23andMe asked:

Just what is a 5th cousin? In this video, we look at what cousins are and examine some basic ways to determine shared DNA ancestors. Using 23andMe's upcoming Relative Finder feature, finding your cousins is easier than ever. www.23andme.com

Suffolk System of Recording Genealogy

fullbony asked:


is there any body that does genetic testing of your DNA to specifically identify what your ancestry is and in what parts ?
i am an individual of mixed racial inheritance and would like to know where exactly my ancestors came from.

Fred Hawks asked:




If you are interested in performing genealogy research things are much easier for you than they used to be. In the past researching genealogy was very, very time consuming. You needed to visit a library, read lots of books etc. However today all you need is an internet connection and you are ready to get started.

On the internet you can find lots of very helpful records to help you in your research. You will birth records, marriage records, military records and lots more. These are simply invaluable for people doing genealogy research. Also helpful are the many genealogy forums and communities that exist online. You can visit these sites and ask for help and advice.

While the internet is a great place to do your research, you shouldn't forget about more old fashioned ways altogether. First and foremost, if you are researching your own family history, talk to your relatives! Their stories can usually give lots of valuable clues and information.
If you want to go really high tech you can also include DNA testing in your research. By performing a DNA test you can determine if people are really related or not.

Always remember to keep records when doing your research. There are websites and software programs available to help you with this, they can save you a lot of headache. Special family tree software lets you create databases of your records, scan old documents and more.
Doing genealogy research has become very easy in recent years. Now practically anyone can find out who their ancestors were and how they lived their lives.

The Desperate Genealogists Idea Book\cf3

Jason Kay asked:




You can't watch a crime drama on TV, or the news (think Anna Nicole Smith) for very long nowadays without hearing about DNA. DNA testing can tell who fathered a child. It can rescue an innocent inmate from prison, or prove the case against a criminal. DNA testing can give you an idea of certain diseases you are more likely to develop than other people. DNA can also link you with your ancestors and show you where they might have come from.

But what exactly is DNA? Deoxyribonucleic Acid is a sort of blueprint for every cell in your body. Your genes are made from DNA. You get half from your mother, and half from your father. The only two people that can have identical DNA are identical twins. In every other case, DNA is a so-called genetic fingerprint. Because it is unique, police and prosecutors look to DNA samples to help catch and convict criminals. In the legal system, DNA samples must be handled carefully.

But people can take their own DNA tests in the privacy of their homes. A blood sample is not necessary. All that is needed is a few cells from the lining of the cheek. A scraping of the lining taken with a swab is enough to do DNA testing. It is most commonly used to determine paternity.

The kit for the test can be ordered online, or bought at a drugstore. The cost for a simple paternity test runs between $100 and $250. You take your own sample, and send it to the lab. If you are trying to establish paternity, you also need a swab of the possible father's cheek, and of the child's cheek. Most labs that do this testing say that they can tell you with greater than 99% accuracy if the person sampled is the child's father, and 100% if he is not.

There are also ways to get the possible father's DNA surreptitiously. Sometimes labs can run the test from a piece of chewed gum, or a hair. Each lab is different, and less-than-perfect samples cost hundreds of dollars more to test.

What else can you do at home? You can prove other familial relationships if there is some question. You can also have your DNA tested to look into your ancestry. The National Geographic Society is even collecting DNA samples from all over the world to create a sort of genetic world map. You can participate by conducting an at-home DNA test, which costs about $100.

Some other types of home DNA testing are probably best avoided. One company says it can tell you as early as 7 to 8 weeks into a pregnancy what the sex of the unborn baby will be. This is allegedly possible because some of the baby's blood mixes in with the mother's blood. You take a sample of the mother's blood at home. If the lab finds a Y chromosome in any of the sample, the baby will be a boy, because only males have a Y chromosome. If no Y chromosome is found, the baby will be a girl. This whole area of DNA testing is not proven, and there are lawsuits at the current time against companies that reported the unborn child's sex incorrectly. There are also ethical issues even if this test were to be perfect.

Another category of DNA testing exists, genetic testing for markers of certain medical conditions. Usually, if this kind of test is necessary, your doctor will order it, and it will be done in a lab that is certified to give accurate results. More importantly, your doctor can advise you what the test means. If you have a certain gene, you have an increased probability of developing a certain disease. It doesn't mean you will get the disease, and a negative test does not mean you won't.

You can do these tests at home. But you will not have anyone to explain what the results really mean. Still, people do these tests, sometimes for privacy, or in order to prevent health insurance companies from knowing the results and perhaps raising their rates. But to test for the right conditions and actually understand what the results mean, you should see your doctor, or in some cases, a geneticist.

As of today, at-home DNA testing is best used to determine paternity or other familial relationships when there is no legal requirement, or to get information about your ancestry.

Ancestry DNA testing

Michael Russell asked:




Genealogy is the study of who is in a family and whom they are related to. The more general study of family history will also try to determine important information about their lives and deaths such as dates of birth and death and employment records. Genealogy has existed since ancient times. Genealogical information was originally transmitted orally and later, through written records. Genealogy was vital in determining the ancestry of rulers and nobles. Detailed genealogical records ensured that the passing down of titles would be done without error. Genealogists helped people displaced by World War II find family members who remained in Europe. Many Irish families used genealogical records to help rediscover family members that have been separated for two or three generations since their families emigrated from Ireland. James Dent Walker founded the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society in 1977. He aided Alex Haley with his book Roots. This book inspired many African Americans to search for their ancestors.

Major events in a person's life are usually recorded and stored at a local, regional or national office. Genealogists locate these records and use them to determine family relationships and recreate timelines. Genealogists generally start from the present and work backward in time. Genealogists may also conduct interviews with living relatives to determine the same information. The success of a genealogist may depend on the volunteer efforts of complete strangers. There are many helpful message boards that will help you find people with particular surnames or who lived in a particular region. Many genealogists contribute their free time and participate in projects such as preparing name indexes for records and placing them online. Other genealogists can then use the name indexes to find these records. There are other projects that transcribe records so that genealogists can find records based on something other than a name. For example, there are projects that transcribe deeds, which allows for searches by land description. You may also look for help from the thousands of genealogical societies around the world. These societies are generally focused on a particular surname, geographic area, or ethnicity. Most of the people who work at these societies are volunteers. These societies have large amounts of genealogy material. They may also publish a newsletter, provide research assistance to the public and offer classes in genealogy. There are two other useful genealogical resources: International Genealogical Index (IGL) and DNA analysis.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints copied most of their available genealogical records onto microfilm. An important part of the Mormon faith is tracing their family history, so there are a lot of records. This resulted in the creation of the IGL. The IGL contains hundreds of millions of records of people that lived between the 1500s and 1870s. These records can be viewed at the Family History Library, which is their main library, in Salt Lake City, Utah. They can also be viewed at the more than 4,000 Family History Centers located near their churches. If you prefer the Internet, then you can view the IGL as well as the Ancestral File, 1880 U.S. Federal Census, Social Security Death Index, Salt Lake City Library Catalog and some American Army Indexes to those who died in the Korean and Vietnam wars on the website FamilySearch. This is especially useful because you can do multiple searches for names, parishes, dates, etc.

DNA analysis has proven to be useful to the field of genealogy because the DNA from your earliest ancestors will be passed down relatively unchanged. A genealogical DNA test can estimate the probability that two people are related. The Molecular Genealogy Research Project is a collection of genetic test results that will be used to match people descended from a direct ancestor. The Genographic Project is a collection of results that can be used to trace human migratory patterns and to determine biogeographical and ethnic origin.

Step-by-Step Genealogy Guide

genetree asked:

By using the DNA tools at GeneTree, you can view where your DNA cousins and ancestors have lived in the past few hundred years and view the predicted migration patterns of your deep ancestors. But that is not all! At GeneTree,you can actually contact and connect with your new found DNA cousins.

Ancestry.com DNA testing