As I watched the webinar "Watch Geoff Live - DNA", a Legacy Family Tree Webinar, it finally dawned on me how important it is to have a public family tree. I have defended my private Ancestry tree because not only did someone cherry-pick my ancestors but when I sent her a welcome family message she was very nasty in shooting me down. Anyway, I was prompted to listen to the webinar from a Facebook post on a genealogy group. In another Facebook genealogy group a member posted on how she made cousin connections through her public tree and several of the comments to her post spoke about the need to have a public tree so DNA cousins can connect. Geoff Rasmussen, a regular presenter and moderator for the Family Tree webinars, looked at his grandmother's DNA results for the first time in a live webinar while Diahan Southland guided him through the results -- what things meant and how to interpret / evaluate family connections. Ms. Southland is a DNA expert and webinar presenter. Through each step of the presentation, Geoff's enthusiasm and awe was contagious!
So the ancestors have spoken (these instances are not a coincidence) and I started a bare bone family tree with names, dates, and locations. I stress that I have started because I became distracted by a "bright shiny object" -- Kitty Cooper's Blog which was also mentioned in the comments on the one Facebook group post. Kitty's blog posts are clear and concise -- just what a newbie like me needs to get a handle on DNA.
Through the years I've so many complicated graphics about how DNA is passed down that I only get more confused. So I used the term "DNA genealogy" in Google images to find a visual that would help me. The two images below spoke to me about how DNA is passed down through the generations.
Now back to my bare bones tree . . .
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| From www.genealogyandfamilyhistory.com |
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| From phillipsdnaproject.com |
