Bringing it Together: Genealogy and Genetic Genealogy

My, how times change!

Six years ago I was lamenting that there was little overlap between the people I see at genealogy conferences and those I see at genetic genealogy conferences. The overlap could be counted on my fingers—without using any fingers more than once! I could not understand why many of my genealogy friends did not see how powerful and important DNA test results are to solving our research problems. I could not understand why many of my genetic genealogy friends did not see the need for the Genealogical Proof Standard and thorough research.

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In 2012, I got to know CeCe Moore and Blaine T. Bettinger well enough to discuss this mystery. We decided what we needed first was more education in the community. Conference presentations are great, but what you can cover in an hour, or even four, is very limited. I sent CeCe and Blaine an outline for a week-long genetic genealogy course. We all collaborated on changes and additions. We then divided the course outline into thirds. We presented the first course in the summer of 2014 at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) at the invitation of directors Elissa Scalise Powell and Deborah Lichtner Deal.

The number of institute courses have exploded. The number of institute instructors has grown. Today, eight or more different week-long courses have been offered or are planned. The course at each institute is somewhat different than the similar-level course at another institute. Multiple two- to three-day courses focusing on specialties, such as adoption or forensic work, have been offered at the Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy (CAFG) Forensic Genealogy Institute (FGI). Angie Bush joined the team for a period when the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) decided to offer both beginner and advanced courses. Patti Lee Hobbs, CG, and Karen Stanbary, CG, joined the team as instructors at GRIP and IGHR. Debra Renard presented a case study and tools sessions at IGHR this year. Paul Woodbury is joining the SLIG team for 2017.

The craving for genetic genealogy education is worldwide and spreads beyond the institutes. For several years before these U.S. institutes started, the U.K has hosted the "Who do You Think You Are? Live" event. Since 2013, there has been a Genetic Genealogy Ireland event. Since 2013, Southern California Genealogy Jamboree has offered a DNA Day pre-conference event in Burbank, California. In 2014, the Institute for Genetic Genealogy (I4GG) offered their first two-day event focused on DNA. Many advanced sessions were offered. This year I4GG seems to be focusing more on basic adoption and unknown parentage research with a few advanced sessions. The University of Strathclyde in Scotland offers genetic genealogy courses. Blaine T. Bettinger teaches an online course at Excelsior College in the U.S. Debbie Parker Wayne developed the online, self-paced course Continuing Genealogical Studies: Autosomal DNA, offered by NGS. And there are an uncountable number of webinars and short courses available online. There have even been genetic genealogy cruises and tons of television shows!

These brief statistics demonstrate how institute education in the U.S. on genetic genealogy has skyrocketed since July 2014.

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• 347 genealogists and adoption searchers have attended DNA institute courses (GRIP, SLIG, IGHR, offering week-long beginner, beginner/intermediate, intermediate, and advanced courses; or CAFG's FGI offering two to three day focused courses)
  
• 39 of those students (more than 10% of the total number) are credentialed by the Board for Certification of Genealogists, many have attended multiple courses (BCG has additional associates with college degrees in Biology, Biotechnology, and related fields who understand DNA even without attending one of these courses; the number of ICAPgen accredited genealogists who may have attended, if any, is not known)
  
• 31 of those students have only attended shorter courses focused on unknown parentage, adoption, or forensic specialties (perhaps because that is the focus of their work, they have not been able to schedule time yet to attend one of the longer and more comprehensive institutes, or some other reason)
  
• 232 students have taken only one course
  
• 90 students have taken two courses at differing levels
  
• 15 students have taken three courses at differing levels
  
• 10 students have taken four courses at differing levels
  
• 5 students retook the same level course more than once (this is a good thing to do if you miss some sessions the first time, to ensure you did not miss anything important the first time even if you attended every presentation, and to cement those more difficult concepts and techniques)

The genealogy community now understands the importance of genetic genealogy.

I will be even happier when we get the genetic genealogy community to become more a part of the genealogy community. Maybe we will see more DNA speakers who are well-known on the "genetic side" invited to speak at the national genealogy conferences. Studying the Genealogy Standards³ and incorporating its concepts into your DNA presentations is a good start at showing you understand both "sides" of genealogy. It would be fabulous for us all to be one community instead of two, and for all of the conference planners to know who is good at both genetic genealogy and documentary genealogy. Both are needed to be a great genealogist, which is the goal for most of us.

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1. OpenClipartVectors, dna-148807_1280.png (https://pixabay.com/en/dna-gene-genetic-helix-rna-148807/ : accessed 26 December 2015). CC0 Public Domain.
2. Fry Library, "Old Library, History Reading Room, 1964," digital image, Flickr Creative Commons (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/3925726829/ : accessed 5 December 2011); Fry Library. Photograph taken during the making of a BBC documentary.
3. Board for Certification of Genealogists, Genealogy Standards, 50th anniversary ed. (Nashville, TN: Ancestry Imprint, Turner Publishing, 2014).

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To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "Bringing it Together: Genealogy and Genetic Genealogy," Deb's Delvings, 13 October 2016 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

© 2016, Debbie Parker Wayne, Certified Genealogist®, All Rights Reserved

A Different DNA Course - IGHR: GG Tools and Techniques

The Institute for Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR) opened registration yesterday for the 2016 courses. We are offering a new tool-intensive course for genetic genealogy: Genetic Genealogy Tools and Techniques. We still have a few open seats in the course. Several people have questioned me about the difference in this course and about what is expected in the work sample if the person has studied on their own instead of attending one of the prerequisite courses.

The Tools and Techniques course was designed to answer the requests of prior students for ...

More Hands On, More Tools

The IGHR course builds on the concepts taught in the GRIP Practical Genetic Genealogy and SLIG courses. The focus at IGHR is on how to use the tools to do the analysis — using the concepts taught in the earlier courses. The lectures will be a brief review, then in-depth on using the tool to analyze problems, then you actually use the tools yourself while instructors help you, if needed, and answer your questions.

If you haven't taken one of the prerequisite courses you must submit a work sample demonstrating you have the knowledge taught in the prereq courses. The less class time spent on review, the more time we will have to spend on using the tools.

The prereqs are:

• An understanding of basic genetic inheritance patterns for Y-DNA, mtDNA, atDNA, and X-DNA
  
• An understanding of test results returned for each of these test types, how to access the data online, and how to begin analysis of the DNA results
  
• Expertise using your own device (laptop or tablet) to access genetic genealogy websites such as company testing sites GEDmatch, and DNAgedcom
  

The work sample must illustrate your analysis with details and not just contain a summary stating, for example, you helped a friend with an unknown line compare family trees of close DNA matches to find someone who might be her ancestor.

Your work sample does not need to present a final conclusion, but must describe in detail the DNA analysis process. The citations and documentary research will not be judged — use the space to demonstrate you know enough about DNA to successfully complete the IGHR course. Pseudonyms can be used for privacy purposes, if needed, but the course coordinator (me) or instructors (CeCe Moore, Blaine Bettinger) will be the only persons reviewing the work and will not share the work with anyone else. Length should be no longer than necessary to demonstrate your understanding of DNA. For example, 5 to 10 pages: 1 or 2 pages with bullet lists for the blogs, books, courses, DNA sessions, and webinars you have studied; and 3 to 8 pages clearly indicated how you applied DNA analysis to one genealogical problem. If the work is still in process indicate what steps are planned next to reach a conclusion.

The work sample should include details of the DNA analysis you have done. Details might include tools used for the analysis (company tools, GEDmatch, DNAgedcom ADSA or others, spreadsheets), number of testers, total atDNA shared and longest segments, chromosome number and start and stop point for shared segments, whether/how triangulation was used, whether/how In Common With matches were used, Y-STR values and knowledge of mutation rates impact on the analysis of differences, mtDNA differences from the rCRS, correlation of the DNA information with a family tree to find a common line, etc.

If you have primarily done light reading (as opposed to in-depth study) of the reference materials and do not understand

• Y-DNA STR differences between multiple testers to determine how far back the common ancestor might be and if there is a common ancestor
  
• using Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups to determine ethnicity and potential kinship
  
• significance of the different mtDNA regions
  
• using shared and overlapping atDNA segments (total percentage of DNA shared)
  
• using longest atDNA block comparison to statistical average predictions,
  
• determining which ancestor an atDNA block could have been inherited from by comparing trees and shared DNA segments from multiple DNA testers
  
• what counts as a good / significant match on atDNA and what is insignificant
  
• using output from FTDNA chromosome browser and ICW tools
  
• using output from 23andMe DNA Relatives
  
• accessing trees at FTDNA, 23andMe, and Ancestry
  
• using AncestryDNA DNA data (sparse as it is) and how it compares to Circles and NADs
  
• random recombination, inheritance patterns, why using the X is different, etc.
  

then it will be more difficult to follow the lessons in Genetic Genealogy Tools and Techniques. You don't have to be an expert on all of the topics listed above. You need to be familiar with the meaning of the items and you need to have done some hands-on analysis so you can follow the lessons in the course. You definitely need to know how to access all of the necessary websites on your own device which you will bring with you to Birmingham.

We hope to see you there. This last year for IGHR to be in Birmingham at Samford University should not be missed.

© 2016, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, CGL, All Rights Reserved