No Sooner Said...

It's done. And just in time, too. It couldn't have been because I was grousing about my husband receiving his test results from AncestryDNA nearly a week before me, could it? After all, I mailed both packages to the same address on the same day. From the same post office, even. What more could they ask?

It appears I am a typical American—well, at least in the sense of being part of that vast, "Heinz 57" melting pot heritage. Taking a look at Ancestry's ethnic estimates, based on my DNA test, even I was surprised—although not, of course, on account of the nearly fifty percent coming from an eastern European origin (that would be thanks to my father). Still, the mere ten percent from "Europe West" was less than I had expected—though, including Germany in this region, I suppose I owe that to my Broyles predecessors.

Our family's on-again, off-again flirtation with the question of Irish heritage (we were raised, being told we were Irish when in fact, it was a ruse for masked identity of a Polish background) may get resurrected with Ancestry's declaration that I have at least nine percent Irish in my roots. How's that? Surely the McClellans—my Scots great grandfather could become quite irate at the suggestion that his "Mc" indicated Irish heritage—couldn't be the source of that stray number. Could it?

And yet, something I can't quite yet fathom, Ancestry delineates Great Britain as a separate ethnic entity than Ireland. Of course, the Irish will concur heartily with that sentiment. But I'm not talking socio-political issues here. I'm just wondering what to make of all this. Great Britain is home to a number of different ancient ethnic groups. What happened to my Welsh ancestry? Is that counted here, even though so many generations removed?

A bigger surprise was finding twenty five percent attributed to the region of Scandinavia. Do I suppose I descend from the Vikings, just as my husband discovered in his own genetic genealogy exploration? Perhaps the two of us need to invest in some twin Viking helmets. The Houston guy has already put in his order for one featuring Texas longhorns.

While I understand that trace values introduce a murky—and possibly questionable—realm, Ancestry's Trace Regions section is both intriguing and confusing. Indicating a result weighing in at less than one percent of the overall picture, it still somehow fingers a strand originating in Finland or northwest Russia. Where would that come from? Perhaps a Pole whose ancestors strayed from farther north? It would be helpful to know more detail in the behind-the-scenes process of determining such minute numbers. Ancestry does provide a number of videos, tutorials and even white papers for the more intrepid among us; I'll need to take a look at all these.

On the other hand, the reason the arrival of these results is so timely is that, by the time you are reading this, I may already be walking into my first day of the genetic genealogy class at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. I think I already have my first question for the beginning session.

Above: Ethnicity estimates for my recently-received test results from AncestryDNA.

First Count for a Fresh Year

Early on last year, I realized I felt like I made progress if I kept count of my research gains. If nothing else, it was encouraging to see the numbers go up in all the appropriate places. I kept with it at that bi-monthly reporting pace since February. I'm convinced it would be a useful tactic for this year, as well.

There are a few new inputs for 2016. I've added DNA test results from Ancestry.com—well, at least on my husband's family; my results, from a sample mailed on the very same day as his, have yet to find their way back to me. And I've uploaded our Family Tree DNA results to GEDmatch which, once it gets rolling, should yield additional connections, as well. As these new data become available, I'll add them into the mix.

For now, here's how progress looked in the face of a jolly holiday break and the demands of preparing for a week's study out-of-town.

With that ongoing goal of determining my matrilineal nexus with my mystery cousin, it is no surprise that the thrust of the holiday's lackluster progress was centered on my maternal line. My mother's tree on Ancestry nudged up 184 names—plus duly noted documentation—to reach a total of 7,052 people. I've made far better progress in the past, but 184 isn't bad.

As far as maternal DNA results, only five more matches materialized on my FTDNA account, with the most recent ones arriving on January 8. That leaves me with an overarching 980 matches at FTDNA. Perhaps the holiday sale will bring more matches our way, give or take another month's processing time.

It was thanks to an inquiring distant cousin on my paternal side which led to the increase of 30 new names on my father's tree. With that addition, though, I still only have 180 in that tree—stymied, mostly, by the name-changing mysteries of the generation preceding my immigrant grandparents. There is likely not going to be much progress in this line for a long time—not until I uncover some cache of clues or batch of Polish-American records with just the right names.

As for my husband's lines, his paternal side has been quiet, as well. There was a slight uptick in names on his father's tree—seven more bringing the total to 930—but his DNA results seemed almost flatlined with only two additional matches. His total matches at FTDNA now stand at 570. However, with the early return on his results at AncestryDNA, he now has an additional 82 matches at the level of at least fourth cousin or closer. A cursory glance at the results easily reveals all matches are on his maternal side.

That his maternal side was where I had the most incentive to pursue more research is an understatement. While progress wasn't stellar—hey, we were enjoying the holiday!—that maternal side gained an additional 38 entries to bring the tree total to 2,670 individuals. Those Perry County Ohioans will evidently become my genetic genealogy playground for AncestryDNA results.

Now having opportunities to familiarize myself with readouts from three different entities—Family Tree DNA, AncestryDNA, and GEDmatch—is the head start I was hoping for, going into this weeklong genetic genealogy training program at Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. I'm hoping some tips will help me ferret out hidden details and lead me to some substantiated conclusions in the very spots at which I've been stuck on the traditional genealogical paper trail.

Off the Shelf: Orbiting the Giant Hairball

So, I cheated. I already peeked ahead for this next in my selection of books to read each month. But I think it was fair game; before giving it as a Christmas present to my husband and daughter, I decided it would be worth it to crack the cover open and take a look for myself. (Actually, I didn't even have to open that cover; I did it virtually through Amazon's "Look Inside" feature.)

Perhaps it's that thin creative streak still resident deep within that beckoned me to glom onto that title. Yes, it was recommended to me before I ever thought of recommending it to you—and something told me I just had to read that book. I excused the purchase for my husband (the perpetual student of the leadership game) and for my daughter (about to launch into the serious side of the work world), but my real fascination with the book was with the author's oxymoronic proposal of juxtaposing the nurturing of creative genius and the rigidity of corporate administration.

Precisely what the author, Gordon MacKenzie, did for thirty years of servitude at Hallmark Cards—and lived to tell of it.

Since I thrive on the ability to derive meaning from one cubicle of life and translate it into an analogy fit for another realm, I thought MacKenzie's slim 1998 volume might still speak to people like me, today. Hence, my ulterior motive gift-giving rational in selecting this book. Besides, who are we kidding here? The thing just sports an incredibly fun title. And great doodles to accompany it. We are talking Hallmark creative, here.

Whether you or I work at Hallmark, though, we can all benefit from learning how to balance the dichotomy between the "gotta do" and "wanna do" aspects of life. To do and to dream are not always co-existent on the same plane. Neither, most of the time, are creating one's Life Masterpiece and Paying the Bills.

In case you haven't intuited it yet, the hairball is MacKenzie's symbol of corporate bureaucracy. Your task—if you so choose to avoid being sucked into the black hole of officialdom's entanglement—is to orbit it. To benefit from its up side, while resisting the pull of its dark side. And MacKenzie saw as his task to

inspire his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit—to a mode of dreaming, daring, and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set.

There is a second plane to MacKenzie's book. Not only does it hold out a salvific promise for creatives trapped in a corporate work world, but it becomes a case study in creative leadership for change agents—and inspires us by example to go and do likewise. All in those same 224 pages. It reminds us that what worked in the past may not be our wisest course of action for future challenges. It helps us survive the mediocrity of status quo long enough to spawn the possibility of innovation. And yet, bank on that status quo when outer-space nothingness lends no gravitational support.

Though you may not work for a large bureaucracy, if you have any hope of trying something new in the face of "we've never done it that way," this may be just the quick read to get you thinking. Face it: family trees may have looked the same for eons, but we still could do with some new inspiration to think our way around brick walls. Striking a healthy balance between the tried-and-true standards of research and the innovative ferreting out of inferences from previously undervalued resources is necessary. Like the symbiosis between the dismaying structure of the corporate hairball and the creative genius of inventions, we all have life situations which need to recognize—and appreciate—the the potential glue inherent in the struggle between the staid and the shimmering. And how the answer, rather than "either or," might just be "both and."

  

Unpacking That Packing List

In just a few days, I'll be in Salt Lake City, diligently wrapping my mind around the terms and tools of genetic genealogy at SLIG. I'm primed for the week's discoveries, and I'm hoping I'll return home with handy insights to apply to specific family history challenges. Not to mention, I'll be within walking distance of the number one genealogical repository in the world. With proximity like that, surely I'll be able to squeeze in some library time.

In the meantime, my mind has turned to much more mundane pursuits—like, what to pack for the trip. Somewhere in a twisty nether region of my brain, a nagging thought reminds me that I once read a blog post on the practical things people wish they had packed when headed to the nation's premier genealogical library.

Where to find that? I have no idea where I might have saved that article. Now, what? Why, Google the answer, of course!

Oh, that Google would always be the be-all-end-all final word to our every question. Or, perhaps it is my unfortunate proclivity to respond favorably to any and all rabbit trails presented. If nothing else, Google will provide the willing and able with sufficient material for bunny trail diversions.

So, here, for those of you who might be interested in the trivia of what else to bring along with your week's wardrobe and all the obvious technological paraphernalia, is a brief tour of some useful findings.

Dayna Jacobs' generic packing list at On Granny's Trail reminded me to bring a flash drive and extra batteries.

Though making her recommendations on Genealogy Decoded for another, regional, library, Beth Foulk's reminder that a first stop at the front desk to request an orientation tour is a well-spent investment.

Thomas MacEntee's article in the Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner blog provides a list covering a broad spectrum of suggestions regarding research travel in "What to Pack for Family History Research Trip." The "oh, duh" reminders I needed there were to print and bring all my travel confirmation numbers as well as all my subscription accounts and passwords. With all the accounts I've opened and recently uploaded—from the Family Tree DNA accounts for my family to our new AncestryDNA accounts and the GEDmatch accounts—there's no way they'd all stick in my memory.

Though terribly outdated with its laughable advice about floppy discs, Genealogy.com's "Packing for a Genealogical Journey" provided food for thought with its suggestions on considering surge protectors and extension cords—and labeling what you bring with your name and contact information. The author's suggestion about getting a cobbler's apron—for its one virtue of providing multiple pockets for the inevitable stuff of the research process—makes sense. If nothing else, it encourages me to make sure I have something with plenty of pockets for the knick knacks of the researcher's day.

Another older post reminded me to be sure to pack pencils—a tool I seldom use—plus file folders and business cards. Oh, yeah: those.

A more recent post reminds me of the practical tactic, while in the Family History Library, of searching the family history books first, as they are least likely to be loaned out to local Family History Centers. And label your copy cards. Advice thanks to lessons learned!

For boots on the ground surveillance, though, you can't beat my favorite professional organizer—Janine Adams of Organize Your Family History—who wrote up a pre- and post-visit blog series about her research trip to the Midwest Genealogy Center. Among her practical prompts were a reminder to take more than one pair of reading glasses and to include post-it notes in my pockets of research knick knacks—for the pages from those family history books I might want to photocopy.

But where was that blog post I was seeking—the one with the reminder to bring peanut M&Ms for those brain-fading moments in mid-afternoon? (See how I remember all the important stuff?) If that was your blog post, I sincerely hope you stand up and let us all take notice. I really would like to know what else was in that article. It is, after all, time to pack.

 

 

     

The Stuff You Find When You're Looking for Something Else

Sometimes, ya just need a Wordless Wednesday.

Yes, I know today is Thursday. But yesterday was a rough day. I wasn't sure there were enough words left in me to make an adequate post.

Handily, I remembered something I had just stumbled upon while looking for something else: a CD with old photos from my husband's Tully ancestors.

Remember that Family Tree Maker program I just loaded onto my computer—the updated version to bring me into the twenty-first century? Well, when I was gifted with that CD, I had tucked another CD into the folder with it, to remind me that I needed to load that one onto the computer, as well.

That was then. This is now—a time when I apparently no longer remember what was on that CD labeled "Tully Photos."

All I could think of was a trip to Chicago, years ago, where my husband thought the best way to capture those near-antique photos of hundred-year-old family wedding parties was to use his digital camera to snap a picture of the picture. The photo frames would have been too fragile to disassemble carefully enough to return everything to its former condition after scanning. We settled for next best thing.

Where were those photos now? Apparently not, as it turned out, on that CD.

Dashed were the hopes of sharing some really neat family photos. Perhaps that is a silent nudge to remind us it is high time to make plans for another trip back to Chicago. Who knows.

It is also a reminder that often, when you're on a mission to find something else, you may get a bonus surprise.

What was on the CD, you ask? Oh, they were Tully family photos, all right. But this was a collection you've already seen—at least, if you were a regular here, back in 2011, when I told about the surprise special package I received and the photograph-scanning path it set me on. A treasure trove too precious to lose, I had made myself a backup copy.

Maybe soon—and on a Wednesday, this time!—I'll uncover the secret stash where I stored those Chicago wedding photos so I can share those with you, too. And all the other items found on my way to locate this file, too.

 

Just the Push a Procrasinator Needs

Sometimes, it just takes time to get the ball rolling. Especially for procrastinators.

It took the effective date of a mid-December announcement to push me to take action: Ancestry.com was discontinuing support of its once-popular program, Family Tree Maker. The date—December 31, 2015—was the last day a new customer could buy the product. Despite the promise that Ancestry would provide support for the program for an additional year, that date somehow stuck in my mind.

Of course, being a procrastinator, I missed that deadline.

Not to worry, though. In thanks for participating in a focus group exercise at a conference a couple years ago, I had been gifted with a much more up-to-date version of Family Tree Maker than my old clunker at home.

You may not be surprised to learn that I never had uploaded the program to my computer.

Well, last night was the night. After all, we're already six days past the deadline. Even a procrastinator can feel the urgency of the moment. I downloaded Family Tree Maker 2014. And uploaded all my family trees from my Ancestry account.

And live to tell of it.

The virtue of that move—at least according to those who use the program on a regular basis—is that I can now capture all the graphics of the documents linked to each supported fact in my Ancestry trees, and keep them resident on my own computer, without having to oversee the process of retrieving each document, one by one, on my own.

I rather like that little convenience.

Perhaps there is something about the cleaning and organizing ambience brought on by a brisk new month in a brand new year. It's not quite the same thing as the spring cleaning urge—too cold for that—but the organizing urge seems to blend well with the post-holiday clean-up.

Of course, along with those new tools from GEDmatch downloaded the other day, the reconfigured genealogical database manager will come in handy as I head to the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy next week for more training about genetic genealogy. In addition to more snow and less degrees than I'm used to in "sunny" California, the Salt Lake City experience will provide ample opportunity to put some head knowledge to practical use, and I want to have all the tools at my disposal during next week's class to maximize that experience.

So yes, better late than never—at least as far as class time is concerned. There are just some things you don't want to show up to class without.

Past Performance is no Guarantee of Future Failure

Perhaps I've been paying too much attention to those somber investment ad warnings. I take such cautions to heart.

Of course, it doesn't help when the sentiment crosses over to an uneasy mix of technophobia and computer-aided genetic genealogy analysis. I've had priors for computer stuff going abysmally wrong. Nevertheless, I held my breath (and my husband's hand) and pushed the button. My task was to download my autosomal DNA results—and X-DNA data file, but only in that order!—from Family Tree DNA, and then upload each file to my newly-established account at GEDmatch.

For some reason, my computer didn't explode. And, best I can tell, I now have the complete range of my readout from Family Tree DNA's autosomal DNA results uploaded to my new account at GEDmatch.

Of course, that doesn't mean I get to play with possibilities quite yet. I noticed, after the several minute wait while the first stage of the upload was processing—the instructions warned it could take five to ten minutes to complete; mine took sixteen; I headed to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich after finishing chromosome six—that the final line said it "may take a couple of days" for batch processing to finish. By that time, I'll have enough inventory to open a sandwich shop, if the nervous energy doesn't persuade me to eat them all, first.

After the uploads were completed, the first wait was for "tokenization." Whatever that is, it was supposed to take another twenty minutes. Fine. Have another sandwich.

Then, mired in all the instructions, blue-inked commentary and red-caps warnings screaming at me, I noticed there was a final line to heed:

We suggest you use the "DNA File Diagnostic Utility" on your Gedmatch.com account home page to verify your FTDNA upload.

Oh. Yeah, maybe I better follow through on this one additional step. A student genetic genealogist's work is never done. Checking, though, simply told me what I already knew. First, my kit was uploaded. Second—though I still don't know what that means—it was tokenized. Third—oh, what a surprise—my kit has not yet completed the batch process, so I can't play around with the one-to-many comparison resources that people are flocking to this site to use.

And, one more thing: just in case I have missed this, in the final red-letter sea of paragraphs, I was told, "no matches were found" for my kit.

Ya think?

The last paragraph of this double-check page provides instructions on how to delete my kit from the site. After all this, I scarcely think that would be foremost on my mind.