Good times at the 2017 NGS conference

* Being present Friday when my friend and colleague Karen Stanbary was presented the award for outstanding article published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly in 2016: "Rafael Arriaga, a Mexican Father in Michigan: Autosomal DNA Helps Identify Paternity." Even readers not fluent in DNA will be able to glimpse the power in this technique.

* Hearing LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson's eloquent and nuanced talk at the BCG luncheon Thursday, "Condemnation of Memory: Recalling that African American Genealogy Is American Genealogy" -- which introduced me to some new tools as well.

* Hearing presentations by David Ouimette on Thursday ("Silent Border Crossings: Tracing the Elusive Immigrant Who Left Only Breadcrumbs for Clues") and Thomas W. Jones on Friday ("Converting a Bunch of Information into a Credible Conclusion"). Assemblage is a key intermediate stage between gathering evidence and writing it up. Sometimes we can do it in our heads, but in the more difficult cases we need to lay it all out in plain sight.

* Talking with genealogists, both vintage and new. It seems that is now the main thing I do at national conferences.

* Spending several days within a few blocks of the North Carolina State Archives . . . without ever actually getting there!

* Appreciating the ongoing work to establish good standards for the use of DNA in genealogy.

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Methodology Monday with NGS Magazine on women and DNA

The April-June issue of NGS Magazine includes two introductory "gateway" articles (including further references) that can help us jump-start some potentially neglected aspects of our genealogy:

* Jane E. Wilcox on "Finding American Women's Voices through the Centuries." In research on five centuries of records on her surname family, "The records where I most often 'heard' their voices were court records, letters, journals, and newspapers."

* Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, on "Using Autosomal DNA for Genealogy." Unlike more familiar male-line Y-DNA and female-line MtDNA, autosomal DNA involves the other 22 chromosomes. Over the generations DNA from the two parents is mixed but some comparatively long segments are retained. To make the ancestral connection, both automated and hand analysis of matches and an accurate document-based family tree (preferably including collaterals) is needed. "The atDNA test offered today for genealogical purposes looks primarily at five hundred thousand or more individual locations or markers on the chromosomes. The value at each location of one person is compared to the same location of another person . . . . It takes work to determine who a common ancestor is."


Jane E. Wilcox, "Finding Women's Voices through the Centuries," NGS Magazine vol. 40 (April-June 2014):28-32.


Debbie Parker Wayne, "Using Autosomal DNA for Genealogy," NGS Magazine vol. 40 (April-June 2014):50-54.



Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with NGS Magazine on women and DNA," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 16 June 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]