AncestryDNA®'s Newest Communities Update - Intriguing

 

Woodland Branch Alcott Club, 1910s? Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Branch lantern slide. Couldn't resist this photograph. Maybe one of these young women is related to me. Could be...

Courtesy the Cleveland Public Library Digital Gallery: CC BY-SA 4.0 license. 

As of this week, AncestryDNA® has introduced new DNA Communities and updated results. An Ancestry blog post published 1 February 2021 outlines the update and gives some background to the Genetic Communities™. With the update, now there are 33 in Germanic Europe, 151 in the Mid-Atlantic, 138 in the Midwest and 26 in New England. (See image below.) 

 Altogether 1,300 regions are now offered by AncestryDNA® between communities and ethnic regions. Here is a graphic showing all the new Communities, courtesy of Ancestry.

Ancestry had previously identified one Community for some of my DNA matches and myself - "Scottish Lowlands, Northern England & Northern Ireland". This community fits nicely into my known genealogy and with what I usually refer to as my pretty boring DNA story. 

Effectively both my parents were only children (Uncle David died very young) so I am challenged sometimes to find close matches. At Ancestry, which certainly has the biggest DNA database for genealogy, I have only 468 labelled as 4th cousins or closer. This may be why I'm so pleased to be able to help others with their usually much grander close match results!  

My new Community was unexpected: "Ohio, Indiana & Eastern Kentucky Settlers"; more specifically "Northern Ohio & Northeastern Indiana Settlers".  Ancestry points me to three of my DNA matches, labelled as third cousins, who are now identified with me as belonging to this Community. We are also linked in AncestryDNA Thrulines™ (also based on trees and autosomal DNA results) and have been for a while. None of the three appear in the "Scottish Lowlands..." Community with me. 

As it happens, I know quite a bit about the families of these cousins and myself. We are closer cousins than third, but removed, and for sure related via common Scottish and Irish ancestors. I believe we are all in Canada, as were our known common ancestors. 

To me, it seems a bit of a warning that the three cousins are quite closely related to each other. Two do have United Empire Loyalists in their direct ancestors, although I haven't looked too closely till now at that as I know another family member already did. And one of the matches at least has family ties to Ohio. I have a close connection to Ohio too, but on a different line. 

Now I want to check out that history and genealogy for myself. I'm a bit doubtful that I'll find many close relatives related to me among the "Northern Ohio & Northeastern Indiana Settlers", but I would not be surprised if there are further back connections there perhaps via North Carolina, or certainly Ireland and Scotland.  

I'll feel less doubtful if more matches who are not so closely related to each other show up later in this same AncestryDNA® Community. But I'm intrigued enough to work on this for myself. 

It's worth remembering how Ancestry defines these communities. It's not necessarily that I have close or direct relatives there. 

"A community is a group of AncestryDNA® members who likely descend from a population of common ancestors, people who traveled to the same place around the same time, or from the same place around the same time. "

By this definition, my three cousins and I are a known community already, descending "from a population of common ancestors, people..."from the same place around the same time". 

But what about that third cousin who descends in a slightly different route from our other two cousins. Might his other lines offer some interesting tidbits - or even a breakthrough - about our family members or connections? I hope to begin to investigate that for myself soon. I'll try to report back on this by the summer.

I'll be very interested to see what others find in their updates. 

If you already have DNA test results at Ancestry, do take a look to see if you have updated Communities. 

If you haven't yet had your DNA tested, but you are interested in adding DNA to your genealogy tools,  I recommend you watch Diahan Southard's webinar, aired this morning, "Me and My 1000+ DNA Cousins" which will soon be available free to watch for a week. Or 'forever' if you subscribe to the Legacy Family Tree Webinars. (Well worth every dime, in my opinion!)

This will give you a good idea what you might accomplish after taking an autosomal DNA test. (And after watching the webinar, you'll have a Legacy discount code. Also a code for Diahan Southard's book or mentoring.) Diahan is very positive about AncestryDNA®'s communities and does discuss them in the webinar.

BC Genealogical Society - Free Library Week this week

We are very busy this week at the British Columbia Genealogical Society's free Library Week. If you are in the Greater Vancouver area, do drop in!

Every day we are emphasizing a different area but come in any day to take a tour, do some research, or ask for some help. The volunteers will be glad to help. On Saturday, well be looking at Genetic Genealogy!


Here is a map showing the Library's location. This is from Mapme.com. I'm going to play around with this website's mapping some more. I just learned about this via WorldStart.

Genetic Genealogy

For those who attended my talk at Cloverdale Library in Surrey, BC on Genetic Genealogy, I'll post an an on-line version of the handout here on Tuesday.

Genetic Genealogy  - Cloverdale January, 23, 2016 
P.S. Your password is Cloverdale



If you have any questions, do e-mail me. 

And when you can, watch some of the Finding Your Roots TV series with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 

Watch here for links next month to any new on-line free DNA sessions. I'm sure there will be some available from the exciting RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City. .

ADDING DNA TO YOUR GENEALOGY & FAMILY HISTORY TOOLS - May 2015

Some in the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada (UELAC) DNA session, 29 May 2015, were interested in learning more about using DNA in adoption research.

Here are the additional links I suggested. These will be helpful to anyone interested in using DNA for genealogy.

First, check the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) website and wiki.  This is the link to the ISOGG wiki section on DNA Testing for Adoptees: http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Adoption

I recommended Richard Hill's website DNA Testing Advisor:  http://www.dna-testing-adviser.com and his books, available through his site, Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA, 2012,  and Guide to DNA Testing: How to Identify Ancestors, Confirm Relationships, and Measure Ethnic Ancestry through DNA Testing, updated 2014.

 And I recommended the DNA Adoption website. Great information on specific topics for DNA and adoption questions, but also for the many analytic tools now available. DNA Adoption sponsors on-line classes too: http://www.dnaadoption.com

I wish you many DNA discoveries! 

Kamloops Family History Society Seminar 2015 - A Great Success!

Family History - Past to Present, the Kamloops Family History Society's 2015 Seminar held this weekend was a great success. Attendees and presenters all enjoyed themselves.

The Keynote Speaker was Cyndi Ingle of Cyndi's List, and the other speakers were Claudia Breland, Lyn Meeham and myself. 

The Society, especially the conference committee, deserve warm thanks for all the thought and hard work that went into the conference.

If you live near Kamloops and are not already a member of the KFHS I certainly suggest you join. This is a very friendly group. I certainly hope to see them again soon. 

For those in my Deadline! Researching Newspapers for Family Historians talk, here are the links I promised you. Happy newspaper reading! I'd love to hear what you find. 

Newspaper Collection, Library and Archives Canada. Geographical microfilm list; geographical list of published indexes (not complete but useful as a starting point), : http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/newspapers/newspaper-collection/Pages/newspapers-collection.aspx 

And Library and Archives Canada has some "Special Editions of Canadian Newspapers" on-line. (An archived exhibit): http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/canadian-newspapers/index-e.html

British Columbia digitized newspapers & indexes, British Columbia Genealogical Society: http://www.bcgs.ca/?page_id=541  The lastest digitized papers added are for Kamloops, BC! 

Wikipedia – List of worldwide online newspaper archives - worldwide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_online_newspaper_archives

For those in my Genetic Genealogy talk, here are the additional links I promised.

Books 

Genetic Genealogy: The Basics and Beyond by Emily D. Aulicino

Ebook and paper: http://bookstore.authorhouse.com/Products/SKU-000686866/Genetic-Genealogy.aspx

DNA for Genealogists by Kerry Farmer

E-book: http://www.gen-ebooks.com/dna-for-genealogists-3rd-ed.html

Paper: http://www.gould.com.au/DNA-for-Genealogists-p/utp0291.htm

DNA Lectures, Who Do You Think You Are? Live - 2015: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HQSiSkiy7ujlkgQER1FYw

And be sure to check your names to see if anyone is doing a study of those families already. They may have a DNA project or be intending to start one.

Guild of One-Name Studies: http://one-name.org/

The Surname Society: http://surname-society.org/


Any other info you'd like? Just e-mail me. I'll do my best to help. 

FamilyTreeDNA sale starts tonight - DNA Day

For those who attended my Genetic Genealogy talk last weekend, here's some welcome news.

FamilyTreeDNA.com is having a short sale. Nearly all the offerings will be on sale, including upgrades that were not on last year's sale. The sale begins at 6 PM April 19th and concludes at 11:59 PM on Saturday the 21st (Central time, U.S.)

No coupon required this time. Prices on the website will be adjusted.

For more information, check out FamilyTreeDNA's Facebook page or see CeCeMoore's latest post at Your Genetic Genealogist. If you're interested in the uses of DNA for genealogy, I do recommend following Your Genetic Genealogist.

Medical Family History and Genealogy

I just picked up the latest issue of Prevention magazine (November 2011) and to my surprise, found an article entitled "But It Doesn't Run In My Family: Closing the Gaps in your knowledge of Your Family Tree can quite literally save your Life" by Carol Withers (pp. 42-50). The article is a timely one for USians as since 2004, November's Thanksgiving holiday has been National Family History Day. (It's time we did something similar in Canada.)

It's a nice starter article, but sadly, nowhere does it refer to knowledgable genealogists or family historians, or genealogy/family history/personal DNA testing. And although a caption suggests family photographs might hold medical secrets, there's no discussion of this in the article.

Joann Boughman of the American Society of Human Genetics is quoted as saying that every family has "an aunt or a cousin who's the keeper of the secrets." Well, that same auntie or kissing cousin might well be the family historian. If so, she likely already has much of the family medical information handy. She's been tirelessly working away in the archives for years, and would be so happy to hear from you.

A sidebar in the article does direct readers to several on-line United States websites with good information - the United States Surgeon General's Family Health History Initiative, The U. S. Centres for Disease Control Family History section, The U.S. National Institutes of Health and the U.S. National Society of Genetic Counselors.

Each site has information on the medical reasons to research your family history and often includes an easy to use on-line guide or tool. The U.S. National Society of Genetic Counselors, for instance, has brief instructions on drawing out a genogram as your family tree. If you'd like a computerized way to do that, I can recommend the GenoPro programme which has a free version and a guide on-line for using its customizable medical symbols. Genograms are particularly useful when drawing up trees that include medical conditions, causes of death, adoptions and fostering situations, and aunts, uncles and cousins, etc. or even important non-family relationships.

But don't neglect genealogical and other historical and medical sources for further information. An 'antique' term for a cause of death for one Prevention editor's long ago relative is questioned - "nightmare" (page 50). This was likely startling information to a 21 century family, as other old causes of death might be, 'visitation of god', for example, or 'rising of the lights' or 'surfeit' or 'nostalgia'. ¹

Like other terms for causes of death, 'nightmare' may historically have had, in different cultures and over time, different meanings than our modern idea of a 'bad dream'. One suggestion is given in this article by a medical historian, Janet Golden, as death during sleep,"gasping from a stroke or arrhythmia" (page 50), a diagnosis that does have quite modern connections.

The person named was Amaziah Branch who I take to be the same Amaziah Branch, teacher, preacher and poet, mentioned in an 1875 book as a former resident of Pompey Village in New York, USA.

"The last named, was the first school teacher at this place and at La Fayette Village. He died at Dr. S. W. Park's, of nightmare, in about 1818. He is said to have been one of the good men of the earth. He was poor, but well educated. He came from Massachusetts." ²

The medical historian's "guess" (page 50) could be correct, but a genealogist would be on the hunt for any more contemporary records or mentions of his death. A note from 1875 concerning a death "about 1818" gives a clue, but it's not the best evidence.

The text makes it clear Dr. Park was a medical doctor. If there was evidence Amaziah Branch was staying with him under medical care that might suggest a critical or chronic illness, but you might think a doctor would have given a more specific cause of death. Could 'nightmare' relate to a medical treatment? Or fever? How old was Amaziah? (The fragmentary information on-line suggests about 1741 for his birth which would make him about 77 at death.) What happened to other family members? His wife also apparently died suddenly but just a few days after childbirth, so that cause might be quite different.³

And most importantly, might there be something more specific shown in a burial or other church record? And, in the burial records for around 1818, or in any medical records (Dr. Park's?) or publications from that time and area, what other causes of death are seen? Did anyone else die of 'nightmare' ?

¹ See first Antiquus Morbus, Rudy Schmidt's website, for old medical terms and their explanations.

² From the Internet Archive, 18 October 2011, digitized for the Making of America Project, Re-union of the sons and daughters of the old town of Pompey: held at Pompey Hill, June 29, 1871 : proceedings of the meeting, speeches, toasts, and other incidents of the occasion : also, a history of the town, reminiscences and biographical sketches of its early inhabitants. Published by Direction of the Reunion Committee, Pompey, 1875. Printed at Syracruse, New York: Courier Printing Company, 1875. Quotation from printed page 205, .pdf version.

³ Amaziah Branch wrote "An elegiac poem, on the death of Mrs. Sarah Branch;: who died suddenly, August 2, 1784: leaving an infant of eleven days old" (Bennington, Vermont: Haswell & Russell., 1789, 19 pages). See Open Library for reprint details.