DNA Dot Reform Last night I removed all my AncestryDNA ®  dots.  And then, started over. This was years of work removed, but after watching Diahan Southard's " The 5 Steps to Organizing Your DNA in 2023 ," I had to do it.  After studying Research Like A Pro , I've reformed my research practices, and heading into Research Like a Pro With DNA , I want to do that with DNA too, because it is a  really valuable record source. I realized I had been using the dots only as labels, not as filters which Southard's simple how-to enables. I'm using Ancestry as an example; the techniques will work elsewhere of course. Dot Groups as Filters Once the dots were gone, I created four groups, one for each of my great grandparent couples. Here is the view of the near end of my pedigree. I've blurred all but my great-greats, and boxed each couple to show what Southard proposes: Valorie's great-grandparent couples So my first four groups are: Cowan-McPherson, Schell-Anders...

Grumbles and Thanks  Online you will find both, as people discuss the new FamilySearch search interfaces, just in time for Family History Month. Change is always difficult! Fortunately they have created a new landing page to get users oriented.  New Landing Page In the image below, there is a circle around a big change, underlined one way to get back much of what you might miss from the old page, and pointed an arrow to a link to get a whole lot more help.  Circled: Birth or Death year - This can be a time-saver when you know only one date.  However, the underlined link is usually where you will start: MORE OPTIONS. MORE OPTIONS screen If you want Exact Search for any field, the arrow shows where to enable it. Usually this is only useful if you know precisely what you want to find.  The images above are the top of the new page. Scroll down just a bit, and there is more.  TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE SEARCHES on the left leads to a separate page called  Best prac...

23andMe Wants You!  In the early years of 23andMe DNA testing, the site seemed like a useful site for researchers. Then all that changed. For the next few years, many genealogists and family history researchers felt unwelcome at 23andMe. Family trees were removed from the site, and moved to MyHeritage. There was no useful linking to these trees, and match profiles were closed by default. Among active researchers, 23andMe matches were notorious for never answering messages (in site), rarely granting matching, and not being interested in finding common ancestors, even if they replied. The messaging system was so bad that there was a Chrome add-on to make it usable! Times have changed - family tree tools The designers of the site seem to changing all that, and inviting us researchers back in. If you have a 23andMe kit and log onto the site, open up Settings and scroll to Preferences at the bottom of the Settings page, you will find the Beta. Select Become a tester , and y...