CVGS DNA Interest Group 21 November Meeting Notes

The second CVGS DNA Interest Group meeting was on 21 November at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library in the Conference Room.  17 members were in attendance.

Randy demonstrated and discussed AncestryDNA for most of the meeting, including:

*  Settings, and downloading your raw DNA in a ZIP file for upload to another DNA provider.

*  Ethnicity Estimate -- Regions (reference groups), Migrations, and Timeline.  AncestryDNA recently changed and added to their Regions definitions, and now has 15,000 reference group profiles in 350 regions.

*  DNA Circles -- these include descendants from your common ancestors who have an Ancestry Member Tree with your ancestors.  They may not be a DNA Match with you, but are with other DNA Circle members.  A user can see the relationship paths from the common ancestors to themself and to the DNA Circle member.

*  New Ancestor Discoveries -- these are historical persons that may have common ancestors in the trees of DNA Matches with you.  I've never found a tree match.

*  DNA Matches -- these are persons who have a DNA match of at least 6 centiMorgans with you.  The user can search Matches by surname and location; can see how much DNA is shared with a match; can view "Shared Ancestor" matches (a green leaf Hint, with relationship path for you and the match); can view "All Matches" (ordered by amount of shared centiMorgans for each match); can view "Shared Matches" in a list (other matches who share a DNA segment with you and your specific match); indication if a match has a public Ancestry Member Tree, a private tree, an unlinked tree, or no tree at all (you can review public trees and unlinked trees); view a Matches Map on the "All Matches" page.

For each match, the user can Compare ethnicities, send a message, add or edit a Note, and explore available trees to try to find common ancestors.  I use the MedBetter DNA Chrome extension to display my Notes on the All Matches page.

*  Creating a Quick and Dirty Ancestry tree to find common ancestors from public trees or unlinked trees - see Blaine Bettinger's YouTube video here.  I do this in one private unsearchable trees using Ancestry's search capabilities, starting from someone in a Match's tree.

*  To keep track of your AncestryDNA matches, I use a spreadsheet to list Match user name, amount of shared DNA in cM, number of segments, if they have a tree, if they are in another set of DNA matches (like MyHeritage or GEDMatch), and if I have added their line to my RootsMagic tree.

The next DNA Interest Group meeting will be Wednesday, 19 December at 12 noon in the Conference Room at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library (365 F Street, Chula Vista, CA).

CVGS Program Review - November 28th Show and Tell and Officer Election

The November 28th Chula Vista Genealogical Society (CVGS) meeting at the Bonita-Sunnyside Library had two components - election of officers, and a members show-and-tell of oldest heirlooms or antiques.

1)  The slate of Officers elected for the 2019-2020 calendar years were:

*  President -- Karen Smith

*  1st Vice-President, Programs -- Virginia Taylor

*  2nd Vice-President, Membership -- Carrie Holleron

*  Treasurer -- Karen Polk

*  Secretary -- Karen Yarger

The Officers will be installed at the 12 December Annual Holiday Luncheon.

2)  The Show-and-Tell antique presentations included:

*  Karen Y. displayed photographs of her 1790 Pembroke drop-leaf table.

*  Karen S. displayed her 1860s "Shines" doll and a photograph of her grandmother as a child holding the doll.

*  Karen P. showed a photograph of her 80-year old bear doll, which was her grandmother's doll.

*  Rosa G. discussed her 1890s scissors which were her grandmother's

*  Tameron H. displayed her book of her grandfather's bedtime stories titled Indian Wars, and read one of the short stories.

*  Arlene W. discussed five baskets that her grandmother obtained from Pima Indians in Arizona.

*  Sam S. brought his 1936 Crosley battery-operated tube radio that was his grandfather's in Tennessee, and also a cast-iron kettle from the 1800s.

*  Virginia T. showed her small Santa doll, bought in 1936 by a sibling, and on the Christmas tree
every year.

*  Fran C. discussed her hand-made candle holder brought by covered wagon in the late 1800s from the Midwest to San Jose, California.