We are into Genes and Genealogy
March 4th, 2017 – 3:00 PM EST: WATCH LIVE – Chat with Leader Wrangler Abby Glann, Connectors Project.
How do you connect to the world global family tree? Chat with Abby, leader of the WikiTree Connectors Project and she can give you some ideas on how you can find out!
Orange Alert! If you have an aversion to Orange, navigate away from this page now.
What to write, what to write, what to write? It’s been incredibly busy after coming back from RootsTech2017. Just unpacking all the gear from doing interviews and a WikiTree LiveCast, LIVE, from the conference was a huge undertaking. Then to set it all back up in Grandmas Genes Offices? I am tired all over again just thinking about.
Oh the trials and tribulations of flying across the northern hemisphere in winter. The first plane had engine trouble, so the flight to SLC was missed (thank goodness as they eventually arrived in SLC at 3:30 AM after sitting on the plane for 6 hours prior to take off). Air Canada put me and fellow castaways up at the Westin in Chicago for the night then flew us on to SLC the next day. No harm no foul except I missed a planed sleep-over with Eowyn and Julie, and lunch with Darlene Athey Hill.
The flight home was almost as much fun whit the connecting flight from Toronto canceled and foul weather once again at play. I started my travel day before sunrise in SLC and ended it, landing in a snowstorm at 9:00PM.
All the travel woes were worth it.
Dick Eastman, and all of our very orange clad WikiTree RootsTech2017 Team, had breakfast together on the first morning. So Dick was one of the first to amble my way for a five minute chat about DNA. I also wandered the Expo Hall grabbing people as I went to talk about DNA. I tried a bit of stalking…hanging out around session doors to grab speakers after the fact. This approach doesn’t work as the speakers are usually swarmed by adoring fans.
David Allen Lambert, with NEGHS and I had a chance to talk about his DNA Story. WikiTreers Kim Jordan, Randy Whited and Kirsty Gray also carried on a bit about DNA and WikiTree and how it’s important in Genealogy. Peter roberts steered me towards the Innovators tunnel to talk with David Nicholson and Hannah Morden-Nicholson with Living DNA. Interesting how specific their DNA testing can be.
Curtis Rogers, of GEDmatch, and I talked about the new Integration of WikiTree and GEDmatch and also about the future of WikiTree and DNA.
Did some not so subtle eavesdropping on WikiTreer-in-Chief, Chris Whitten, chatting with Luther Tychonievich and Tim Jansen (in front of the only support column in the Salt Palace which was actually a part of our booth).
All the footage, and then some, of the interviews from RootsTech2017 will be put together in some kind of spiffy Video.
Oh, there were shenanigans alright. One of the great things about being able to represent WikiTree at RootsTech is the ability to meet and interact with people, colleagues, genealogists, that you work with on a daily basis. You also get to have fun with your volunteermates (<— this is not a word). From goofing off and being serious about DNA with Peter Roberts to watching Julie and Kitty Dancing to talking to ALL the WikiTree’s who stopped by the booth to Steve the Tree (a guy dressed in a Tree costume…this prompted Chris to ask me if I would dress as an elf for next year…or maybe walk around with a sandwich board, he he) – it was all fun.
What a great, wonderfully exhausting time we all had at RootsTech2017. Thanks to Chris Whitten, Eowyn Langholf, Abby Glann and Julie Ricketts (WikiTree Team) and Fellow WikiTree Leaders, Michael Stills, Karen Tobo, Kitty Cooper Smith and Peter Roberts for making this years WikiTree Booth the brightest Booth (both visually and intellectually) in the Hall.
Today in some downtime (I know it’s a strange word for Genealogists – downtime is really multi-tasking) I was thinking about a new WikiTree Mentors-Tips post. Often times I am inspired by real life events in G2G (WikiTrees Genealogist to Genealogist Forum) or a question from someone in a PM (Private Message) or email. But today I was really goofing around with My Drop-Down Menus at the top right of every WikiTree page.
It’s not the My WikiTree one, the one next to it with my WikiTree ID, Gaulden-7, as the start…if you scroll down you’ll see a lot of stuff to play with. Today I was playing around with the first one in the drop-down list, Compact Tree.
This page gives you a compact Tree of your Family. If you are a WikiTreer check out yours (if you are not a WikiTree you are missing some incredible tools)…
Eight generations — up to 254 ancestors. “This is made for sharing, especially with DNA matches: https://www.WikiTree.com/treewidget/Gaulden-7/5″
Made for sharing, which is very true. But what else can this widget do for us and or for someone we send it to?
At the bottom of the page you can Click “to view these names in alphabetical order, see Mags’s Family List. See Mags’s Tree & Tools page for more tree views.”
Pretty nice – you can copy it to your DNA match email. You know the one you send out to people you find who have some kind of match to you. I get those all the time for my own DNA matches and Client matches… Those letters are sometimes the most confounding things I deal with daily. I got one the other day that was just a link to a family tree. What?! What do you mean when you send me nothing but a Family Tree list?
Well, with the Compact Tree, you can at least send them something they can figure out.
Use the compact Tree to quickly check through your Ancestors to see if there are others who have DNA tested who connect to the Ancestor. Using the information on the Profile for each DNA testor you can check to see if your paper trail is accurate.
Now back to my lollygagging and doing much of nothing, shaw, it might even be a good time to have some Blueberry pie!
Grandma’s Genes is winding down 2016 with a mind towards the things that most influenced our work. Aside from the blueberry pies, presentations, research, Swab-A-Thons, field trips, conferences, phone calls, blog posts etc., there is one major take-away.
Networks connect us all. We drive to our jobs on a network of roads. We communicate with each other over a network of airwaves or wires or through the vast web of the internet. We have a network of support – friends, family and the baker down the street. Even our neighbor next door is a thread in the Network of our Lives.
If I hadn’t joined WikiTree in December 2013, the mother load of genealogy networking and collaboration, and turned this many, many year passion into a mystery solving venture that pays for my blueberry pies? I would still be just answering family queries and would never have learned the joy of genealogical collaboration. Collaboration on such a stratospheric level. I posted once about how WikiTree has given me an education beyond my university degree in WikiTree’s G2G Forum. That was a year ago – I must be working toward my WikiTree doctorate now.
As such, I have been able to solve a 90 year old mystery, fairly quickly (8 months to find her father), because I was able to use a Network to make a connection. 23 and me connected me with Jane and her family who in turn helped connect Betty Jean to half of her birth family.
A woman posted in Gauldings page on Face Book about a common Ancestor. She found an obituary stating our common ancestor was a Captain in the revolution under Francis Marion. In all the research anyone has ever done on this man, he was not a soldier in the revolution. He served as a Petit Juror. He also might have been providing supplies to the troops – no one knows for sure. She used Facebook to find me and my very underwhelming answer to her question, “was John Gaulding a Captain under Francis Marion?” “No…”
A man who believed a long held family story that his gggrandfather was adopted into a family of African Canadian’s has been able to find interest in the real story. This story told mainly by his DNA and supported by the network of other distant cousins who had heard and believed or not believed the story. These distant cousins are all testing their DNA now and finding that they too have a connection to a very rich African ancestry. These distant cousins have also created their own network, on Facebook, so that others who are not in the know can find the truth and their heritage through them.
If mother natures network of weather hadn’t dumped 20 + cm of snow on Ottawa in a matter of a few short hours last year, the idea that became Grandma’s Genes would not have formed into what it is today. Marc, my fellow shoveler on that day, has moved on to work in his day-job field full time. During the year, though, he helped an adoptee find his fathers family. Marc helped so many with Indigenous roots find the right identity for themselves and possibly take the true meaning of being connected to an indigenous ancestor with them into their new found knowledge of self. Marc also made long sought connections within his own genealogy through research and networking with others who have connections to his indigenous lines – to his Quaker lines – to his southern lines.
For me? I found a path which has been made stronger, straighter and more focused than I would have ever thought imaginable. Only with the help of my network of family, friends, partners, genealogists, geneticists, clients and all those ancestors long passed, has Grandma’s Genes grown into what it is today. What it will become tomorrow.
Thank you, every – single – point on our network – one of you.
Finding the patterns in genetic genealogy research is really a fundamental thing we do when looking for the clues to our roots. Even in traditional genealogy, looking at a pedigree chart reveals patterns in geographical locations, dates and names which help our research. Looking for patterns is not new, even if we don’t realize we do it.
Betty Jean’s Raw Data is file loaded to GEDmatch. If we do a One to Many matches analysis we can capture the entire results list via cut and paste, and insert it into a spreadsheet. We can grab similar results lists from most of the DNA testing or results companies. Getting all the formats similar in a spreadsheet takes some juggling and tweaking but it’s worth it. It is made easier by learning how to create things like separate first, middle, maiden and last name entries by converting text to columns and using filters to clean-up the columns. Sorting is a whiz, once you have all the information in a sortable state.
Sort your spreadsheets by Chromosome, Segment Locations and Last Name and you have a pretty clear view to the people on the sheets who share your DNA and where they share it.
Don’t get that? Who is a matches MCRA (Most common Recent Ancestor) in common with you? Some of the files you download from the various companies give you common surnames. Well that helps, doesn’t it? Sometimes? They also show how many Generations back you might share one of those surnames (some people have 50 or more Surnames). That’s it. That is the answer!
Try adding each of those surnames to a sheet individually or using the text to columns conversion and…
Aside from adding columns upon columns of surnames to your spread sheet there really isn’t any way (that I know of) to add a pedigree or family tree to a spreadsheet – it might be doable, but…I don’t have enough finger tips or time for that.
There are great places where you can upload your GEDCOM to a DNA testing or analysis site, but the DNA isn’t in any way correlated with the tree. It’s just there and you have to use your brain and knowledge of what you are working on to make any sense of it. ESPECIALLY if it’s further back than a generation or so.
I was at a conference in the spring of 2016 where some of the current icons of Genetic Genealogy were a part of a Panel Discussion on the future of Genetic Genealogy. Something brought up by one of the Panelists was that we don’t really have anywhere to make the connection between a World Family Tree and DNA.
I was a bit shocked and dismayed that not one of these Genetic Genealogy Icons brought up WikiTree. WikiTree, where genealogists collaborate on a true, single, world family tree. WikiTree, where I, you, them, anyone can add all current and future DNA test’s and have the test information auto-populate every single ancestor with that test information. For auDNA tests, back to at least our 64-4th great grandparents. For Y and mtDNA tests back into the depths of our shared pedigree. WikiTree even maps XDNA for it’s DNA tested members! WikiTree, where if something happens (in so many different scenarios), will carry on with nothing more than a hiccup for ever and ever – really. Not ONE mention.
This is where I start looking for patterns that aren’t obvious or easy to correlate anywhere else.
Take GEDmatch and it’s GEDCOM + DNA tool. I can scroll down a list of people to see the pedigrees of my matches. Once I find a Pedigree that matches, I run a One to One comparison. Then I cut and paste the One to One Match comparison information to a section for the match into the DNA Sandbox.
The section titles show the match name and shared chromosome numbers. If I continue this process over time it will start to reveal patterns:
With this view I can start to make connections between specific Chromosomes and Familial Surnames. It will also show outliers – matches who probably don’t belong to a specific familial surname group even though at first blush they may appear to belong. Try working on the Smith family of NY and see how many matches with the last name Smith are outliers to YOUR Smith family.
In the table of contents for the DNA Sandbox you can get a peak into those patterns. Take the mtDNA Matches. Obviously matches 3.1.3 to 3.1.5 need some further looking into as do the paternal haplogroup matches 4.1.3-5.1.5. Since these DNA matches posted their mtDNA and YDNA haplogroups information in their auDNA results on GEDMatch we are able to see right off the bat, from the title sections, that they share Chromosome 15. Do they share overlapping segments? A quick look at the meat of the information and…
Yes two do. Granted, they are distant connections – 5.1 generations to 6.1 generations – but they do overlap. If I can figure out the MCRA and add a familial surname to this grouping? It’s a HUGE step toward finding more matches that share Chromosome 15 with you who also are in this Familial Surname grouping.
Betty Jean? Where is she in all this? Well, back in the Spring when we started her search for her birth family, I started her WikiTree DNA Sandbox.
Working steadily with small bits and pieces of data from different testing companies, I pasted data into her sandbox. It started with her highest DNA match on 23andme, her first cousin once removed, who is also an adoptee. We’ll call her Pat (she is very much still in the midst of figuring out her own identity and dealing with the emotional roller coaster that comes with finding ones birth family).
Pat’s information wasn’t sitting alone in the sandbox for long. 12 of Betty Jean’s top 15 matches belonged to the same family – the Howard’s and the Brotherton’s. All these people had either had their DNA tested on their own or were prodded by Jane to get their tests done to help in finding Pat’s birth family. Lucky Betty Jean again, having Jane in her corner.
So within a few weeks, adding Betty Jean’s one to one matches, researching the pedigrees and using the number of cM (centimorgens) – “In genetics, a centimorgan (abbreviated cM) or map unit (m.u.) is a unit for measuring genetic linkage. It is defined as the distance between chromosome positions (also termed loci or markers) for which the expected average number of intervening chromosomal crossovers in a single generation is 0.01.) WikiPedia
– and the generations estimate, her sandbox began to show patterns. Surnames began to have specific chromosomes connected to them.
As Jane and I worked, I compiled a list of Surnames for Betty. Surnames to use and Surnames to discount. If a pedigree or tree leads to one of the discounted Surnames? Then attention can be focused elsewhere. The list, added to the Sandbox, includes links within WikiTree to the MCRA for a specific Surname in the line. With the sandbox filling up, jumping around the great big ole shared tree with ease, working WikiTree’s relationship tools as well as the DNA tools, I was finding answers in a flash.
And there is no hard and fast rule about what goes into the sandbox. Some have graphics with triangulated groups. Some have Haplogroup information by Surname. All have the ability to make finding answers in the DNA connected world tree that is WikiTree an easier thing to do.
Now, after this VERY long post, I need to go find some patterns in nature for a while. Does Blueberry pie get cold FAST in -2 degree weather? an experiment I must try.
How can one person have two limbs connected to the world tree – WikiTree? The whole idea of a World Tree is one profile per person on the tree. Well, Betty Jean has her birth family and she has her adopted family. To connect her to only one line, her biological line, seems right because genetically this is the family she is related to. But we also shouldn’t discount her adopted family.
A WikiTreer (a member of WikiTree) asked this very question in the Genealogist to Genealogist forum (G2G):
“I’ve got a question regarding the profile(s) you’ve created for Betty Jean to see if I understand correctly how you’re using WikiTree. Did you create two different profiles, one connected to her adoptive family and one that was wholly unconnected as you didn’t know anything about her birth family?
If that is the process you use:
I ask because I have an adoptee for whom we know all four parents (adopted and birth). I’m looking for options / best practices on ways to handle the adoptive vs birth parents links.
My Answer:
Connecting her two selves to her two different genealogies works out the best because they are both real, viable, family lines. Since I have been working my way back to her through the research we have done, I have created a mirror tree for her birth family that is just itching to have her twig connect.”
Simply put, we are going to find people that Betty Jean matches via DNA and add them to WikiTree, or find them if they are already there, and work to make connections between these matches and the end of our search – Betty Jean. This is where the whole one profile per person comes into play. We won’t spend time scouring many, many duplicate lineages looking for connections; we only have to find one line.
The tree will be worked in bits and pieces as we find DNA matches and Triangulated DNA matches with identifiable common ancestors. As we find or add these common ancestors we will work our way from the distant past to now. The goal? To ultimately find the right people in the right place at the right time – Asheville, NC, in 1926-1927.
When I connected with Jane (Jane Howard Schenck, one of Betty Jean’s DNA matches and Genealogist) Jane’s first words were, “it has to be the Howard’s.” Jane quickly invited me to view her family tree on Ancestry. Viewing Jane’s Tree on Ancestry was like trying to see a map of the US using a mono scope from two feet away. My excitement at finding a Tree to connect Betty Jean to was immediately overwhelmed by the scope and size of Jane’s tree…all 20 feet of it.
Deciphering all the intricacies of Jane’s well sourced/documented Ancestry tree was going to be one huge undertaking. To be able to use WikiTree’s Connecting abilities, DNA Tools, Relationship Finder Tools and RootsSearch integration tools I needed to be able to use Jane’s Tree in WikiTree. I started adding Betty Jean’s top DNA matches to WikiTree based on Jane’s research.
“WikiTree is on the brink of releasing a new tool which will do the work that I labored over for months, in the blink of a proverbial eye.
The WikiTree X Chrome extension… can create WikiTree profiles from the huge tree(s) shared [with us] in a super, super-easy way…” Chris Whitten, WikiTreer-In-Chief
Once again WikiTree is moving forward with DNA functionality that is bleeding edge in the field of Genetic Genealogy. WikiTree search results now include DNA test connections.
“When you search for a person, if there are any Y-chromosome, mitochondrial, or autosomal DNA tests that are believed to be relevant for the person’s genealogy, a Y, mt, and/or au icon will appear next to their name. Clicking this will open up a window with details.” Chris Whitten
Clicking on the Icon gives you a window with details:
I know I often say those busy little WikiTreers are always busy coming up with better, innovative ways to work with it’s one single family tree, but this DNA tool on WikiTree is just great!
Thanks WikiTreers Kitty Cooper, Roberta Estes, Peter Roberts and of course the WikiTree techies who fly through the limbs making our suggestions come to life.
This one bit of collaboration is just another great example of how WikiTree and it’s global, collaborative Tree can be used by anyone to further their family research using Genetic Genealogy.
WikiTree does all the work for you. All you have to do is add what tests you have taken to your WikiTree profile. No uploading of Raw Data, just tell WikiTree what tests you and WikiTree will auto-populate your limbs with all of your DNA test information.
As the creators and hosts of the WikiTree website, we pledge that our mission is the same as that of the community: to create an accurate, single family tree that will make genealogy free and accessible for everyone.
Free is an essential part of our shared mission. We will never charge for access to the single family tree. And we will never knowingly and willingly sell or transfer the single family tree to any individual or organization that intends to charge for access to it.” WikiTree Pledge
No. If a Tornado were to rip WikiTree up by it’s roots and throw it miles away shattering it’s precious limbs, there is a plan. There are several cloud and server back-ups of the physical tree. There are also fail safe’s “if WikiTree suddenly disappeared it would not be easy for someone else to simply restart it using the same software and all our members’ data…if the team knew that the current organization could not continue hosting WikiTree it would be a top priority to find a successor organization. We are all WikiTree users who have our family information here too. The WikiTree Pledge means that a successor organization could not be planning to put WikiTree behind a pay wall. It must stay free.”WikiTree Back-ups
Well, I guess something else important would be finding a long lost, multimillionaire uncle and finding you are his only relative…
In the perfect world all Genealogies would be well sourced, but unfortunately this isn’t the case. We have all run across online genealogies that are just repeats, copy and pastes, of what someone else had thrown up based on what aunt Mabel told them back in the 70’s. I am not saying Aunt Mabel’s memory is fallible, but Aunt Mabel’s tale is only a tale until it is proven with sources. Until it’s sourced, this kind of information can be used as a clue to where you might look.
What if there were a group of volunteers in the Genealogical community that worked continuously, tirelessly on sourcing a global family tree? And what if these Volunteers threw a party and invited you?
If you don’t already know about WikiTree and it’s Sourcers? Then you get an opportunity to know them and join in the fun at WikiTree’s Source-A-Thon, the weekend of Octber 1st, 2016. How can you help? You don’t have a tree on WikiTree? Hmm. There are no trees on WikiTree, just one tree. One Profile per person for anyone who lived from 0AD to now. Just one Tree.
You can start buy looking to see if you have an ancestor or living cousin on WikiTree. Your Grandma’s are there (Mags Gaulden / Marc Snelling). I stumbled on WikiTre, literally, while talking to a distant cousin about our shared ancestor, Esli Hunt, Sr. I was over the moon when I discovered Esli’s profile because other cousins – those living, breathing ones had already added all of his siblings – The Hunt 14 – to WikiTree. I had a great time adding my research to the research that was already posted.
As a fun way to tackle the intimidating Unsourced Profiles category, we’re envisioning a “Source-a-Thon” weekend. A bunch of us would all work together to add sources over a two or three day period.
With Family History Month coming up in October, it could be the weekend of October 1-2.
We’re thinking we’ll make it a competition. Not a really competitive thing. I imagine most of us would just be participating for fun or as a challenge, like the way people participate in marathons. There could be a target for everyone, e.g. 100 profiles removed [from] the Unsourced category. – Chris Whitten
Why are there an intimidating number of unsourced profiles? WikiTree is for the serious genealogist as well as the family historian and the new family history keepers. Anyone and everyone can import a GEDCOM from another program and move it over to WikiTree. Because WikiTree is so open, it get uploads from other sites who do not require or work on making their numerous trees sourced. WikiTree is the only Global Family Tree with one of it’s main points of focus being that our big ole shared tree should be sourced.
Not a part of the World Family Tree – WikiTree – just join the family (it’s free) at www.WikiTree.com. You can put on your Sourcers hat and do some sourcin’.
For Numbers on Unsourced as to sourced profiles? Wikitree currently includes 11,996,179 profiles edited by 353,768 genealogists from around the world. The majority of the profiles on WikiTree are sourced. Of the 240,786 unsourced profiles, 24,304 profiles have been sourced in the last year of the WikiTree Sourcerers challenge which leaves 216,482. If about 2/3’s of WikiTree’s profiles manager were to source one profile during the Source-A-Thon there would be 0 unsourced profiles on WikiTree…well until the next GEDCOM upload!
Oh those busy little WikiTreers!
They have found a way to use the information input by WikiTreer Volunteers, WikiTreers, to show a listing of others on WikiTree, who have done YDNA and/or mtDNA testing and their shared Haplogroups. Here is the G2G (WikiTree Genealogist to Genealogist Forum) Post from Peter Roberts about it.
This is no small task. considering getting volunteers to agree to and work collaborative on anything. Just Imagine trying to wrangle 348,649 people to do anything together. Now imagine getting 348,649 family historians, genealogists, genetic genealogists, history geeks, geneaDORKS (this title inspired by Thomas MacEntee), together to work on something so useful! It happens everyday on WikiTree.
So what does this new little tweak to the big ole shared tree mean to me?
I’ll tell ya. I followed the link to the Y-DNA list. When the page opened I clicked into my browsers “Find” function and searched my Dad’s, and many, many of western europes Haplogroup, R-M269 and up popped all the people on WikiTree who share that Haplogrpup with my Dad. I used my browsers find feature again and looked for my Surname – Gaulden. The list shoed my Dad and other spelling variants of Gaulden with “gaulden” as its root. I searched the other spelling variants, Gaulding, Golden, Goulding, Gauldin and others and found people on WikiTree that I didn’t know about who share my Dad’s DNA. NICE!
So I did it again on the mtDNA list, with my mtDNA Haplogroup, and found only 12 people who match my specific Haplogroup, H1b1-T16362C. Not an incredibly common Haplogroup so only 12. But, 12! once again I didn’t know anything about the majority of these haplogroup matches on WikiTree until today!
Grandma’s found some new clues to her family history/mysteries. Off I go to climb around the limbs of WikiTree to try and find some new cousins! Whee Doggie!
Life is such an annoying thing, the way it always gets in the way of enjoying genealogy – my/our primary purpose in life, right? I have so many real life things to do today but instead I am here posting a blog about a speaking engagement I have for tomorrow on one of my favorite subjects…you guessed it, GENEALOGY!
Shameless plug:
