Thursday, February 9, 2017

RootsTech 2017 - A Look Back at Thursday

Thursday's focus at RootsTech was DNA. I was fortunate to do an on camera interview with CeCe Moore of DNA Detectives. You may have seen her on Finding Your Roots or 20/20. Once the interview is through production, I'll post it here on The Turning of Generations.

DNA Matching on MyHeritage - Dana Drutman
MyHeritage is a new kid on the block in the DNA arena. If you've tested with another company, you can still take advantage of their offer to upload your DNA data to your MyHeritage account for free. Or alternatively purchase one of their kits. Three highlights of this session:
1.   In line with their strength as an international genealogy company, MyHeritage is identifying groups who have lived in an area for centuries and test those populations. They use this data to calculate your ethnicity estimates when you test with MyHeritage. You can than use your ethnicity results to compare to events in your family tree for research clues.
2.   If you transferred your DNA from another company, you can't take advantage of the ethnicity results and tools. Since they are having a great conference sale price, I took their DNA test on the spot so I can evaluate the ethnicity features. More on that in a month or two after the results come in.
3.   A chromosome browser is in the works.


Also on today's docket was helping Dear Myrtle and Cousin Russ in their computer lab workshop, Smart Phones, Tablets & computers, Oh, My! They briefly discussed LibraryThing, the website for cataloging your personal library. There is an app called LibraryThingScanner. It's now on my smart phone so I can scan the barcodes on books rather than manually entering them in my LibraryThing account. Anything to avoid purchasing multiple copies of the same genealogy book!

Noticeably absent in the exhibit hall this year is the free soda bar. Note to self: come prepared with caffeine tomorrow!

Disclaimer:  I (Michelle Goodrum) am a RootsTech 2017 Ambassador and received complimentary registration to RootsTech along with other perks.
Any opinions expressed are my own. 

 © 2017, copyright Michelle Goodrum

2 comments:

  1. Michelle,

    Thank you for helping us in the computer Lab. You were right there when a member of the class needed a little assistance.

    Always a pleasure to see you and spending a few minutes with you. The work you did in the Lab was very special.

    Thank you,

    Russ

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