Time Horizon   Ttime Horizon by   nicola2002f (pixabay.com)   How far do you see into your future? It turns out, not only does that vary widely, but it makes a huge difference in how we live our lives. The same was true of our ancestors, but the reason I'm writing about this is that it governs how we choose to do our work. When I was young, I was interested in knowing more about my family history, but did not have the know-how. These days, many aspects are easier, but it seems like I'm running out of time. And that's OK, because it helps to focus. For more about this, listen to The Best Years of Your Life , part of the Hidden Brain podcast.  So how can I do ALL the THINGS?  I think the best way to focus is to first, listen to my heart. What do I truly want to investigate, do for someone, or even finish up? So it starts with a question, which can then become a plan . It is important to me to write it down, so even if there is inter...

  DID YOU INHERIT A FAMILY BIBLE? Surprises! My parents had an interesting way of getting rid of “things” as they aged. I lived with my family in the Puget Sound area. My parents lived in eastern Washington, so when they came to visit us, it was usually several days, or at least overnight. The first thing I remember “finding” was an unfinished piece of needlepoint that I remembered hanging around my parents’ home for years. I recognized the box as soon as I saw it under the bed in the guest room. The next time I talked with my Mother, I asked her about it, but a funny thing, she knew nothing about what I was talking about. I learned to do needlepoint and finished the piece. My husband refinished an old dressing table bench, which had also come from my parents’  home, and we mounted the needlepoint.   The bench now resides in my son’s home. I did not leave it as a “surprise” for him to find. The next “surprise” I found in my ...

How to help others is a live question on my mind, because my daughter's mother-in-law is in town, and is interested to learn more about her family. A few years back, I created a tree (in my own tree) for her son Jason, my son-in-law. We'll soon be meeting so she can see what I've found so far. Also, we had a very fun time at the Genealogy Help Desk last Thursday at the Auburn KCLS Library. If you would like to practice helping others and live close to Auburn, Federal Way or Renton,  please write to Outreach@skcgs.org to volunteer.  Libraries in those locations are asking for us to come help!! All Together Or Separate? Common question -- why make someone else's tree part of your own, as I did? Isn't it better to have separate trees? There are advantages either way, in my opinion. The most important factor I think of, is this from Family Tree Magazine,  " keep in mind that the further back in time you start splitting your files, the more likely it is that you’ll ...

Backup icon by ByLUTFI GANI AL ACHMAD You can find articles everywhere that computer users might read, urging us all to back up our trees, our files, our DNA matches, etc.  One of our members recently brought this up in our Genealogy Chat after discussing the future of the genealogy DNA industry, which is slowing, thus making  less money for  the companies offering these services.   Back Up Your Tree If they did not back them up, Ancestry.com Y and mtDNA testers lost access to their test results and matches  as of September 30, 2014 . So there are examples of this happening before.  All of the genealogy tree-building sites offer a way to back up your bare-bones tree via a GEDCOM, which is a simple text file. If you also want to download your images and other records, you will need instead to"sync" your files using a desktop genealogy application which uploads to and downloads from the online trees. Your DNA Guide has an article comparing what is o...

One of the wonderful aspects of RootsTech each spring is the new features from many of the major genealogy and family history companies which they announce there, and of course the sales! Be sure to visit the Expo Hall to connect with the vendors and get those discounts, some of which last all month. One of the new features rolled out by MyHeritage is the cM Explainer™ which promises to "Predict Relationships Between DNA Matches With Greater Accuracy." Read about it in their blog .  The first session I watched this year was  What's New at FamilySearch in 2023 . ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ From me! The feature I'm waiting for has not rolled out yet, but the new family groups tree views should cut down immensely on the proliferation of private still-living people in the FSFamily Tree. It will enhance collaboration with close family and more distant family as well, I hope. The first implementations are showing up now - see more at the new home page . In addition, they are adding more options...

Courtesy of Pixabay Let your family story sparkle! Tell the Story Why do we do all this family history research? My answer is, to tell the story. If we do good research, the family legends are supported by records we find, and we make the story interesting with maps, newspaper articles, photos and other artifacts, and whatever else we can find. While telling the story, we cite our sources in a way that helps other researchers retrace our steps, whether to a book, records in archives, or online site. DNA Evidence But what if there are no legends? And few records, or we're looking for an unknown ancestor? These challenges can often be overcome with the use of DNA testing and matching. It can be challenging to use this data in a way that is interesting and in a way that allows others to follow our footsteps.  Fortunately, there are some companies working hard to make DNA testing painless, and using the data much easier than it was years ago. There are also wonderful tools helping us i...

Courtesy of Pixabay Mystery Match - What To Do Next You've checked your DNA results, possibly at a new test company, and you find an unfamiliar match sharing a large segment of DNA. While some of the companies assign a relationship, "1C,2R", that may not be accurate due to variables such as "half" siblings or cousins.  There are several tools available to help calculate relationships; one we have seen in presentations and online is the Shared cM Project 4.0 Tool v4.  https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4 You can locate yourself in the white square marked "Self" just off the center.  Relationships that share, or are descendants of one or both of your parents are in light or blue gray.  Relationships with which the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) is one or both grandparents are in green, great-grandparents are in orange. The numbers in the squares represent the average shared cMs for that relationship as well as the low and high range.  Notice that ...