Deb's Delvings in Genealogy

20 January 2013

New BCG blog: SpringBoard: News and Notes

The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) has a new blog titled "SpringBoard: News and Notes." BCG's website has many articles and sample reports useful to any researcher who wants to leave a well-researched genealogy to their descendants. Don't ignore their blog and website just because you aren't interested in seeking certification.

Here's the announcement (slightly reformatted for online display and links):

BOARD FOR CERTIFICATION OF GENEALOGISTS
P. O. Box 14291
Washington, DC 20044

For Immediate Release
DATE: 8 January 2013

SUBJECT: BCG’s New Blog: SpringBoard: News and Notes

The 49-year-old Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), the group that wrote the book on genealogical standards, recently joined the blogosphere with its blog, SpringBoard: News and Notes, accessed from http://www.BCGcertification.org.

According to BCG president Elissa Scalise Powell, CG^SM, CGL^SM, of Pennsylvania, the blog will communicate news about BCG and events it sponsors or participates in. Early posts introduced officers Powell; vice-president Michael Ramage, J.D., CG, of Pennsylvania; secretary Dawne Slater-Putt, CG, of Indiana; treasurer Jeanne Larzalere Bloom, CG, of Illinois; and member-at-large Stefani Evans, CG, of Nevada; and gave notice of a fee change effective January 1. Another post announced new audio clips from three Board-certified genealogists describing why they chose to seek certification.

Future posts will come from BCG officers, trustees, and committee members and will include

names and profiles of new certificants (whose portfolios of work have been judged to meet the standards set out in the BCG Genealogical Standards Manual),

news of conferences and events where BCG will have a presence through exhibit booths, lectures, certification seminars, and social events, and

information, advice, and explanation on genealogy standards, the certification procedures, and other items of interest.

In addition a current-events calendar lists where BCG will have a presence. Anyone may subscribe to email notifications of new posts from the site as well.

Using blog software through its website allows BCG to communicate more frequently than its triannual newsletter, OnBoard, to which anyone may subscribe for a yearly fee. The organization also has a presence on Facebook (currently open to the public) and LinkedIn® (for associates).

Said Powell, “We enjoy being able to offer timely news and notes to help advance the mission we began in 1964—defining, supporting, explaining, and advocating high standards in genealogy.”

FYI: BCG is an independent certifying body recognized nationally and internationally. It is not affiliated with, or part of, any group. More information is available at
http://www.bcgcertification.org/aboutbcg/index.html.

Certified Genealogist, Certified Genealogical Lecturer, CG and CGL are proprietary service marks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) used by the Board to identify its program of genealogical competency and evaluation and used under license by the Board’s associates. The Board’s name is registered with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

# # # # # #

Contact Information:
Nicki Birch, CG, Executive Director for BCG office@BCGcertification.org
www.BCGcertification.org

Full disclosure: As a Certified Genealogist and Certified Genealogical Lecturer I am an associate of BCG. The fact that I voluntarily spend my time and money to be part of this group should clearly indicate how I feel about the group. But I would recommend the website and blog even if I were not an associate. I subscribed to OnBoard for many years before I submitted my application portfolio. I learned invaluable lessons and would expect the blog may offer similar benefits.

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "New BCG blog: SpringBoard: News and Notes," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 20 January 2013 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

© 2013, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, CGL, All Rights Reserved

CFP: Digital Frontiers 2013 at UNT

I received this call for proposals along with a message that they would really like to have a genealogy panel:

Call for Proposals: Digital Frontiers 2013

The University of North Texas Digital Scholarship Co-Operative and UNT Libraries invite proposals for Digital Frontiers 2013, a conference that brings together the users and builders of digital resources for research and education.

Digital libraries provide unprecedented access to materials, and this has dramatically expanded the possibilities of primary source research in the humanities and related fields.

We seek submissions of individual papers, fully-constituted panels, birds-of-a-feather discussions, hands-on tutorials, or posters--all based on the use of digital archives, social media, and digital tools for humanities research.

We encourage contributions from anyone who creates or uses digital collections, including scholars, educators, genealogists, archivists, technologists, librarians, and students. The goals of this conference are to bring a broad community of users together to share their work across disciplinary and administrative boundaries, and to explore the value and impact that digital resources have on education and research.

Possible Topics

Specific ways digital libraries have changed the state of research

Digital tools and methods for conducting research

Using digital collections in the classroom

Using digital libraries for research on any humanities topic

Proposal Types
Digital Frontiers is accepting proposals for:

Individual papers

Panels or Roundtables

Birds-of-a-Feather Discussions

Hands-on Tutorials & Workshops

Academic Posters

For specific guidelines and further details, please visit http://digitalfrontiers.unt.edu/
Deadline: April 30, 2013

This is a great way for genealogists to let the record keepers know our wants and needs. What are your ideas for topics to be suggested?

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "CFP: Digital Frontiers 2013 at UNT," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 20 January 2013 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

© 2013, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, CGL, All Rights Reserved

16 January 2013

Advertising, Questionable Products, Terms of Use

I don't have enough time to do all the things I want and need to do. I don't need more sites that waste my time and money.

I frequently send out the URL for http://snopes.com/ to family and friends when I get e-mail messages about something that may or may not be a scam. Snopes is my go-to place for finding the truth on scams and such.

While reading the blog posts linked below, I thought, maybe we need some kind of evaluation site for genealogical product offerings, especially websites. Then I found a comment that mentioned ReviewOpedia which I have not seen before. A search there for genealogy brings up three website names, only one of which has been reviewed by two people. A search for family history brings up nine website names, but several are for vehicles and not family history. I'm not sure who is behind ReviewOpedia, but I'd sure like to see a site with trustworthy evaluations of genealogical websites and products that are not written by someone paid to review the offering. Is there one I am not aware of?

With all the articles about the billions of dollars being spent on genealogical research, there will be more and more questionable offerings. These will be difficult to evaluate, especially by someone who is new to genealogy. While a company's offerings may be useful to some, everyone should carefully read and evaluate the marketing claims and the terms of service. Read the blog posts linked below.

Randy Seaver's GeneaMusings blog often has evaluations of sites and products with his personal observations and experiences. Be sure to read Randy's additions to the blog post linked below after Thomas MacEntee read the Terms of Service of the site being discussed.

For bloggers who display ads, you may want to check out who you are advertising for. These new companies being formed will sign up to get their ads displayed through the same channels as companies we all use and respect.

Randy Seaver's post "UPDATED: Genealogist Beware - Checking Out Genealogy... "¹ links to Christine Blythe's post "The Saga of Genealogy.... and Ancestor..."² [domain name endings removed so no URLs will be seen by indexers]. When I went to read Christine's post there was an ad displayed for a different domain name owned by the same company discussed in her blog post.

Who are you advertising for?

1. Randy Seaver, "UPDATED: Genealogist Beware - Checking Out Genealogy...," GeneaMusings Blog, posted 14 January 2013 (http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/01/genealogist-beware-checking-out.html : accessed 16 January 2013).
2. Christine Blythe, "The Saga of Genealogy.... and Ancestor...," Empty Nest Genealogy Blog, posted 15 January 2013 (http://www.emptynestancestry.com/2013/01/15/the-saga-of-genealogy-us-org-and-ancestor-us-org/ : accessed 16 January 2013).

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "Advertising, Questionable Products, Terms of Use," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 16 January 2013 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

16 January 2013: Corrected spelling of Christine's name and citations.

© 2013, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, All Rights Reserved

09 January 2013

What DNA test do I take? Part 1

What DNA test do I take?

This is the question I get most often when speaking on using DNA for genealogical research. It is impossible to answer the question as stated. Like so many questions, the answer is — it depends.

It depends on

what you want to learn, and
whether there is someone alive in the line of interest who is willing to provide a DNA sample.

You should also be aware that taking a DNA test isn't going to knock down all of your genealogical roadblocks. It takes a lot of work to analyze the results and correlate the information with your traditional research to reach a soundly reasoned conclusion.

If you are just curious, I recommend testing as much as you can afford as soon as you can. Your choices are between a Y-DNA test if you are male or can get a male relative to test, a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) test, and an autosomal DNA (atDNA) test. An autosomal test usually has a name like FamilyFinder, Relative Finder, or AncestryDNA. Do all of the tests if you are curious and can afford it.

With a Y-DNA test you can learn about the direct paternal line — the tester's father's father's father and so on back through time. You may have an exact match with someone where your common ancestor is many generations back. You can also prove there is no link between the tester and another man.

With an mtDNA test you can learn about the direct maternal line — the tester's mother's mother's mother and so on back through time. You may have an exact match with someone where your common ancestor is many, many, many generations back. You can also prove there is no link between the tester and another person.

With an atDNA test you can learn about all lines of descent, but only back five or so generations. Farther back than that is iffy because of the way DNA is inherited. Two people can be related far back in time, but not show much matching autosomal DNA.

All of these tests may give you clues on how to focus your research to get further back, but you still have to do the traditional research. Each test can provide information to answer focused questions related to genealogy. The Y-DNA and mtDNA tests are available in several different resolutions. In some cases you may only need a low resolution, low cost test. In other situations you may need the highest resolution, higher cost test. But you can't determine which is needed until you know what you want to learn.

Don't be confused by companies who offer kinship tests using the markers used by law enforcement. For Y-DNA, mtDNA, and atDNA genealogical tests check out Family Tree DNA. For atDNA tests, including some information on health-related markers, check out 23andMe. Ancestry.com used to offer all three types of test. It is difficult to find anything on their site now other than the AncestryDNA atDNA test, but be aware they don't yet provide access to your raw DNA data which is absolutely necessary to do detailed analysis.

This will be an ongoing series detailing specific genealogical questions with recommendations for the tests that may help.

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "What DNA test do I take? Part 1," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 9 January 2013 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

© 2013, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, All Rights Reserved

23 December 2012

Michael Hait's U.S. Census Pathfinder

Michael Hait has a new free e-book that will be useful to every genealogist:

United States Federal Census Pathfinder

He includes clickable links to general information on the census and specific information on each U.S. census through 1940, extraction forms, educational articles, and more. Thanks, Michael, for a great resource.

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "Michael Hait's U.S. Census Pathfinder," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 23 December 2012 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

14 Jan 2013: Typographical error corrected.

© 2012, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, All Rights Reserved

NASA Pub: Earth as Art

WOW! Sometimes our tax dollars are used to add beauty to our lives.

This is not really a genealogy-related post except maybe peripherally. But it is a subject dear to my heart so ...

As beautiful as earth can be from land-bound eye level, it is even more fascinating when seen from above, especially high above. Years ago I would sit mesmerized watching the NASA channel as it broadcast the view from the window of the space shuttle. Even when I should have been doing something more productive, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the beautiful images on the screen and the game of trying to figure out where on earth this feature was. I haven't seen this series on the NASA channel recently. I wish NASA would reinstitute the feed of images from the space shuttle missions. For me, this is much better than most of the "reality" shows some of us watch.

There are beautiful images of earth from space illustrated and described in "Earth As Art" created by NASA.¹ I learned of this publication on the Free Technology for Teachers blog. This is a blog useful to every genealogist who writes (all of us, right?) or does presentations.

As beautiful as the NASA images are as art, don't skip over the descriptions which explain the colors and important features in each image. This image is a portion I cropped from an image of the Lena River Delta in Russia.² Compare it to the image of the Mississippi River Delta in the U.S. on pages 84–85 of the book.

The images might be useful as art on Powerpoint slides (faded as background images or cropped for a border decoration or as a bullet image) or for a presentation on interesting place names (like Lake Disappointment, Australia) or if you happen to have ancestral events in one of the locations depicted on the images shown (like the Mississippi River).

I'm not a lawyer. You should confirm status of the images before using them. But, in general, creations of the U.S. government are considered to be in the public domain. The book has no copyright statement included and does not indicate any restrictions on use. But be sure to properly cite the images to avoid plagiarism.

1. Lawrence Freidl, et al., Earth as Art (Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2012); electronic edition (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/703154main_earth_art-ebook.pdf : accessed 23 December 2012).

2.Cropped portion of "Lena River Delta, Russia," Lawrence Freidl, et al., Earth as Art (Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2012), 76–77; electronic edition (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/703154main_earth_art-ebook.pdf : accessed 23 December 2012).

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "NASA Pub: Earth as Art," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 23 December 2012 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

© 2012, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, All Rights Reserved

22 December 2012

Harold Henderson on Writing

I just read a great article with tips on writing your genealogical research from Harold Henderson titled Why We Don't Write, and How We Can.

There is a lot of good info in the article. I especially like the comparison to buffalo hunters and Harold's "Three Ps of Genealogy:"

Prove our conclusions
Propagate our findings
Preserve our information

In addition to his articles at Archives.com, check out Harold's writings at Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog. This is one of my must-read blogs.

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "Harold Henderson on Writing," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 22 December 2012 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

© 2012, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, All Rights Reserved

19 December 2012

1871 Gun Laws in Texas

In several Texas counties I have run across county court minutes and commissioner's court minutes where a man was being fined for carrying a gun in the 1870s. This surprised me as Texas has a reputation, even today, as a place where gun rights are supreme.

Even in 1871, when some Texas counties were still experiencing "incursions of hostile Indians," Texans passed a law prohibiting the carrying of firearms, as well as "dirk, dagger, slung shot [sic], sword cane, spear, brass-knuckles, bowie-knife, or any other kind of knife manufactured and sold for the purposes of offense and defense," in certain locations, including schools and churches. I suspect many of the men in the legislature at that time still needed a firearm to put food on the table, not just for target practice or to shoot snakes while they were jogging.

Here's the 1871 law:

An Act to regulate the keeping and bearing of deadly weapons.

Sec. 3. If any person shall go into any church or religious assembly, any school room, or other place where persons are assembled for amusement or for educational or scientific purposes, or into any circus, show, or public exhibition of any kind, or into a ball room, social party, or social gathering, or to any election precinct on the day or days of any election, where any portion of the people of this State are collected to vote at any election, or to any other place where people may be assembled to muster, or to perform any other public duty, (except as may be required or permitted by law,) or to any other public assembly, and shall have or carry about his person a pistol or other firearm, dirk, dagger, slung shot, sword cane, spear, brass-knuckles, bowie-knife, or any other kind of knife manufactured and sold for the purposes of offense and defense, unless an officer of the peace, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall, for the first offense, be punished by fine of not less than fifty, nor more than five hundred dollars, and shall forfeit to the county the weapon or weapons so found on his person; and for every subsequent offense may, in addition to such fine and forfeiture, be imprisoned in the county jail for a term not more than ninety days.

Sec. 4. This act shall not apply to, nor be enforced in any county of the State, which may be designated, in a proclamation of the Governor, as a frontier county. and liable to incursions of hostile Indians.¹

This blog has comments moderated to prevent spammers and wackos from using it as a platform. This post is not designed to generate a gun safety discussion here. But, in light of recent events in Connecticut, understanding our history may help us come to more reasonable conclusions on how things should be done today. Think about it.

Remembering those who lost their lives, those who lost loved ones, and those who responded to the horrific crime in Newtown.

1. H. P. N. Gammel, comp., The Laws of Texas, 1822-1897, 10 vols. (Austin: Gammel Book Co., 1898), 6:25-26, "An Act to regulate the keeping and bearing of deadly weapons," approved 12 April 1871, "General Laws of Texas, 1871; digital images, University of North Texas, The Portal to Texas History (http://texinfo.library.unt.edu/lawsoftexas/ : accessed 14 September 2005).

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "1871 Gun Laws in Texas," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 19 December 2012 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

© 2012, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, All Rights Reserved

13 November 2012

Family Tree DNA 2012 Holiday Sale

As the Project Administrator for the Texas State Genealogical Society Project (TXStateGS) at Family Tree DNA one of my responsibilities is to notify members and prospective members of upcoming and ongoing sales.

If you've been waiting for a good sale before ordering a DNA test, the time is now. Family Tree DNA has great tools to help analyze your DNA data. They provide full access to all of your DNA data; after all, it is YOUR DNA. They have great Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists to provide all the information most of us need. If you can't find your answer in the FAQ there are helpful customer service reps available through telephone support. Best of all, the company founders are genealogists who understand us and our needs.

Here is the 2012 "Holiday DNA Sale" notice with big discounts offered:

As we ended our 8th Annual Genetic Genealogy Conference, several conference participants asked us to start our year-end sale as soon as possible. In answer to those requests we decided to start it immediately:

New Kits Current Price SALE PRICE

Y-DNA 37 ~~$169~~ $119

Y-DNA 67 ~~$268~~ $199

mtDNAPlus ~~$159~~ $139

mtFullSequence (FMS) ~~$299~~ $199

SuperDNA (Y-DNA 67 and mtFullSequence) ~~$548~~ $398

Family Finder ~~$289~~ $199

Family Finder + mtDNAPlus ~~$438~~ $318

Family Finder + mtFullSequence ~~$559~~ $398

Family Finder
+ Y-DNA 37 ~~$438~~ $318

Comprehensive
(FF + FMS + Y-67) ~~$837~~ $597

Upgrades Current Price SALE PRICE

Y-Refine 12-25 Marker ~~$59~~ $35

Y-Refine 12-37 Marker ~~$109~~ $69

Y-Refine 12-67 Marker ~~$199~~ $148

Y-Refine 25-37 Marker ~~$59~~ $35

Y-Refine 25-67 Marker ~~$159~~ $114

Y-Refine 37-67 Marker ~~$109~~ $79

Y-Refine 37-111 Marker ~~$220~~ $188

Y-Refine 67-111 Marker ~~$129~~ $109

mtHVR1toMega ~~$269~~ $179

mtHVR2toMega ~~$239~~ $179

mtFullSequence Add-on ~~$289~~ $199

To order this special offer, log in to your personal page and click on the Order An Upgrade button in the upper right corner. A link to the login page is provided below. ALL ORDERS MUST BE PLACED AND PAID FOR BY MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2012 11:59:00 PM CST TO RECEIVE THE SALE PRICES. ...

Click here to order a new kit and join the Texas State Genealogical Society Project at the same time.

If you are already a Family Tree DNA customer, login using your kit number and password to order an upgrade.

New customers can also order a test without joining a project, but you may miss some special project discounts and assistance offered by project administrators.

Be sure to order and pay for the upgrade before the end of the year to get these special prices.

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "Family Tree DNA 2012 Holiday Sale," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 13 November 2012 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).

© 2012, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, All Rights Reserved

08 November 2012

DNA Two-fer Becomes a Three-fer

I am constantly reminded about what a small world we live in and how we can all be related in more recent times as well as once we go back thousands of years. This is another example of why it is so important to trace the FAN club (Friends, Associates, Neighbors) even when it hasn't been a line of primary interest before DNA testing came along. I also suspect having access to the raw DNA data will be critical as I work on this problem.

A few months ago I wrote about a two-fer with a new DNA match at Family Tree DNA. I recently found out I have a three-fer with this same family. We haven't yet identified the third line my family members share with this other family, but there obviously is one on the "step" side of the family. I hope the diagram makes these relationships more clear.

In this case female #1 represented by the green circle (F#1 J) and female #2 represented by the orange circle (F #2 N) both had multiple partners represented by the squares. In the earlier post I discussed how Y, K, and Z match on the Ryan line. Y's Ryan line is through the mother J. Z's Ryan line is through the father K.

Y's Hurt line is through the father R. M, who is the second husband of N, has a Hurt line. So Y has matches to both partners of N and the child of N. None of these people knew each other before they matched on the Family Finder DNA test. We found this link back in August.

X is the half-sister to Y—same mother, different father. X also shares the Ryan line through her mother J and should match Z whose Ryan line is through her father K.

But now that X's results are back we also find she is related to N. This link is likely through X's father A. Knowing about the ancestry of N may provide information about the paternal ancestry of X even though we know very little about her paternal line at this time.

To summarize:

X and Y are half-siblings

Y matches Z on the Ryan line

Y should match M on the Hurt line once M's results are back

X matches N on an unknown line likely through A

X matches Z on the Ryan line

Three groups of children related in different ways to two women and the four men those women have partnered with during the last sixty years. Wow! Is this cool or what? I suspect our blended families will result in more and more multiple links between families as we explore what we can learn from DNA testing. And none of us knew or suspected each other before DNA matched us up.

To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "DNA Two-fer Becomes a Three-fer," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 8 November 2012 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [DATE]).

© 2012, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, All Rights Reserved