Friday, October 14, 2016

CVGS Research Group Review - 12 October 2016

The October 12th Research Group meeting had 16 members in attendance.

In the first hour, Randy discussed:

*  The Spyglass File, a forensic genealogy mystery by Nathan Dylan Goodwin, set in World War II England, was fascinating.  It is available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions. 

*  The GEDmatch.com website, which analyzes raw autosomal data from AncestryDNA, 23andMe or FamilyTreeDNA, is a FREE website that analyzes your ethnicity and provides a chromosome browser to show matches with other GEDmatch users.  

*  The group watched the first 30 minutes of the "FAN + GPS + DNA: The Problem-Solver's Great Trifecta" presentation by Elizabeth Shown Mills.  FAN refers to the Friends, Family, Associates and Neighbors concept, GPS refers to the Genealogical Proof Standard, and DNA refers to DNA testing and analysis.  The webinar is in the Archives of FamilyTreeWebinars.com.  Randy encouraged the attendees to watch the rest of the webinar before 17 October while it is free to watch.

In the second hour, we went around the table to hear research problems, questions and successes of the attendees:

*  Diane had a fabulous find of a link to an important historical person - Cristobal Colon.  the great-granddaughter of her 22nd great-grandfather, Garcia de Toledo in Spain, married Diego Colon, son of Cristobal Colon.  She used the FamilySearch Family Tree to find this relationship.

*  Bobbie sent family group sheets for her Titus family to the Lake County, Illinois, Genealogical Society for their files that shows the family coming from Germany and settling in Lake County, Illinois.

*  Bobbie's husband's son has 25% Native-American ancestry according to an autosomal DNA test.  There was great information about Native-American research in the latest issue of Family Tree Magazine.

*  Shirley gleaned several ideas for solving her brick wall problems in upstate New York from the Elizabeth Shown Mills webinar.  She has received many Record Hints for her ancestral families from FamilySearch and MyHeritage.

*  Arlene found a cousin - the writer of the On Granny's Trail blog, who was on a recent radio/podcast program and talked about Arlene's mother's ancestors.  Her mother's uncle is buried in American Samoa, and Mormon missionaries to American Samoa took photos of gravestones there.

*  Helen's mother's first cousin took an autosomal  DNA test and she is awaiting the results.

*  Mary N. found a naturalization record in a FamilySearch index for Antony Casper in 1899 in Ohio.  She asked how to obtain the record.  We brought the index card up on the screen, and it said the record was in Volume 3, page 350 of the Jefferson County, Ohio probate records, which can be obtained on Family History Library microfilm.

*  Bea, who is new to genealogy research, is finding information on FamilySearch to verify her mother's information.

*  Ana has been searching new records for Mexico on FamilySearch and is back to her 4th great-grandparents.

*  JoAnn made a 32 page chart on MyHeritage and put it on a wall at her home.  It's interesting to see the extent of the family.  She is trying to find her grandson's ancestry in Guam; her son-in-law has found a cousin.

The next meeting of the CVGS Research Group will be on Wednesday, 9 November at 12 noon in the Conference Room at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library.

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