October Research Group Summary

The 10 October Research Group meeting of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society had 20 attendees.  

In the first hour, Randy shared his mitochondrial (Ancestry), Y-chromosome (Ancestry) and autosomal DNA (FamilyTreeDNA and AncestryDNA) test results with the group so that they could see the process of receiving, matching and analyzing the test results.  

Kitty shared her autosomal test results (from AncestryDNA), and had been contacted by a cousin who provided the identity of Kitty's 4th-great-grandfather.  

In the second hour, we shared our recent research challenges, questions and successes:

*  Connie is trying to write a letter to her adopted brother's relatives, and is struggling.  The group suggested that she check the Adoption message boards for examples and advice.  

*  Olive's grandson needed family information on causes of death for a school project, and she helped him out.

*  Kitty helped her granddaughter find a newspaper article about Kitty's stepfather's war medals.

*  John found quite a bit of helpful information in The Essex Antiquarian, new on the shelves at the Chula Vista library.

*  Shirley noted that Carlsbad library has removed periodicals from the shelves, and users need to request specific issues at the desk.  

*  Karen's grandson wanted information about his ancestry, and she forwarded links to the LeCompte family website to help him out.

*  Helen is still searching the 1940 US census for her grandmother without success.  She also noted that some California death certificates now have ethnic background included.

*  Bobbie received her mitochondrial DNA results, and will join the X haplogroup.

*  Marie's uncle had a piece of the roof from a Friends meeting house in Pennsylvania, and she hopes to receive it from the family.

*  Ken had a hard drive failure, and needs to use Family Tree Maker to see the shaky leaves.

*  Diane found a relative in Italy and they are now friends on Facebook.

*  Ralph's trip to San Antonio was successful, he visited family, and found his grandparents marriage record.

*  Sam recommends checking the "More results" link in Family Tree Maker Web Search )on Ancestry.com) - there may be additional records.  Randy suggested using "list by category" instead of "sort by relevance" on Ancestry.

*  Susi is working on her Mattison family from NY/MA.  A Mattison cousin owned land in the 1870 census in Iowa, so she will try to obtain land records there to see if family information can be obtained.

*  Randy mentioned that Adele had asked about what to do with her photo albums, since she has no close family.  This is a common problem, and a local historical or genealogical society may be the answer.  

*  Randy noted that he was adding information to photo albums on 1000Memories, he's mining the Record Matches on MyHeritage, and that he has created 10 generation ancestral reports and saved them in PDF format to Dropbox and Scribd.com, where they are searchable.

The next CVGS Research Group will be Wednesday, 13 November at 12 noon in the Conference Room at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library.