Lilian's Tree

Each year, Jill Ball challenges us to Accentuate the Positive, making us reflect on the previous year. Mine is short and sweet, this time but I did have an amazing time in England, Scotland and Ireland, walking in my ancestors footsteps and discovering some amazing places. Neither of my blogs relate to genealogy but are interesting reads. A Family Member I found was,  my half-sister’s son, daughter and some of their children.     It was 30 years of searching, solved with an Ancestry DNA test.   A geneajourney I took, this year I went to Ireland and Scotland and walked in my ancestors’ footsteps. An emotional journey.       A new piece of technology I played with was WATO, on the DNA Painter site.     A genealogy event from which I learnt something new  DNA DownUnder, three days of DNA. Learnt about WATO (what are the odds),   how to find connections, when there is no tree and found that what I’...

After all the wonderful sessions, on Thursday, we all rolled-up for Friday and Saturday's sessions, determined to miss nothing. There wasn't enough time between dinner and bed for us to 'play' with what we had been shown and I do think that sleep was an after thought, for some people. The rain, forcast, for Sydney arrived and we were reaching for umbrellas and dodging puddles, on our way into the venue. Friday and Blaine stared the day discussing, "Ethical and legal consideration for DNA evidence."  Blaine discussed naming a beneficiary, for our DNA tests, when we are gone. To always read the terms and conditions of every test, we take. To give information to those, we want to test, for us. How ot impart senstive information, we find. Ethics is something we all should be aware of and consider carefully. My next session was with Shelly Crawford, from ConnectedDNA. She mentioned other tools you can use to look at clusters but, really I think her pro...

In spite of the predicted cold temperatures and rain around 400 dedicated genealogists, descended on Castle Hill RSL, for the start of three days of talks on DNA. Registration was a very smooth process and very soon hugs were being collected, from old and new friends. 9.00am had us all settled into the main theater, for the start of the day. Blaine T Bettinger, the overseas guest speaker, started with, 'Understanding and interpreting your ethnicity results.' This wasn't something I fully understood and Blaine's way of explaining it had me going, 'I get it, now!' The rest of the day offered two or three different talks, with a variety of speakers. Kerry Farmer, was my choice, with 'Combining DNA with traditional techniques.'  Kerry is a great speaker and I've heard her give several DNA talks, over the years, all are interesting and today's was excellent. I have only just started digging deeper, with my DNA results and this talk re-enforced t...