines™ shows you the common ancestors who likely connect you to your DNA Matches—and gives you a clear and simple view of how you’re all related. When you link your public or private searchable family tree to your AncestryDNA results, new chapters of your family story may be revealed. ThruLines™ will roll out gradually to all customers who qualify beginning today.”

Source: https://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2019/02/28/ancestry-announces-coveted-content-releases-and-new-game-changing-family-history-research-tools-at-rootstech-2019/

MyHeritage Announcements:

AutoClusters
“A new genetic genealogy tool that groups together DNA Matches that likely descend from common ancestors in a compelling visual chart. This easy-to-use tool helps you explore your DNA Matches more efficiently in groups rather than as numerous individuals, and gain insights about branches in your family tree.”

DNA Quest Now Accepting Applications
“In March 2018 we launched DNA Quest, a pro bono initiative in which we pledged to donate 15,000 DNA kits to adoptees and those seeking to reunite with family members who were placed for adoption. Within a few months, all the DNA kits we allocated for this initiative were sent out. Applicants opened up to us to share their emotional stories of searching, their hopes for future reunions, and the sense of belonging they felt thanks to their participation in DNA Quest…Following the success of the initiative, we have decided now to extend DNA Quest and donate 5,000 additional MyHeritage DNA kits, for free, to eligible participants.”

Digitizing of Israeli Cemeteries Completed
MyHeritage has completed a 5-year project of digitizing every cemetery in Israel. It is now the first country in the world to have almost all of its gravestones preserved and searchable online, with images, locations, and fully transcribed records. They’ve put up all this content for free, too.

FamilySearch and MyHeritage Tree Sync
(LDS members only)

Geni GEDCOM Import
“We are pleased to announce the return of the GEDCOM Import feature to Geni! This has been one of the most requested features on Geni and we’re excited to finally make it available to everyone. GEDCOM is a standard file format used to save, transfer, and transport family tree information. Long-time users may recall that Geni previously allowed users to start a tree using their GEDCOM files, however we disabled this feature in 2011 to avoid duplication of profiles in the World Family Tree. Our new and improved importer has been rewritten to import a few generations at a time, continuing only on branches where there are no matches to existing profiles on Geni.”

“You can now import a GEDCOM file as a new tree, a new branch if you already have a tree, or onto any existing profile on which you have full permissions to edit and add onto. No longer will you need to endure the slow process of adding each individual one at a time to the tree. Now anyone can quickly add trees which didn’t exist before on Geni, saving you valuable time and allowing you to focus instead on new research.”

The Theory of Family Relativity™
“This unprecedented feature helps you make the most of your DNA Matches by incorporating genealogical information from all our collections of nearly 10 billion historical records and family tree profiles, to offer theories on how you and your DNA Matches might be related. If you’ve taken a MyHeritage DNA test or uploaded your DNA results to MyHeritage, this revolutionary technology may offer astounding new information on your family connections.”

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GEM: Digging Deep into the Theory of Family Relativity™ with Ran Snir

Ran Snir is the product manager responsible for MyHeritage DNA products. He leads a really talented team of developers and engineers and designers to create and optimize DNA users entire journey. He led the development of the Chromosome browser for Shared DNA Segments feature at MyHeritage DNA, from concept to production and launch.

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer
Bill Cooke, Audio Editor
Lacey Cooke, Service Manager

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Improvements to MyHeritage DNA

by Lacey Cooke | Aug 15, 2018 | 01 What's New, DNA, MyHeritage | 3 comments

improvements at myheritage DNA You’ve taken your DNA test for genealogy and anxiously waited for your results. When they arrive, you dive into the ethnicity pie chart. Then matches start rolling in and it can become a little overwhelming to make sense of it all and the benefit it can provide to your genealogy.

Thankfully the DNA testing companies are not only focused on advances in testing, but also in creating tools that make it easier for you to interpret and use your results.

MyHeritage DNA continues to release improvements to their DNA product that are meant to both enhance our experience with their website and make it easier to do our genetic genealogy work. You’ll also find an improved presentation of your genetic information that makes it easier to share with your relatives.

The MyHeritage DNA Overview Tab

Just recently MyHeritage DNA announced the addition of new filters for their match page and a bit of a redesign. The small redesign includes moving the ethnicity estimate into a tab right next to the DNA matches tab, as well as adding an Overview tab.

For any relatives who you have convinced to test, but who only show a passing interest in the actual genetic genealogy research, this Overview tab is a great way to show them their results without overwhelming them. There is a simple rundown of the ethnicity results, and then matches are broken up by relationship level and location.

MyHeritage DNA Overview tab

The MyHeritage DNA Location Feature

It is this location feature that will most interest the casual investigator, as well as the serious researcher. This filter lets you see the current location (note: NOT the birth location, though according to the MyHeritage blog post they plan to add birth location in a future update) of your DNA matches. Now, of course, this isn’t an active GPS that is spying on your match, but this tool relies on the location that your match has listed as their location in their MyHeritage account.

MyHeritage DNA Location

First, it is interesting just to scroll through all of the listed countries and see the variety of locations where your DNA is currently residing. Just think about that for a second: If you are DNA matching with someone in Germany, that means that you are sharing some exact pieces of DNA with someone in Germany and a little bit of you is actually there. This can make for a fascinating exercise when you compare this list of match locations to the locations listed in your ethnicity results. Remember that your ethnicity results can represent your ancestral locations recently, or a very long time ago. So if you see locations on your match list that also appear in your ethnicity results, this might be a good indication that the overlapping location might actually belong in your genealogy. Or the absence of overlap might help you weed out those ethnicities that were thousands of years ago. For example, if you see that your ethnicity results list you as 2% Greek, but you don’t have any DNA matches in Greece, this could mean that your connection to this location is before genealogical time. Of course, it could also mean that the right people from Greece haven’t tested yet, so don’t get too caught up in these deductions.

“If you are DNA matching with someone in Germany,
that means that you are sharing some exact pieces of DNA with someone in Germany
and a little bit of you, is actually there.”

MyHeritage DNA Ethnicities

The last section in the Overview, and the last filter for your match list, shows you how many of your matches are reporting at least 10% of various ethnicities. This might be helpful if you are working your Irish lines, as you can click on Irish, Scottish, and Welsh and see all of your DNA matches who report at least 10% in the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh category.

Combining MyHeritage DNA Filters

Another powerful way to use the filters at MyHeritage is to combine them. On the main match page, you can click on two different filters to further refine your results. So perhaps if you are looking for your Irish ancestor, you might click on the Irish location filter, and then also on the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ethnicity filter. This will give you all your matches who currently live in Ireland, and who score at least 10% in the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh category.

Of course, the matches that show up after all the filtering aren’t necessarily worth your time or attention. Begin by taking a quick look at how much shared DNA you have. You will want to be sure that you share at least 20 cM before you go spending too much time scouring their pedigree charts for evidence of a shared ancestor.

Likely these filters will continue to improve over time. One thing I would like to see is the ability to use the relationship filter to isolate third cousins, instead of always lumping them with the distant cousins. Most of us don’t have very mysteries in the Extended Family (1^st cousins once removed – 2^nd cousins once removed) category, so I personally don’t find this filter to be very useful. I would like to see them allow us to filter our best third and fourth cousins out from the rest of our distant matches. Hopefully, MyHeritage can make some refinements in those categories, and thereby make their powerful idea of a two-pronged filter even more effective.

Stay tuned to the Genealogy Gems blog where you will hear updates about MyHeritage DNA (and other DNA testing companies) as they are announced. If you want help in getting more from your DNA test results and using the powerful tools at MyHeritage, my new quick reference guide MyHeritage DNA is available alone or bundled with other DNA resources at the Genealogy Gems store here. Premium eLearning Members can watch the Premium Video Get the Most our of MyHeritage DNA (and download the exclusive handout!) in the Premium Video section here at Genealogy Gems (subscription and sign in required).

What’s your experience using these tools at MyHeritage DNA? Please join the conversation and leave a comment below.

About the Author: Diahan Southard has worked with the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, and has been in the genetic genealogy industry since it has been an industry. She holds a degree in Microbiology and her creative side helps her break the science up into delicious bite-sized pieces for you. She’s the author of a full series of DNA guides for genealogists.

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!

Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 215

by Lisa Cooke | Mar 20, 2018 | Genealogy Gems Podcast

The Genealogy Gems Podcast
Episode #215
with Lisa Louise Cooke

Click to listen to this new episode!

In this “Blast from the Past” episode, Lisa gives voice to the era of silent films, in a unique approach to understanding her great-grandmother’s life. Her passion for this mostly-forgotten film genre comes through in her conversation with film archivist Sam Gill of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, California.

Don’t miss these fun segments, too:

A listener writes in after discovering a birth mom’s story in passport records (see what lengths he goes to in order to access the records!).

Just after RootsTech 2018, Your DNA Guide Diahan Southard reports on the latest DNA news you’ll want to know.

NEWS: ROOTSTECH 2018 DNA NEWS ROUNDUP FROM YOUR DNA GUIDE DIAHAN SOUTHARD

First up was MyHeritage, showing their support for the 7 million adopted individuals in the United States with their new DNA Quest campaign. MyHeritage will provide 15,000 DNA test kits to eligible participants free of charge, in order to help these adoptees use DNA to reunite them with their biological families. With this initiative they “hope to make this project a shining light for corporate philanthropy and an example to be followed by other commercial companies in their own lines of expertise to make the world a better place.” MyHeritage has assembled an advisory board of genetic genealogists and genetic counselors to help drive this project and ensure it meets the needs of the community. If you or someone you know is interested in participating, you can head on over to the DNA Quest website (www.dnaquest.com) to fill out an application. But you better hurry, the application deadline is April 30, 2018.

Next, addressing the biggest problem in genetic genealogy, namely the looming What Next? question facing millions of newly swabbed participants, MyHeritage announced the Big Tree ? a giant network of genetic and genealogy results that will automate much of the match comparison and tree searching to replace your head-scratching with light-bulb moments. They have already made significant headway on this project, as reported in the journal Science, which MyHeritage’s own chief scientific officer Yaniv Erlich collaborated on. The journal reports that the team of scientists successfully extracted public family trees from Geni.com (a MyHeritage daughter company), and then used a computer program to clean up and link the trees together. It sounds like MyHeritage will be adding genetic data to this kind of tree data in their Big Tree project.

MyHeritage isn’t the only company out to improve the DNA matching experience. UK based LivingDNA announced that they plan to add DNA matching to their popular origins test by third quarter 2018. When they launched in October of 2016, LivingDNA was not offering cousin matching, but opted instead to focus all of their resources on providing very detailed origins reports, including breaking down the UK in to 46 categories. In the months since their launch, they have been working on a genetic matching system, called Family Networks, that will appeal to a wide range of users and will “reduce the risk of human error and take away the tedious task of figuring out how each person on a user’s list are related to one another.” They are promising an experience that provides “a level of relationship prediction and specificity beyond anything currently on the market.”

So it sounds like if you are currently struggling with turning your DNA matches into genealogical discoveries, our testing companies want you to know you are not alone, and they are working hard to provide solutions to these problems. Time will only tell if they can succeed.

Diahan also provides answers to questions asked about this blog post announcing updates to MyHeritage DNA matching technology and its new chromosome browser.

MAILBOX: TOM’S PASSPORT SEARCH SUCCESS

Kathleen Head’s passport applications
U.S. passport applications on Ancestry and FamilySearch through 1925
National Archives article on passport applications
U.S. State Department passport application (since 1925) copy requests
Frequently asked Questions about the Freedom of Information Act

BONUS CONTENT for Genealogy Gems App Users

If you’re listening through the Genealogy Gems app, your bonus content for this episode is a marvelous soundtrack of silent film music, played live (you’ll hear audience laughter occasionally in the background) and supplied by Sam Gill at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum. The Genealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and is only $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users.

GEM: INTRODUCTION TO SILENT FILMS

(Image above: a page from Lisa’s grandmother’s journal)

Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode #2 about transcribing family journals and letters was remastered in Episode #134.

Episode #8

Stanford Theatre, Palo Alto, CA (shows silent films)

Internet Movie Database (IMDB)

Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum: the website for this museum is packed with resources: links to Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd film locations; the International Buster Keaton Society; Classic Images Magazine; a timeline and early history of film and more.

Films mentioned in this episode:

Diary of a Lost Girl starring Louise Brooks (watch trailer)

Safety Last starring Harold Lloyd (watch here)

The Mender of Nets with Mary Pickford (watch here)

The Blot directed by Lois Weber (watch here)

Don’t Park There with Will Rogers (watch here)

Flivvering by Victor Moore

Wife and Auto Trouble directed by Bill Henderson (watch here)

A Trip Down Market Street (watch here)

Wings (watch here)

All Quiet on the Western Front (watch here)

Destruction of San Francisco by Blackhawk Films (watch part here)

Four Sons (watch trailer)

INTERVIEW: SAM GILL, FILM HISTORIAN AND ARCHIVIST

Shown here: Sam Gill and Lisa Cooke at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum on the day of this interview. Throughout their conversation, you hear the sounds of excited theater patrons filling the auditorium before a screening.

Sam Gill’s interest in silent film dates to 1966, when as a college student he traveled to Hollywood to interview his aging heroes from the silent screen comedy era. For more than 20 years, he was Archivist of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s Margaret Herrick Library, where he established the Academy’s Special Collections and helped it grow to its current status as the preeminent repository for the study of American cinema. He is currently a Board Member of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum. Over the years, he has consulted on or otherwise contributed his expertise to numerous film festivals, museum film programs and film history books.

Sam recently sent us these delightful photos (below) of himself over the years:

(Image 1) 1966: His first trip to Hollywood
(Image 2) 1974: A news article about a research trip to Florida
(Image 3) 2017: A birthday party for Diana Serra Cary (Baby Peggy), the last surviving star of the silent screen, held at the Edison Theater of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum; also shown is Rena Kiehn, the museum’s publicity director and store manager

San Francisco Silent Film Festival

How to identify old cars in photographs (a technique that adapts well to film!)

National Film Preservation Foundation (click here to see where to find films they have helped preserve, including Japanese internment camp footage)

Old Town Music Hall

Start creating fabulous, irresistible videos about your family history with Animoto.com. You don’t need special video-editing skills: just drag and drop your photos and videos, pick a layout and music, add a little text and voila! You’ve got an awesome video! Try this out for yourself at Animoto.com.

MyHeritage.com is the place to make connections with relatives overseas, particularly with those who may still live in your ancestral homeland. Click here to see what MyHeritage can do for you: it’s free to get started.

GEM: HOW TO FIND SILENT FILMS

If you’re looking for a specific movie, start with a Google search with the name in quotations (and, if you like, anything else you know about it, such as an actor or director’s name or the year). You may find lots of results, including a Wikipedia page and film history write-ups, but if you want to WATCH it, limit your search results to Video.

You can also turn to free curated collections online, such as:

101 free silent films: the great classics (links to free film footage on YouTube, Internet Archive, etc.)

YouTube playlist of silent movies

Internet Archive Silent Films collection: feature and short silent films uploaded by Internet Archive users

Silentmovies.info: watch several classic silent films

Netflix.com: Netflix subscribers can access the service’s little-known collection of silent films by entering the Netflix link for browsing its film categories and then the category specific to silent films, 53310:

http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/ 53310

(Click here to read an article about this tip, along with Netflix’ full list of specific film categories.)

YouTube: watch for free, rent or buy, as shown here:

More places to explore for silent films:

Turner Classic Movies (TCM.com): under TCMDb, click Database Home and search for a title you want to watch

Amazon.com: Search for titles in the Video section; or search the Classic Silent films category

Your local public library (search catalog: try searching for an actor’s name as author)

Ebay: May be the right place to purchase a hard-to-find title. Click here to view current results for a search on silent films, filtered to include only movie/film items.

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer

Sunny Morton, Editor

Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide, Content Contributor

Hannah Fullerton, Production Assistant

Lacey Cooke, Service Manager

Disclosure: This document contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting this free podcast and blog!

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