Tuesday, December 31, 2019

The Cost of Getting Genealogical Records from the Government Could Go Up Nearly 500%

The Cost of Getting Genealogical Records from the Government Could Go Up Nearly 500%. An Effort is Underway to Stop That.

I have written before about this outrageous proposal to increase fees nearly 500%. However, it is great to see CNN pick up the story and give the effort to stop the increase even more publicity. With millions of readers, a story in CNN can generate a lot of publicity.

The new article by Harmeet Kaur on CNN may be found at: https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/29/us/immigration-records-uscis-fee-hike-trnd/index.html.

My earlier articles may be found here and here.

Sunday, December 29, 2019

Nebraska Death Index (1904-1968) is Now Online

The Nebraska Death Index (1904-1968) is Now Online

Dick Eastman · December 24, 2019 · Legal Affairs · One Comment

Thanks to Reclaim the Records, the Nebraska Death Index (1904-1968) is now available to everyone online. Even better, access is available free of charge.

According to the Reclaim the Records web site:

“In May 2019, citing Nebraska’s Public Records Law, Reclaim The Records made a request for “a copy of the Nebraska Death Index and/or finding aid to deaths, from its onset to 1968”. You can read the whole request on our website (PDF), if you want, because we like making all our correspondence and court cases public.”

You can read much more at: https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/records-request/26/.

FamilySearch Releases GEDCOM Version 5.5.1

Dick Eastman · December 24, 2019 · Genealogy Basics, Software · 11 Comments

GEDCOM is an abbreviation that stands for GEnealogy Data COMmunications. In short, GEDCOM is the language by which different genealogy software programs talk to one another.
GEDCOM was developed by the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints (LDS Church) to provide a flexible, uniform format for exchanging computerized genealogical data.

(See my 2014 article, GEDCOM Explained, at https://blog.eogn.com/2014/05/24/gedcom-explained/ for a more detailed explanation of GEDCOM.)

GEDCOM is not a program. Instead, it is a specification of the method that different genealogy programs should use to exchange data. The purpose is to exchange data between dissimilar programs without having to manually re-enter all the data on a keyboard. A GEDCOM file is a plain text file (usually either UTF-8, ANSEL or ASCII) containing genealogical information about individuals, and meta data linking these records together.

All of today’s more popular genealogy programs will import and export GEDCOM data. However, the GEDCOM standard first adopted in 1985 did not envision today’s environment of multimedia files, such as digital pictures, video, audio, text files using non-English alphabets (Cyrillic, Bulgarian, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, and other languages), links to external data stored in the World Wide Web, and many more commonly-used standards of today.
Over the years, the GEDCOM standard has been updated several times with each update adding new functionality and significantly improving the standard. However, because of the constantly evolving improvements in genealogy programs, data transferred via GEDCOM often has not been perfect. After transferring from one program to another, manual “clean-up” has often been required to fix any data that was not transferred properly.
Now FamilySearch has released a new update: GEDCOM 5.5.1
This is the first update in ten years. The new GEDCOM 5.5.1 standard may be found at: https://edge.fscdn.org/assets/img/documents/ged551-5bac5e57fe88dd37df0e153d9c515335.pdf. The most important part of that document is listed in the section entitled Modifications in Version 5.5.1 that starts on page 6 of that document.
While there are numerous changes and clarifications, perhaps the most interesting items are the new tags added in GEDCOM 5.5.1:

EMAIL electronic mailing address
FAX FAX address
FACT A fact or characteristic.
FONE Phonetic variation of a text.
ROMN Romanized variation of a text.
WWW Web Home page address.
MAP Pertaining to maps.
LATI value of a latitudinal coordinate pertaining to the place of an event
LONG value of a longitudinal coordinate pertaining to the place of an event.

What will the impact of GEDCOM 5.5.1 mean to non-programmers?
Nothing will change immediately for most users. However, the new update does mean that the programmers who write the many genealogy programs will need to update their products and then release new updates. As these updated products become available, anyone using a newly-updated genealogy product that conforms to GEDCOM 5.5.1 can exchange data with more accuracy with anyone else who is also using a GEDCOM 5.5.1-compatible genealogy program.

New York City’s “Island of the Dead” to Become More Accessible

Dick Eastman · December 6, 2019 · Current Affairs · No Comments

I have written about Hart Island several timers. See http://bit.ly/36eLN8L for my past articles.
Hart Island has long served as New York City’s “Potter’s Field,” the place of burials of mass graves containing the remains of paupers, unidentified individuals, still-born babies, and AIDS victims. More than one million people are buried there.

Approximately 1,200 burials, some of them unidentified people, still take place every year. Adults are buried in pine coffins stacked three deep; children five deep in plots of 1,000. The boxes are marked with numbers not names, and there are no gravestones. Small white markers indicating the trenches dot the island’s burial grounds.

Relatives are only allowed to visit on two designated days a month, while correctional officers escort media to Hart Island just twice a year.
Until recently, the island was maintained by inmates from nearby Rikers Island, one of America’s most notorious jails. Last month, New York’s city council voted to end prison control of Hart Island by transferring jurisdiction to its parks department, in a move hailed by activists. It also pledged to start regular ferry services. Relatives may soon start visiting the graves of the deceased.
You can read more in an article by Peter Hutchison at https://yhoo.it/2OUdzBI.

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Reclaim the Records Introduces the Online New York City GEOGRAPHIC Birth Index

Dick Eastman · October 31, 2019 · Online Sites · 2 Comments

The following is a quote from the latest Reclaim the Records newsletter:

INTRODUCING THE NEW YORK CITY GEOGRAPHIC BIRTH INDEX

A new tool to find people born in New York City in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially if their birth records had spelling variants or poor handwriting

Hello again from Reclaim The Records! We’re that little non-profit activist group of genealogists, historians, teachers, journalists, open government advocates, and other troublemakers who fight for the release of historical and genealogical materials from government agencies, archives, and libraries.

Today, we’d like to tell you about some new historical records that we’ve acquired, which we’ve put online for free public use, for the first time anywhere! They’ve never been available outside of New York City before.

Introducing the New York City GEOGRAPHIC Birth Index! This record set is an index to all births in New York City from roughly 1880-1912 (or 1917-ish in some cases outside of Manhattan). But unlike a typical birth index arranged by surname or by date, this one is arranged by the child’s place of birth, the actual exact street address! Hence the term Geographic.

We think there’s about 2.8 million names in here, maybe more.

You can read more in the newsletter’s web site at: https://mailchi.mp/reclaimtherecords/introducing-the-new-york-city-geographic-birth-index.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Don’t Want to Lose (Parts of) Your Genealogical Data?

Dick Eastman · November 5, 2019 · Genealogy Basics · 8 Comments

The following is an article written by guest author Bob Coret and is copyright by him. The article is published here with the permission of Bob Coret:

Don’t want to lose (parts of) your genealogical data?

A recent research report by Genealogy Online shows that genealogists have a high risk of losing (parts of) their genealogical data when transferring a GEDCOM file from their family tree program or service to another family tree program or service. This is caused by the fact that most family tree programs and services do not follow the GEDCOM specification to the letter and because a lot of undocumented “user-defined tags” are used.

Recently, Nigel Munro Parker, made his GEDCOM validator GED-inline [http://ged-inline.elasticbeanstalk.com/validate] available for re-use. GED-inline reads a GEDCOM file and checks if the file follows the rules of the specified GEDCOM specification. You get a report nearly instantly (and free). Besides statistics it shows the number of warnings and user-defined tags, as well as a list of all warnings. Genealogy Online (a service for easily publishing your family tree online) recently deployed the open-sourced GED-inline in its infrastructure. Genealogy Online [https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/] now checks all GEDCOM files it receives to publish online. When there are warning in regards to the GEDCOM file, Genealogy Online notifies the user.

In order not to lose genealogical information when it is transferred from “A” to “B”, agreements on how the information is recorded are of great importance. If both “A” and “B” adhere to these agreements, then the information will come across properly – without loss of information! Agreements about the format of genealogical information are laid down in the GEDCOM specification. The most recent GEDCOM version is 5.5.5, which is published on http://www.gedcom.org [https://www.gedcom.org/].

As a genealogist you do not have to dive into these GEDCOM specifications. The specifications are intended for the suppliers of family tree programs and services (more specifically, their developers). But as a genealogist you should make sure that the GEDCOM function of your family tree program or service adheres to the GEDCOM specifications! After all, if a family tree program or service does not adhere to the GEDCOM specifications, then there is a risk of information loss during the transport of the genealogical information!

As a genealogist you can check the quality of your GEDCOM too! If you’re not using Genealogy Online, just go to GED-inline [http://ged-inline.elasticbeanstalk.com/validate] directly and upload your GEDCOM. See how many warnings are in the validation report. The number of warnings says nothing about your genealogical information, you didn’t do anything wrong. The warnings relate to compliance of the GEDCOM file with the GEDCOM specification. If there are warnings, there is a good chance that the GEDCOM file will not be fully understood by another family tree program or service and that there is a risk of information loss!

Another number that you should pay attention to in the GED-inline report is the User-defined value. This number represents the number of lines in the GEDCOM file where a so-called user-defined tag is used. Such tags are valid within GEDCOM, but the meaning of this is not laid down in the GEDCOM specification. And often, these use-defined tags are not documented publicly. So if program “A” places a certain information in a user-defined tag, chances are that program “B” does not know what information it is and what it should do with it. In a best case scenario these values are included as a comment, in the worst case scenario, these values are ignored. So, the user-defined tags also increase the risk of information loss.

Genealogy Online’s ‘GED-inline validation statistics’ [https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/GED-inline/] report show that 1,215,130,449 lines of GEDCOM were inspected, 8,129,466 warnings were given (that’s 0.7%), and 93,365,260 lines contained user defined tags (that’s 7.7%). With these shocking numbers, you have to wonder, just how much genealogical data is lost when transferred?

What can you, as a genealogist, do to reduce the risk of information loss?

If you – after checking the quality of your GEDCOM file – find that there is a risk of information loss, contact the supplier of your family tree program or service. Ask them to improve GEDCOM support (and minimize the use of user-defined tags and document them), so that parts of your genealogical data are not lost during export (and import)!

In your contact with the vendor you can send the GED-inline report of the validation of your GEDCOM file and the link to www.gedcom.org where the GEDCOM specifications are published. If the supplier does not consider the quality of the GEDCOM export (your genealogical data!) as important, it may be time to look for another family tree program of service.

8 Comments

Stefan Mettenbrink November 5, 2019 at 11:49 am

“The most recent GEDCOM version is 5.5.5, …”
Informations from FamilySearch (by asking about 5.5.5):
“The Church of Jesus Christ has the copyright on the Gedcom Specification since 1987. There has not been a legal transfer of the rights we have to the Gedcom Specification.”
So 5.5.5 is not a legal GEDCOM version.

Dick Eastman November 6, 2019 at 10:34 am

—> So 5.5.5 is not a legal GEDCOM version.
I am not a lawyer but I don’t believe having a copyright has anything to do with version numbers under U.S. laws. I am not sure about other countries, however.
In this case, Company A can create version 1.0 of anything and copyright the product. Company B can then legally create version 2.0 of the same thing. Company C can then legally create version 3.0 of the same thing.
If either Company B or Company C then attempt to SELL their new versions, then U.S. copyright laws will be involved. But simply announcing a new and improved standard is never illegal. U.S. copyright laws only deal with the rights to copy a product and reproduce it elsewhere, not for simply suggesting improvements to something and then publishing the new improvements’ specifications.
FamilySearch owns the copyrights for GEDCOM and probably will do so forever. However, that does not affect your right or my right or anyone else’s rights to suggest improvements.

ahnenblatt November 5, 2019 at 1:43 pm

This article says in other words “User defined tags are evil! The more lines with user defined tags your GEDCOM file has – the lower is its quality.”
But it is not as easy as it sounds.
There are some user defined tags like “_UID” you find in nearly every GEDCOM file which causes no problems at all.
User defined tags are a valid way intended by the GEDCOM standard to save data for which no other standard tag exists (home person, personal tasks, additional location information, …).
What should a vendor do, when users asking about “disturbing” user defined tags? Left out some of the information? No! The goal should be to write all user data in the GEDCOM file.
The better way is that a.) software should give an detailed import report of what data is ignored and b.) vendors should share informations about user defined tags (like German GEDCOM-L group do – see here: http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/GEDCOM/_Nutzerdef-Tag).
And believe it: standard tags are no guarantee for being not ignored by importing software. Sometimes the importing software has fewer capabilities and the user looses data for this reason.
Regards, Dirk (www.ahnenblatt.com).

Keith November 5, 2019 at 8:12 pm

Dirk, nearly all data can be stored in GEDCOM files without the use of user-defined tags. Just use the EVEN.TYPE or FACT.TYPE tags that are already defined.
I have written many articles about different applications’ compliance (or lack thereof) with the GEDCOM 5.5.1 standard. I have also notified all the developers about the problems. Most of them are not interested in improving their GEDCOM compliance.
Keith Riggle (GenealogyTools.com)

Stefan Mettenbrink November 6, 2019 at 12:52 am

I don’t agree.
I’m in the same German GEDCOM-L group as Dirk. We have searched a way to export
the german “Rufname”. It is no Nickname and no way to do it in any GEDCOM version. So we agreed to _RUFNAME as a new tag and it works fine for all represented developers of the GEDCOM-L group.
Or locations that stored in a place management. We have agreed to this (a complete new record):
0 @@ _LOC
1 NAME {1:M}
2 DATE {0:1}
2 _NAMC {0:1}
2 ABBR {0:M}
3 TYPE {0:1}
2 LANG {0:1}
2 <> {0:M}
1 TYPE {0:M}
2 DATE {0:1}
2 <> {0:M}
1 _FPOST {0:M}
2 DATE {0:1}
1 _POST {0:M}
2 DATE {0:1}
2 <> {0:M}
1 _GOV {0:1}
1 _FSTAE {0:1}
1 _FCTRY {0:1}
1 MAP {0:1}
2 LATI {1:1}
2 LONG {1:1}
1 _MAIDENHEAD {0:1}
1 EVEN [|] {0:M}
2 <> {0:1}
1 _LOC @@ 0:M
2 TYPE {1:1}
2 DATE {0:1}
2 <> {0:M}
1 _DMGD {0:M}
2 DATE {0:1}
2 <> {0:M}
2 TYPE 1:1
1 _AIDN {0:M}
2 DATE {0:1}
2 <> {0:M}
2 TYPE {1:1}
1 <> {0:M}
1 <> {0:M}
1 <> {0:M}
1 <> {0:1}
How can you manage this only with tags from any GEDCOM version.
Greetings from Germany, Stefan.
()

Stefan Mettenbrink November 6, 2019 at 1:00 am

The webside destroy my posts Stefan

Dick Eastman November 6, 2019 at 8:04 am

Your earlier posts are still on this web site and are still visible to everyone.

Keith November 6, 2019 at 8:20 am

Stefan, which major apps or websites outside the GEDCOM-L group are using your new record type? Family Tree Maker? Roots Magic? Family Tree Builder? The problem with user-defined tags is that other apps can and will ignore them.
You can represent any type of name, not just nickname, with the NAME.TYPE structure that is mandatory, anyway. The PERSONAL_NAME_PIECES with NAME_PIECE_NICKNAME is optional. So, for example, you could have:
n NAME
+1 TYPE RUFNAME
You can have as many name structures attached to an INDI record as you want.

Forget Paper. Forget Hard Drives. Forget CD and DVD Disks....Use...Glass

Forget Paper. Forget Hard Drives. Forget CD and DVD Disks. Forget Most Everything Else. For Long-Term preservation, Use a Piece of Glass.

Dick Eastman · November 5, 2019 · Preservation · 4 Comments

Genealogists frequently discuss the best ways to preserve family tree information so that it can be read and perhaps updated by future generations. Some people plan to save everything on paper so that “it won’t become obsolete.” Of course, they forget that paper is probably the most fragile storage medium of all, easily destroyed by water, humidity, acids in the paper, fire, insects, and a variety of other dangers.
Probably the greatest threat to data storage on paper is simply fading ink. Most paper prepared with today’s paper and today’s inks will be unreadable within a century, perhaps much less time than that.
Floppy disks were the storage medium of choice for some number of years ago but have since fallen into disfavor. The magnetic information of floppy disks doesn’t last forever. Even worse, floppy disk drives are rapidly disappearing. Most of us doubt that there will be any floppy disk drives available to read the disks within the next decade or two.
A better(?) solution is to record the information on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks but that has similar problems. These plastic disks also do not last forever, especially those that are recorded individually on today’s computers.

(CD and DVD disks manufactured in factories do preserve the information for many more years than those made individually on a home computer. You can read my earlier articles at https://blog.eogn.com/2016/05/24/your-cd-collection-is-dying/ and at https://blog.eogn.com/2017/07/31/the-demise-of-cds-and-dvds/ for more information.)

Several newer technologies hold a lot of promise but are not yet in widespread use. One that looks especially promising is a new storage medium optimized for what industry insiders like to call cold data — the type of data you likely won’t need to access for months, years, or even decades. It’s data that doesn’t need to sit on a server, ready to be used 24/7, but that is kept in a vault, away from anything that could corrupt it.
The new technology is called “Project Silica.”

A piece of silica glass measuring 7.5 centimeters (3 inches) by 7.5 centimeters (3 inches) by 2 centimeters (0.8 inches) can store at least 75.6 gigabytes of data, photographs, music, or even high-resolution videos.
The movie industry has many thousands of films that need preservation but also keep bumping up the limitations of today’s storage methods as do genealogists. For instance, the Warner Brothers studio has been safekeeping original celluloid film reels starting in the 1920s, audio from 1940s radio shows and much more, for decades. Think about classics like “Casablanca,” “The Wizard of Oz” or “Looney Tunes” cartoons: how can they be preserved?

Together, Warner Brothers and Microsoft have developed a solution to preserve those original assets in perpetuity. The new technology is first being used to store a copy of the 1978 movie “Superman” on a small glass disc about the size of a coaster. If successful, the same technology should be useful for storing family history information as well as for thousands of other uses.
You can read more about this technology in an article by Janko Roettgers in the Variety web site at: https://variety.com/2019/film/news/project-silica-superman-warner-bros-microsoft-1203390459/.
Of course, two present limitations might remain even in the future:

1. Will any devices capable of reading “Project Silica” glass still be available a few thousand years from now?

2. Will anyone a few thousand years from now have any interest in a very old “Superman” movie or even Looney Tunes?

My thanks to newsletter reader Pierre Clouthier for telling me about this latest technology.

4 Comments

William Porteous November 5, 2019 at 3:41 pm

If one is just printing black on paper and uses pigment ink it will not fade. it will outlast the paper.

Tilliepie November 6, 2019 at 6:06 am

Would you provide more information re: printing with pigment ink. Is this ink available for use in home printers?
Thank you.

Susan Barry November 6, 2019 at 8:17 am

And when the glass breaks?

Dick Eastman November 6, 2019 at 10:25 am

—> And when the glass breaks?
Exactly the same thing as happens when a hard drive fails or a magnetic disk loses magnetism or a piece of paper is damaged or destroyed by any number of problems: it becomes useless.
That is the reason why I have written many times about the reason you want to ALWAYS create two (or preferably more than two) copies of everything that is important to you and then store them in two (or preferably more than two) locations. In fact, I store my important files in three or four locations and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people store things in ten or more locations. Those widely-separated multiple copies won’t all go bad at once if you have a good backup plan.
Regardless of the storage media used, every manager of every significant data center never depends upon only one copy of anything that is important. Individual consumers can learn a lot from data center managers.
L.O.C.K.S.S. – “Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe”
See https://duckduckgo.com/?ratb=c&q=site%3Aeogn.com+%22L.O.C.K.S.S.%22&t=brave&ia=web for a list of my past articles that mention the need for L.O.C.K.S.S. – “Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe”.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Google Photos just got an Awesome Feature...automatically convert printed words inside the picture into computer-readable text.

Google Photos just got an Awesome Feature that makes it a Must-Have for Android, iPhone, and iPad Devices

Dick Eastman · August 23, 2019 · Cloud Services, Photography, Software · One Comment

This article isn’t about genealogy but it is about a new software tool that will be valuable for genealogists and for millions of others.

From an article by Chris Smith in the BGR.com web site:

“Google Photos is easily one of the best apps you could have installed on your phone, especially if it’s an Android device, and especially a specific type of Android that comes with unlimited storage. Even if you prefer a different cloud or storage device for your photos, you should still consider getting the Google Photos app on your Android or iPhone right now, because the service is about to get a super convenient feature.

“That’s optical character recognition (OCR), a feature that allows Google to read the text in photos and turn it into text that you can search for, and even copy and paste into documents. That’s a handy feature to have on a phone, especially if you find yourself taking lots of photos of things that contain plenty of text that you’d want to be able to access later.”

Yes, take a picture of a sign or of a page in a book or of a document and Google Photos will automatically convert printed words inside the picture into computer-readable text.
Similar software that is to be installed in your computer has been available for years but at rather high prices. Now Google Photos will do the same thing for free and with no software installed in your computer. It works on Windows, Macintosh, Chromebook, Linux, Android, IPad, iPhone, and other operating systems because all the software runs in the cloud.
You can read the details in Chris Smith’s article at: https://tinyurl.com/eogn190823.

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Millions of Books Are Secretly in the Public Domain

Dick Eastman · August 6, 2019 · Books · 4 Comments

Genealogists are usually told that books published prior to 1924 are in the public domain and can be freely copied. Indeed, that is true. However, we also have been told to be cautious about copying large amounts of data published in books published in 1924 or later because those books might be under copyright. However, there are millions of exceptions.
Indeed, many books published between 1924 and 1964 MAY have fallen out of copyright. The problem is that determining the copyright status of a 1924 or later book has always been almost impossible. However, thanks to the New York Public Library, we can now determine copyright status easily.
According to an article by Matthew Gault in the Motherboard web site:

“Prior to 1964, books had a 28-year copyright term. Extending it required authors or publishers to send in a separate form, and lots of people didn’t end up doing that. Thanks to the efforts of the New York Public Library, many of those public domain books are now free online. Through the 1970s, the Library of Congress published the Catalog of Copyright Entries, all the registration and renewals of America’s books. The Internet Archive has digital copies of these, but computers couldn’t read all the information and figuring out which books were public domain, and thus could be uploaded legally, was tedious. The actual, extremely convoluted specifics of why these books are in the public domain are detailed in a post by the New York Public Library, which recently paid to parse the information in the Catalog of Copyright Entries.

“It amounts to an explosion of new books once lost to the mire of potential copyright claims. And they’re all free.”

The same article provides a lot of additional details, including where to download these free public domain eBooks. The list is expanding daily so if you don’t find what you want today, check back again later. You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/eogn190806.

Monday, June 10, 2019

Follow-up: Ancestry.com is under Fire as new DNA Algorithm Drastically Changes the Ethnicity of Some Users

Dick Eastman · May 3, 2019 · DNA · 10 Comments

The following is a follow-up to my previous article at: http://bit.ly/2DN6o8y:
In the earlier article, I wrote:

“Ancestry.com is updating its databases and altering the results for some users. The new findings of ethnic origins has sent some users into a full-blown identity crisis. If you previously had your DNA tested by Ancestry and have already found your family’s ethnic origins, you might want to go back to the AncestryDNA web site and check again. The results may have changed.”

Some readers posted comments posted at the end of the article by newsletter readers questioned whether or not this was a new update to Ancestry.com’s DNA databases. However, that question seems to be cleared up by the following information written by the Ancestry Team and published in the Ancestry Blog at https://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2019/05/02/understanding-your-new-ethnicity-estimate/ on May 2, 2019:

“Understanding Your New Ethnicity Estimate

“We’re always looking for new ways to help support our customers on their journeys of personal discovery. Often that means updating our products and services to take advantage of the most advanced science and technology.

“Last fall, we introduced the capability to provide more precise ethnicity estimates to our customers using an algorithm that analyzes longer segments of genetic information. For some of our existing customers, this has meant that previous ethnicity estimates have evolved as a result of this new technology.

“We recognize that an individual’s personal sense of identity is very important and that any journey of personal discovery may take turns that are surprising or unexpected. However, it is important to keep in mind that your DNA doesn’t change, but the science and technology behind understanding it constantly evolves and we endeavor to ensure that this cutting-edge science is reflected in our offerings.

“All AncestryDNA® customers who have not already transitioned to their new, more precise ethnicity estimate will be transitioned starting May 30, 2019. If you received your AncestryDNA® results prior to September 2018 and wish to keep a record of your prior results, you may download them by July 20, 2019.”

Monday, May 27, 2019

Struggling Care Worker Becomes Lord of $60 Million English Estate After DNA Test

Struggling Care Worker Becomes Lord of $60 Million English Estate After DNA Test Proves He’s an Heir

Dick Eastman · May 24, 2019 · People · One Comment

Did you ever wish to inherit a fortune from a rich uncle who had recently passed away? That happened to Jordan Adlard-Rogers. He received a roughly $60 million inheritance from an uncle that previously Adlard-Rogers was not certain was his relative.

Adlard-Rogers — who reportedly grew up in a council house and suffered long periods of financial hardship — has now quit his job and moved into the estate. The 1,536-acre Penrose Estate is said to be where King Arthur was mortally wounded and died.

You can read a lot more in an article by Phil Boucher in the People web site at: http://bit.ly/2JEZyq3.

Friday, May 24, 2019

23andMe is Updating Ancestry Results Without Telling Users

Dick Eastman · May 23, 2019 · DNA · 3 Comments

An article by Dan Robitzski in the Futurism.com web site at https://futurism.com/23andme-updating-ancestry-results states:

“If you took a genetic ancestry test through a company like 23andMe, you may want to go back and give your results a second look.

“That’s because as the company gathers more data and learns more about genetic trends, it may update the results for your specific DNA and change around where it believes your family came from, according to STAT News. While it makes sense that these companies would eventually hone in on more accurate results, the shifting reports can be a rude shock to people who used the app to figure out their personal identity — only to find, like 23andMe user Leonard Kim, that the results later shift without warning.”

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who reads this newsletter. I wrote an article a few weeks ago that describes the same thing with Ancestry.com’s test results: the company’s DNA ethnic origins reports changed as more and more information was added to the company’s findings of ethnic origins. You can find my earlier report at http://bit.ly/2DN6o8y and a follow-up article at http://bit.ly/2HxniKH.

I had a similar “change of ancestry” with the findings of another DNA test from still another testing company. It seems that such “changes” in your ancestry are not unusual.
In fact, I suspect that every DNA testing company will occasionally change their reports of customers’ ethnic origins as each company adds more and more information to their databases of historic DNA and various human migration patterns.
If you had your DNA tested by ANY company, I would suggest you go back to the testing company’s web site every few months to see if there are any updates to your earlier test results. If so, you might want to trade in your German lederhosen for a Scottish kilt.

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

GEDmatch Implements Required Opt-In for Law Enforcement Matching

Dick Eastman · May 20, 2019 · DNA, Legal Affairs · No Comments

GEDmatch is an open data personal genomics database and genealogy website founded in 2010 by Curtis Rogers and John Olson. Its main purpose is to help “amateur and professional researchers and genealogists,” including adoptees searching for birth parents. However, it recently has also become “the de facto DNA and genealogy database for all of law enforcement,” according to The Atlantic’s Sarah Zhang.
GEDmatch recently gained a lot of publicity after it was used by law enforcement officials to identify a suspect in the Golden State Killer case in California. Other law enforcement agencies started using GEDmatch for violent crimes, making it one of the most powerful tools available for identifying “cold case” criminals.
Sadly, the same site also has generated a lot of controversy involving the lack of privacy of personal DNA information, both for the people who uploaded their own DNA data and especially for the relatives of the uploaders whose DNA information also was included without their permission and usually without their knowledge. Such blatant disregard for personal privacy may be a violation of privacy laws in many countries.
The GEDmatch owners have now tightened the web site’s rules on privacy. The result is expected to make it much more difficult for law enforcement agencies to find suspects.

Judy Russell, often referred to as “The Legal Genealogist,” has written an explanation of the issues involved and the reasons for the decision by the GEDmatch owners. Judy wrote:

“The new system fully conforms to all legal definitions of informed consent — particularly in light of the candid admission in the terms that GEDmatch can’t promise there won’t be new non-genealogical uses of the site someone figures out in the future that nobody is even thinking of today — and to the provisions of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as well.

“And it’s a good, right, ethical decision. Doing as much as any website can to protect the trust of genealogists that their DNA data will be used only for the purposes to which they personally consent leaves the entire field on firmer ethical ground.”

You can read a lot more in Judy Russell’s article at: https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2019/05/19/gedmatch-reverses-course/.

Monday, May 6, 2019

Ancestry.com is under Fire as new DNA Algorithm Drastically Changes the Ethnicity of Some Users

Follow-up: Ancestry.com is under Fire as new DNA Algorithm Drastically Changes the Ethnicity of Some Users

Dick Eastman · May 3, 2019 · DNA · 10 Comments

The following is a follow-up to my previous article at: http://bit.ly/2DN6o8y:
In the earlier article, I wrote:

“Understanding Your New Ethnicity Estimate

Sunday, April 28, 2019

DNA Spotlight: The Shared cM Project

April 09, 2019

When you get your DNA results, the DNA company tries to give you a sense of how you are connected to your matches. They will identify each relationship as parent, close family, sibling, second cousin, third cousin, fourth cousin, distant cousin, etc.
On MyHeritage it looks like this:

On Ancestry it looks like this:

It's important to understand that the relationship provided is just an estimate. There are actually a number of possible ways you could be related to any given DNA match.
Now take a look at those same images and notice that next to or underneath the relationship you see a number and the initials cM. cM stands for centiMorgans which is the unit of measurement for DNA. The more cM you share with a DNA match the more closely related you are. The less cM you share, the more distant your relationship.
The Shared cM Project
In order to understand better all the possible relationships you have with a DNA match, genetic genealogist Blaine Bettinger came up with a data driven tool called the Shared cM Project. Blaine asked DNA test takers to provide the amount of cM they shared with known relationships. From this he was able to create charts that showed the various possible relationships through the range and averages of centiMorgans.
From the data, Blaine produced the Shared cM Project chart below. In each box the first line is the relationship, the second line is the average cM for that relationship and the third line is the range he has determined based on the data.
So if we take the example above - 2nd-3rd cousin, 276 cM - we would look for the box where the average is closest to 276 cM. You'll notice that there are three boxes that are pretty close: Half 1C1R (226 cM), 1C2R (229 cM) and 2C (233 cM). If you look beyond the averages to the ranges you'll notice that there are even more possibilities. This is just to show that your actual relationship to your DNA match could be any of a number of possibilities besides what the DNA company estimates for you. In this particular case, I know the cousin personally and I am accurately able to identify her as my second cousin and not a third cousin or any of the other choices.

Blaine Bettinger, The Shared cM Project, https://thegeneticgenealogist.com
(Click to enlarge), Creative Commons attribution

Interactive Shared cM Project on DNA Painter
Recently Jonny Perl, the creator of DNA Painter presented a webinar about DNA Painter on Legacy Family Tree Webinars (which is free to watch). Jonny has transformed Blaine's chart into an interactive tool on DNA Painter.
Let's see how it works with two new DNA matches I received just today.
From the main DNA Painter home page choose the Tools menu option.

On the next page choose the Shared CM Tool option:

Next put the amount of cM your share with your DNA in the Filter box.

For this exercise I will use my two brand new dna matches.

For the first new cousin I get this result:

You can see there are a lot of possibilities for this relationship! In fact, this cousin I know personally. She and I are Half first cousins once removed (Half 1C1R). That result was in the second tier of options. It's important not to make assumptions when working with unknown matches.
The second new match of the day was also described as a 3rd-4th cousin.

It's interesting to see how much the results change just by changing the cM a bit. The results are quite different even though they were both presented in the same 3rd-4th cousin range. This person is unknown to me. I will have to compare our shared matches and do some research to determine which of the above relationships is accurate. It's intriguing and I can't wait to uncover this new cousin.
Both the Shared cM Project chart and DNA Painter are free to use. These tools will greatly help you in your genetic genealogy research. Give them a try.
You can learn more about understanding your DNA results from classes in the Legacy library. If you are just starting out with DNA take a look at Blaine Bettinger's Foundations of DNA series. If you're already pretty comfortable with DNA then choose from among the 74 DNA classes in the library.

Marian Pierre-Louis is the Online Education Producer for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. She hosts the monthly evening webinar on the second Tuesday of each month. Her areas of expertise include house history research and southern New England research. Check out her webinars in the Legacy library.

Ancestry.com Sued for ‘Misleading’ Customers About DNA Data

Dick Eastman · April 26, 2019 · DNA, Legal Affairs · No Comments

Genealogy information provider Ancestry.com has a “longstanding practice” of failing to get sufficient informed consent agreements from customers who submit medical and DNA information, a new lawsuit alleges.
Lori Collett sued the Utah-based company’s subsidiaries—Ancestry.com DNA LLC and Ancestry.com Inc.—for allegedly “misleading and deceiving patients in California and across the country about what Ancestry was actually doing with their DNA.”
Bloomberg news has a brief radio report about the lawsuit at http://bit.ly/2VAn7Gt.

Monday, April 8, 2019

New Online Tool Will Help Families Track Down Scottish Ancestors

Dick Eastman · March 28, 2019 · Online Sites · 3 Comments

The Scottish Emigration Database lists details including the town or village of origin, address, destination and occupation, as well as information about specific vessels and shipping lines. The free online tool contains the records of 21,000 people.
The main search focuses on people – you can filter based on name, occupation, gender and address. You can even search by destination port. The database also allows people to search by ship name – so if you know which ship your ancestors sailed on, but don’t know a great detail about them, this might help.

The online database allows you to search thousands of entries using as much, or as little detail as you have – a detailed user guide is available here.

You can learn more at: http://bit.ly/2uuoffz.

Is DNA Evidence Reliable?

Dick Eastman · March 26, 2019 · DNA, Legal Affairs · 2 Comments

DNA has become a major tool for use by police in solving cold cases of murder and other violent crimes. In the past year, about 50 cold cases have been solved nationwide using public genealogy websites. But is this evidence alone reliable?
James H. Manahan, J.D., has written an article in the Lake County (Minnesota) News-Chronicle that tells why DNA evidence alone can be misleading. Manahan cautions that DNA is a great tool but also must always be used in conjunction with old-fashioned police work.

Manahan describes a case when a homeless man was accused of murder, based upon DNA evidence from a 7-year-old cold case. Luckily, the man’s public defender found a subtle problem with the evidence. In short, the DNA evidence obtained was “identified” as coming from the wrong man. Instead of spending the rest of his life in jail, the homeless man was quickly cleared of the crime. Had the public defender not been suspicious, the outcome could have been far different.
The article quotes DNA and genealogy expert CeCe Moore. It also quotes the homeless man, Lukis Anderson, when he got out of jail: “There’s more that’s gotta be looked at than just the DNA. You’ve got to dig deeper. Reanalyze. Do everything all over again before you say, ‘This is what it is.’ Because it may not necessarily be so.”
You can read this interesting story at: http://bit.ly/2TWn6wi.

Saturday, March 23, 2019

How to Find More Obscure Collections of Genealogy Records

How to Find Some of the More Obscure Collections of Genealogy Records

Dick Eastman · March 22, 2019 · Genealogy Basics, Online Sites · 2 Comments

Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, and other search engines are great for finding online databases that are useful to genealogists. However, smaller collections and even obscure ones are not prominently listed in the big search engines. Yet there are a few online listings that can point the way to finding what you seek.
The Genealogy Roots Blog at https://genrootsblog.blogspot.com contains pointers to many online genealogy databases, records and resources. The focus is on vital records (birth, marriage and death records), obituaries, census records, naturalization records, military records and ship passenger lists. Although the blog is based in the USA, online European, Canadian, and other records sources are sometimes included. You may also occasionally see a fun post or genealogy news. Joe Beine does a great job of adding more and more links as time goes by.

Another huge resource is Cyndi’s List, available at: https://www.cyndislist.com. The site contains roughly 336,000 links to genealogy-related web pages in more than 200 categories. The various categories include many sources online records as well as pointers to newsletters, religious groups, historical information, geography, and much, much more.

Cyndi’s List is free for everyone to use and is meant to be your starting point when researching online for information in the United States and also in many other countries. Indeed, Cyndi Ingle has labored many thousands of hours since 1996 to produce this huge online resource at https://www.cyndislist.com.
I would suggest you check out both the Genealogy Roots Blog and Cyndi’s List to see if they contain information that may help you in your family history searches.