The three kinds of DNA of use for family history research* Autosomal - what most of us use, via Ancestry , 23andMe , MyHeritage , FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder and LivingDNA Y - available from FamilyTreeDNA, Yseq and a few others Mt or mitochondrial - available from FamilyTreeDNA Autosomal DNA For autosomal DNA (AtDNA), to make best use of your results for research, you will "fish in all the ponds" by testing with Ancestry and 23andme since neither accept uploads, and then upload your raw data to Gedmatch , MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA, which do accept uploads - for free!  The value of autosomal DNA testing is that it covers all of your ancestry back four generations or so, and up to six or seven generations, which is quite long ago. However, as your matches are ever smaller as you go further back in time, your AtDNA will not take you back to your deep ancestry before surnames and record keeping. Y and Mt DNA Both Y and Mt DNA will take you back very f...

By Dorothy Pretare In my prior post, “What Will Happen to Your Family History Stuff”, we identified 1) the types of family history stuff and their possible locations, 2) your hopes and possible options, and 3) some steps to help ensure your hopes/wishes will be honored. One of those steps was to “Organize Your Stuff”.  This step will help you in your research and make it easier to share information with others.  First, each of us may approach tasks in different ways -- think about handing an unorganized grocery list to a few people and watch them shop in an unfamiliar store.  Since there are many ways to organize items, I suggest you check “The Organized Genealogist” on Facebook or “Organize Your Family History” ( https://organizeyourfamilyhistory.com/ ) or Cyndi’s List ( https://www.cyndislist.com/organizing/ ) for her list of links to various methods.  Just select a method you think will work for you and remember you can always change your method of organizin...