DNA Answers & 4 Tips for Using Ancestry from Lisa Louise Cooke

September 10, 2015

In our last episode of

As the DNA World Turns

, Lisa Louise Cooke, discovered that she was an H11 and a Genealogy Gems was her distant cousin...

Many of you wrote me this last week to say you were getting hooked on this DNA soap opera of mine that I've been sharing here in the newsletter. Jayne in Winnipeg included this question: "I have a question about The various DNA companies. I did testing for my husband and I using Ancestry.com because it showed both sides. The results were extremely interesting and I have made some connections. I noticed that your testing was a mitochondrial test. Guess my question is - should someone do all 3 tests? It seems confusing. An avid listener from Canada."

I passed this question on to Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide at Genealogy Gems, and she says "The autosomal DNA test, like the one you took at Ancestry, is wide and shallow. That means it will only go back 4 or 5 generations reliably, but it covers the breadth of your pedigree chart. Conversely, the mtDNA and YDNA tests are narrow but deep. They cover only one line of inheritance, but as far back as we would really care to go with our genealogy. So yes, depending on what you want to know, all three tests can be useful."

I had questions of my own for Diahan such as "can you help me make sense of this?!" And that's exactly what she did. Diahan offers one-on-one DNA consultations to her clients (click here to visit her website) to help them understand and actually make use of their DNA results. My reaction? SIGN ME UP!

Diahan not only met with me using Go to Meeting and went through all of my DNA results, but she provided me with a video recording of the consultation to keep and refer to! In our next episode of As the DNA World Turns I will share a video clip of Diahan's consultation with me so you can see how cool this is for yourself, and see what I learned.

Thanks for listening friend,

Genealogy News You Can Use

We Dig These Gems! New Genealogy Records Online - September 4

Laura Ingalls Wilder Stories: A patchwork of Little House Gems (BOOK CLUB FEATURE)
What I Learned From the Family Work Ethic

Tips for Digitizing Old Home Movies
and Photographs

If you're lucky enough to have old home movies or photos, you want to preserve and share them. Consider these tips from digital film conversion expert Kristin Harding from Larsen Digital:

Prioritize items that are the oldest, most special or rare, fragile or deteriorating (capture that image before it crumbles or fades).
Resolve to scan at a higher resolution: Scan old family pictures at 600dpi for 4 x 6 photos. Very small photos (and images you want to enlarge from a small portion, like a group photo) should be 1200 dpi. That way, when you enlarge them, you'll get the sharpest, most clear image possible.
Consider the benefits of a professional scanning service: Professional scanners are faster, especially for more complicated projects like negatives and slides. You get better color quality and contrast and often post-scan editing like cropping and digital color correction.

Read the full article here . Then listen to the entire interview with Kristin in the free Genealogy Gems podcast episode 183 . And Kristin has graciously provided a coupon code (Click below and use coupon code Gengem10) just for you for 10% off your order:

4 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Ancestry
by Sunny Morton

Reviews are still mixed on the new Ancestry site. But for many, it's still the big-box genealogy retailer that most often meets their longest list of needs and wants. Here we share tips for getting the most out of Ancestry.com.

I noticed recently that Ancestry subscribers' attitudes run the same gamut as attitudes of big-box retailer shoppers. Some people {heart} them unabashedly: they'll spend hours strolling the aisles and share every great find on social media. Others dash in and grab just the items they can't live without.

Whatever your stance toward the site, Ancestry is still the big-box retailer most genealogists need at least sometimes. Take your cue from top big-box store shopping strategies for getting the most out of Ancestry.com. Click here to read the 4 tips on the Genealogy Gems website.

Most Recent Podcast Episodes

The Genealogy Gems Podcast

Episode 183

In this episode, a digital expert joins us to talk about digitizing and storing your old movies, videos, and pictures-even further updating those old movies you've already put on CD. You'll hear a juicy clip from our exclusive Genealogy Gems Book Club interview with the Pamela Smith Hill, editor of the new Laura Ingalls Wilder biography, Pioneer Girl. And Your DNA Guide is here with a story of DNA and a President.

The Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Premium_NEW

Episode 125 (New episode coming next week!)

(Exclusively available to our website Premium members)

When you head out on a road trip, are you tempted to squeeze some family history into them no matter who's along for the ride? Sunny joins Lisa for a discussion of effective ways to incorporate genealogy and get your family's buy in. Then we'll talk about a new genealogy resource that's so exciting it was worth interrupting a vacation, how to make Facebook show you what you actually want to see, and a few tech tips I shared during my recent keynote presentation at the BYU Family History Conference.

Not a member yet? Click here to learn more.