Gaining a Family Treasure: The Barnett Family Bible (or How to Increase the Chances People Will Contact You about Your Ancestors and How to Find Cousins)

Have you ever had a family treasure almost drop into your lap? Recently it happened to me. And it happened to me because I make sure my name and my family tree are publicly accessible. This is the story of how an 1811 Barnett family Bible came into my possession. It’s also a guide to how you can make yourself findable or find people without paying for a membership at any website. But first, some historical notes about research and sharing genealogy from my experience.

From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, I worked on my family history, saving what I learned in file folders and then Reunion (a software program for Mac users where I diligently associated facts with sources). My family history information was held privately and exchanges of information happened through exchanging letters and photocopies with cousins I met through other cousins. When the internet arrived, I joined listservs and bulletin boards to share information about family history. Distant cousins exchanged disks and electronic files. Then membership sites arrived like Ancestry. Currently, family historians can save their family trees and documents in paid membership sites or share that information where the public can access it without the barrier of cost. Find a Grave, FamilySearch, and WikiTree are three examples. All three offer free membership and two (Find a Grave and WikiTree) can be seen by anyone without a membership. The benefits of sharing in publicly accessible places became clear when I received the following message:

Screenshot of an email

What? A family Bible mentioning my ancestors, who were born in the 1700s? Who was James Barnett? Was this really about my family?

Thankfully the seller on ebay had taken photos of the Bible pages with genealogical information and it was enough to reveal that this Bible contained information about my ancestors, John Barnett and Lucy (Matlock) Barnett. It almost certainly belonged to the descendants of their son, James Barnett. Some of the information about my direct ancestors was recorded after the fact but there were children listed that I had not known about, and James Barnett’s descendants were new to me and likely recorded closer to the times of the events. With the help of a friend (an experienced ebay buyer and seller), I purchased the Bible below the posted price. It is now waiting for me at my friend’s home. She has taken better pictures of it, such as the marriage page below.

Barnett Family Bible, portion of the Marriages page

The only reason I found out about this Bible is because I posted a note on John Barnett’s Find a Grave profile as shown below.

My 5x-great grandfather, John Barnett on Find a Grave

Whenever I complete a WikiTree profile of an ancestor, like John Barnett, I add a sunflower and a link to the WikiTree profile to the Flowers page at Find a Grave. I mention my relationship to the person on the memorial to help cousins find me and to give them the opportunity to find more information about our shared ancestor through the WikiTree link. Without this simple sunflower post, I would not have been contacted about the Barnett Bible.

That brings us to the first opportunity to make you and your family visible: Find a Grave. anyone can look at Find a Grave, and you need a membership to contribute. Membership is free and you can be visible by adding flowers and links like I do. You can also be helpful by connecting family members to each other, suggesting edits, and contributing photos. Note: Find a Grave was purchased by Ancestry in 2013.

In addition to Find a Grave, I’ve also made myself visible on FamilySearch and WikiTree.

On FamilySearch, you can make yourself visible by adding sources (number 1 in image below), posting notes or discussions in the collaborate tab, or sharing memories (3).

John Barnett on FamilySearch

FamilySearch users can be messaged by clicking on their user name, and it may be worthwhile to click on people who have been editing members of your family. They could be volunteers or they could be cousins.

Under collaborate, you can choose to write a note to other researchers or have a discussion about a topic as shown below.

Family Search Collaborate tab

The person who posted the Note above seemed pretty frustrated, so I chose to message them about the Barnett family Bible as an additional source.

The message system at FamilySearch

I also decided to add a PDF of the transcribed Barnett Family Bible to the Memories tab. I will add photographs once I have a chance to take them myself.

John Barnett with the Bible Transcription added as a PDF to the Memories Tab

Now that I’ve done several things to help people find me, I can now search for cousins who descend from John Barnett. Navigate to the “View Tree” tab for any ancestor.

Navigation to the Tree Tab at FamilySearch

In the tree tab you can choose how to view the tree. The descendants view incorporates down arrows to open additional detail, eventually bringing you to living descendants who have memberships at FamilySearch. Instead of having you scroll down an incredibly long page, I’ve put three images side-by-side here to show the path to me. (Usually I would be looking for other descendants, but you get the idea!)

Descendant view on FamilySearch from John Barnett to me

The third option, and my favourite way to be findable or to find people is through WikiTree. In order for these options to work, you need to sign up for WikiTree and connect yourself to the tree. There are three main ways people may find you (or you can find people) on WikiTree: Using the descendants tab, managing ancestor profiles, and DNA Connections. I’ve numbered them in the image below. (In all of the images below, purple hypertext indicates I’ve clicked on a link in the past.) This is the WikiTree profile for John Barnett .

WikiTree profile of John Barnett

The descendants tab adds a descendant view to the profile, and you can find more recent generations using the blue arrow next to a named descendant, almost identical to the descendant view on FamilySearch. I’ve scrolled down a bit to find my branch of the family. Lucy F. (Walker) Key is my 2x great-grandmother and the great-granddaughter of John Barnett. The blue arrow icon next to my grandfather, Lindell Scott Johnson, indicates there are descendants below him. (This arrow will be a dark pink for a female ancestor.) You can also see a green DNA checkmark, indicating there is a DNA tester in this line who has confirmed this relationship. Handy information for your research!

More descendants of John Barnett in the descendant diagram, down to my grandfather, Lindell Scott Johnson

Clicking on the blue arrow icon opens the descendants tab on Lindell’s profile. You will see the green DNA checkmark next to my mother and me.

The descendancy diagram ending with me

The second way people may find you is if you manage a profile. You can click on the connections icon next to the name of the profile manager to see their connection. I’m using the profile of Lindell’s mother, Lillie May (Key) Johnson, for this example.

Profile manager Connections icon

The image that comes up shows the connections with green boxes indicating a biological connection. If I weren’t a direct descendant, the boxes would switch to yellow indicating a connection through marriage.

Connection of the profile manager to the person being profiled on WikiTree

The third way to make sure you are found on WikiTree is to notify WikiTree that you have done DNA testing so that you will show up in the DNA Connections box on a profile. WikiTree is not a DNA website and the only DNA information available is shared by WikiTree genealogists voluntarily.

Many descendants of John Barnett have taken DNA tests and shared information on WikiTree. The DNA Connections box is arranged with those who inherited the most DNA from John Barnett at the top. The first person on the list is my mother.

DNA Connections for John Barnett.

If you are finding cousins, you can click on any name and you will be taken to their profile where you can message them with one click. They will receive an email with your message. If you want to be on this list, you need to let WikiTree know that you have done DNA testing. To do that, go to your profile page and click on the Add Menu at the top.

Use the Add menu to Add DNA test information to your WikiTree profile

That opens your DNA Tests page where you can either edit or remove existing tests or add new tests. Click on “Add New Test.”

DNA Tests Menu at WikiTree

After you click on the button you will fill out the boxes to add your test. There are templates for Ancestry, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage and GEDmatch. Include as much information as you want in the boxes.

Add information for each DNA test you’ve completed

After you’ve clicked the “Add Test” button, your test will be added to your ancestors profiles. It may take a day for it to populate throughout the tree. After your DNA has been added, anyone looking at your ancestor on WikiTree will see your name associated with that ancestor up to 6x great-grandparents for autosomal DNA. YDNA and mtDNA will be populated to all of your direct paternal or maternal ancestors that are associated with that test.

I hope this review of three ways to be findable and find cousins on publicly available websites has been useful to you. And I also hope you were doing the genealogy happy dance with me when the Bible came my way! I wish for you the same good fortune through being “out there in public” with your research.

23andMe. Well, maybe not me.

The DNA world received the news last week that 23andMe filed for bankruptcy. This has been a long time coming. I’ve collected some of the best information about the situation here:

To get the information straight from 23andMe, read their press release here or their open letter to customers.

As always, Roberta Estes provides a summary and action steps in her blog, DNAeXplained. Leah Larkin provided her perspective a couple of days later, 23andMe is Reorganizing. It’s Okay. Diahan Southard posted a video on Instagram.

The Vancouver Sun provided a Canadian perspective here, stating that experts advised deleting data. NPR provided analysis as well. The Attorney General of California posted a consumer alert.

You are the only person who knows your own tolerance of risk. I have not used 23andMe as much as I use other DNA testing company websites, since the company was not designed to assist people with genealogy research. Yes, I did look for matches there and use the chromosome browser (when it existed), but the emphasis at 23andMe has always been on the health aspects of DNA.

My hope is that those leaving 23andMe will download their data first (it’s what they paid for) and transfer their DNA to MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, or LivingDNA. These three companies accept autosomal DNA transfers. All three have unique tools and customers and spotless records for privacy and security. Maybe I’ll see you there!

WikiTree Has a New Look!

Over the past year, a team of paid consultants and volunteer developers at WikiTree created an updated look for WikiTree. WikiTree, the free, one-world tree, is the place I share my best genealogical research. Check out my profile to see how active I am on WikiTree. I joined in 2017 and since then I have edited hundreds of profiles, created Free Space Pages, and I manage over 350 profiles. I’ve used the old system and the new one to edit and create profiles and Free Space Pages. I’m very familiar with WikiTree, including its strengths and shortcomings.

WikiTree is a publicly available website and far more likely to outlast me than any other place my research resides. WikiTree is not known for flash. After all, without income from memberships (WikiTree is financed by unobtrusive ads that are only shown to non-members or members who are not logged in), WikiTree lacks the budget power of Ancestry, MyHeritage, or software companies. They have done an amazing job with the redesign.

Let’s take a look at some of the updates on the profile of Arthur Hilton. I’m his two-times-great grand-niece. He died young, and he’s one of the people I honour at WikiTree.

Side-by-side comparison of old and new

The overall look is cleaner and better organized. The huge grey border (a total waste of space) is gone and there’s a better balance between the two columns. The larger font is easier to read and the use of colour makes sense. See that blue box? It’s a visual cue that I’m looking at the profile of a biological male. The hypertext is green and links you have clicked are purple.

Wiki ID and menus

The area for the WikiTree ID and dropdown menus has been streamlined and cleaned up. The menus are more visible with the larger font and the menus themselves contain less clutter. (The menus are not shown here! Click on one and check them out!)

Copyable text options

The visibility of useful copyable text options is perfect! In the old version, they were almost invisible in tiny green font. They are now clearly marked with a new copy icon, familiar from other websites. I use these links when sharing profiles in emails, adding links within profiles, and in my research logs. And if you like to cite WikiTree, you can do that here with one click.

Menu placement and improved icons

Like all good websites, there’s usually more than one way to navigate. This menu in grey background is a redesigned tab menu. It uses icons and text to move commonly used features and actions together. The more experienced WikiTree user wants to access profiles and features quickly without scrolling, and here they are. I’m referring to this as the “Quick Menu.” Well done, design team! I love the simple navigation arrows and ability to jump to the part of the profile I want to see, (including the ancestors and descendants tabs), the “edit” pencil, the profile change history icon, familiar privacy icon (padlock), and the new Tree apps icon.

Key details and relationships

Information that was small and difficult to parse is now separated with better placement in the profile. Key details (birth and death with locations and certainty indicators) now appears immediately below the larger, improved name block. Relationship information is in the shaded block, blue for Arthur, a biological male.

Finding the profile manager is also easier.

The new profile manager section

The profile manager formerly appeared in small font in the crowded area on the left. It now has its own shaded block on the right. In addition to allowing an instant email to the profile manager, there is now a redesigned “connections” icon which allows you to see how the profile manager is connected to the profile. In the past, I needed to go to another part of WikiTree to see this information. Now when I contact a profile manager, I may gain insight of their motivation to create or manage the profile.

The next improvement may be lost on many WikiTreer users.

Better placement of Ancestors and Problems/Questions buttons

As part of the Ambassador team at WikiTree and someone who is often demonstrating WikiTree, I appreciate that the Ancestors Button and Problems/Questions buttons are no longer in a similar position with the same design. Note: There would be a descendants button on the “old” version if Arthur had descendants. The new design allows the user to access ancestors or descendants using the icon in the grey Quick Menu bar or using the clearly visible tab.

New Ancestor View

Either option opens a family tree for Arthur, also with an improved look and feel. It features separated colour blocks, cleaner font and icons, and arrows to navigate further back in the tree. The Descendants view has similar improvements.

Back on the profile page, it’s time to look at the treatment of DNA in the new profile.

DNA Connections

DNA Connections can now be accessed via the Quick Menu in grey and is found in a familiar location along the right, now below a redesigned photo section. Again, the text block is cleaner, easier to read, and only contains the information it needs to contain.

Images are now Photos

The old images block sometimes made a simple profile like Arthur’s lopsided, with the photos dominating the right side. A new photo block allows you to toggle through the uploaded images using a navigation arrow to the side of each photo. You can also navigate quickly to the “Upload Photos” page, which has also received an update and is cleaner and easier to use. Again, kudos to the Design Team and programmers. They went over this website with a fine-toothed comb!

Collaboration stands out

In the past, the use of yellow background wasn’t clear to me. Now yellow highlights collaboration and ongoing research. The collaboration language is friendly and clear. The research block encourages people to check out the incredibly useful WikiTree Sourcer Extension (which works great with the new updates.)

Comments, Matches and Merges, and useful Connection and Relationship Information

Scrolling down, you can see how the new design makes better use of space – there is not a huge empty block to the left. In profiles with a longer biography, there will be blank space to the smaller right side of the page. The Comments and Match and Merge sections have gotten the cleaner, pithier treatment, and thankfully, the text with “See your connection or your genealogical relationship with Arthur” is now separated from the Featured Connections text.

Even the footer is now easier to read and more pleasing to the eye.

I know this is a tiny glimpse of all that was accomplished with this redesign, and there’s much more I haven’t noticed yet. I look forward to finding the features I’ve missed, and new features that may replace what I’ve shown here.

Well done, WikiTree!

And if you’re new to WikiTree, welcome! Check out the Help links on WikiTree and useful information at the WikiTree YouTube channel.

The Lure of Small DNA Segments

Several times a year I am asked about a small segment match. For the purposes of this blog, I am considering anything below 8 centimorgans (cM) a small segment.

Many experienced and eloquent genetic genealogists have written on this topic. The titles of their articles include a spoiler alert:

Measuring DNA

To understand why small segments are deceptive, it’s important to understand how DNA matching is measured. When you look at a DNA match list at any company, you will see the shared cM amount between you and your match. But that’s not all they use to determine if you are a match. Each company has a threshold for sharing which incorporates shared cMs and other characteristics of the DNA data. This may include matching on one or both chromosomes (remember you get one from each parent), the SNP density (referring to how rich the genetic information is – a very complex topic I don’t pretend to understand), the number of segments you share, and endogamy. Endogamy is the situation where groups of people, often geographically or culturally isolated, partnered with each other over hundreds or thousands of years. The result is that you can have many relationships with your matches, which inflates the amount of shared DNA. If you come from an endogamous population, you need to share more DNA in larger segments to be considered a DNA match. The ISOGG wiki has a table that compares the DNA testing companies matching criteria in detail. Search for “Criteria for matching segments” in the ISOGG Wiki link.

In genetic genealogy, we create images of shared cMs that make measuring DNA look like a simple thing you could do with a ruler, with coloured bars indicating shared segments of DNA. In the image below, I’ve used DNA Painter, importing data from known paternal DNA matches in the blue shaded portion near the top of the image and known maternal matches in the pink section in the lower part of the image. Each different coloured bar represents a different shared ancestor.

A public version of my chromosome painting from DNA Painter

The most basic definition of shared cM dances around the issue of what is actually being measured:

cM: “a unit of measure for autosomal DNA segments. The more DNA we share with someone in centimorgans, the more closely related we are.” Leah Larkin PhD

These simple images and definitions cover up the wealth of science behind what is actually being measured. The ISOGG Wiki provides the following definition for centimorgan:

A centimorgan…is a unit of recombinant frequency which is used to measure genetic distance. It is often used to imply distance along a chromosome, and takes into account how often recombination occurs in a region. A region with few cMs undergoes relatively less recombination. The number of base pairs to which it corresponds varies widely across the genome (different regions of a chromosome have different propensities towards crossover). One centiMorgan corresponds to about 1 million base pairs in humans on average. The centiMorgan is equal to a 1% chance that a marker at one genetic locus on a chromosome will be separated from a marker at a second locus due to crossing over in a single generation.

Whoa! This definition reminds me that I will never understand everything there is about genetic genealogy, and that there are scientists who developed the strategies the DNA testing companies use. Blaine Bettinger has summarized company information on segments and matching here. I have to keep reminding myself that cM measurement isn’t like the length of ribbon, it’s about how likely it is that the DNA will split apart when an egg or sperm is being made.

False matching

Even with all of this science, a match on your match list at a DNA testing company might not be real. How can that be?

That small segment might be a pseudosegment, a false segment which leads to false matches. This can happen because the DNA company takes your DNA apart into the two chromosomes and puts it back together again. Sometimes it is put back together wrong, weaving back and forth between the father’s and mother’s DNA. The smaller the segment, the greater the chance it is a pseudosegment. (For more information and an illustration, see Identical By Descent in the ISOGG Wiki.)

If you have transferred your DNA to another testing company (FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage allow DNA transfers) or you are using the third-party site, GEDmatch, your small segment might be due to imputation or be from a known pile-up region.

Imputation. Whenever anyone does a DNA test, there are some regions that can’t be read (“no-calls”) and those sections are estimated (imputed). This happens at every DNA testing company. If a DNA company has changed their testing chip over the years they use imputation to allow them to analyze the DNA in the sections of the chip that differ. For companies that accept transfers and GEDmatch, there will always be imputation because of the number of different chips they are analyzing and comparing to each other. Every company does imputation using the methods their scientists have developed. Imputation can create a small segment and it can also separate a larger segment into two segments. Roberta Estes has a three part series in her blog on imputation starting here.

There are pile-up regions where many people have the same DNA. These are also called excess IBD (Identical by Descent). Testing companies don’t report those regions (they have algorithms that leave them out of DNA matching), but GEDmatch reports these regions. More on that in the ISOGG Wiki. Jonny Perl has included the known pile-up areas in DNA Painter; a grey bar with horizontal stripes appears above each chromosome where they are known to happen. In the image above of chromosome 1, you can see the grey bar in the middle above the blue-shaded area. When you click on the grey bar, you will find additional information about that pile-up region. I’ve provided a close-up below of a pile-up region for Chromosome 22. The explanatory text box is on the left. The painting on the right shows data from GEDmatch. In 2023, I shared DNA in this pile-up region with 75 people. I know it’s a pile-up area because there are so many matches and I can see the grey bar with the diagonal stripes at the top. I don’t consider these DNA matches even though they share 10-14 cM with me on that chromosome.

DNA Painter notation about a pile-up area on Chromosome 22 and an example of my match data from GEDmatch

Two additional complications with small segments

Many people do DNA testing to learn more about their country or region origin. Some companies call this ethnicity results. The best term for this kind of data is biogeographical ancestry – where your distant ancestors were at a point in time. That information is also in our chromosomes. That’s complication number one. Your small segment could be Identical by Population, as described by Roberta Estes.  Everyone or almost everyone who descends from people on the same migratory population path for thousands of years has the same segment of DNA.

Complication number two pertains to your goal. Many of us do DNA testing because we want to find our ancestors and give them names. We can do that if our matches occur within a genealogical time frame, defined as the time when their might be documents to help us. Your small segment could be from an ancestor not within a genealogical time frame. Using simulated DNA data, Leah Larkin has found a 10 cm match could be a 9th cousin, meaning you share 8x great-grandparents. For most of us, this is at the edge of documentary genealogy. A smaller segment, such as 7 cM could be from a 10th great-grandparent or a 40th great-grandparent or there is a 58% chance it is false. (Simulated data from Leah Larkin. Data on false segment size is from Tim Jantzen in the ISOGG Wiki. See Blaine Bettinger for company specific information on false segment sizes. )

At the third party DNA site, GEDmatch, you can alter the matching thresholds to below what the testing companies are doing. This is where the danger lies. Just because you can set a lower threshold doesn’t mean you should.

But I match someone with a LOT of small segments!

If all of the segments are small, the most likely explanation is endogamy. As mentioned earlier, the strategy for working with endogamous communities is to use larger segments and avoid the small ones. If you are working with an endogamous community, you will be applying different strategies to analyze your DNA. Paul Woodbury has a two part series Dealing with Endogamy. He also lectures and teaches courses. You can seek out presentations and courses by Dr. Adina Newman. Diahan Southard offers an Endogamy Course (full disclosure, I work for Diahan Southard as a coach). Leah Larkin, the DNA Geek, periodically offers an Endogamy lecture and writes about Endogamy in her blog. I recommend all of these from personal experience.

A rational approach to using segment data

With documentary genealogy, we know we need to start with the present and work our way back. You can do the same thing in genetic genealogy using segment data. Jim Bartlett, author of the blog segment-ology, calls this “walking the segment back.”

Let me introduce you to some of my ancestors and DNA-tested cousins in the image below. Skip to the next paragraph if this type of family tree diagram is familiar to you. If it’s not, what follows is a description of the diagram and a reminder of relationship terminology and abbreviations. In the image, I’m at the bottom in a light blue box. My dad is immediately above me, then my granddad, then my great-grandparents, Walter Hale Davis and May (Hilton) Davis in green. All the cousins that I share with the ancestral couple of Walter and May are in green. SG, CP, MR, and I are second cousins, because second cousins share great-grandparents. PK, CP’s parent, my dad, MR’s parent, and JS are all first cousins to each other because they share Walter and Mary as grandparents. Since I am one generation younger than these first cousins, I am their first cousin once removed (1C1R). Moving up the diagram, Walter’s parents were William Hale Davis and Sarah Jane (Ellis) Davis. A descendant of Walter’s sibling has also done a DNA test. RD is shown in a light green to match William and Sarah Jane. Since William and Sarah Jane are RD’s great-grandparents and RD is one generation older than me, we are second cousins once removed (2C1R). And up at the top are my 3x-great grandparents, Rev. T.O. Ellis, MD and his wife, Elizabeth (Long) Ellis, in the dark green. I share this ancestral couple (T.O. and Elizabeth) with two cousins (siblings, GS and DM) also in dark green in the lower right. T.O. and Elizabeth are the 2x-great grandparents of GS and DM, so we are third cousins once removed (3C1R).

Ancestors and corresponding DNA matches in relationship to me

MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA allow DNA testers to download the segments you share with your DNA matches. If you know your relationship to a DNA match, you can assign the segment to an ancestral couple. In the image below of Chromosome 1, I started by “painting” the DNA from my great-grandparents, Walter Hale Davis and May (Hilton) Davis with green. You always receive DNA from great-grandparents, so that’s a great place to start painting your DNA. I painted the segment data from two 1C1R (PK and JS) and three 2C (SG, CP and MR). I didn’t really need SG since their parent has also tested, but it is a good illustration of how DNA segments tend to get smaller every generation. The lightest green match (RD) is a 2C1R who shares my 2x great-grandparents, William Hale Davis and Sarah Jane (Ellis) Davis. If you look at the comparison of PK to RD, you can see that RD is contained within the green segment from my great-grandparents. This makes sense. The DNA from PK came from either my Davis ancestor or my Hilton ancestor, and it’s clear that most or all of it came from Davis, since I don’t share Hilton ancestors with RD. Then I have two siblings, DM (13.2 cM) and GS (11.8 cM) who both descend from my 3x-great grandparents, Rev. Thomas Oliver Ellis, MD and Elizabeth (Long) Ellis. The same pattern holds: the segment fits within the segment from RD, who is both a Davis and an Ellis. Dark green is either Ellis or Long or both.

Detail of Chromosome 1 DNA Public Version of a DNA Painting at DNA Painter.com

I may some day find a cousin who descends from Rev. Ellis’ father, Josiah Shelton Ellis, or more distant ancestors, but the chances get increasingly remote as we go further back in time. If an ancestor has no or few siblings, the line could have died out. If there are recent immigrants, they may not be in the testing databases. By using this methodology, I can be more confident that a smaller segment came from a more distant ancestor. Note: The smallest segments I painted are both over 10 cM and came from 3x great-grandparents and 3C1R matches. The average segment size for a 3C1R is 16 cM based on simulated data from Leah Larkin.

If you are interested in using segment data, consider encouraging your matches to upload to MyHeritage. Why? It’s free to upload your DNA, they have good privacy protections, and in addition to being able to gather the data for chromosome painting, there are other useful tools for genealogy at MyHeritage.

The constant plea: Test the oldest generations of your family now!

We can enhance our reach by testing the oldest generation. They will have larger segments to work with and are one step closer to your ancestors. If you have any older relatives (parents, aunts, uncles, cousins one generation older), buy a DNA test for them. (Watch for sales!) Then visit them personally and make sure they do all the steps for the DNA kit to be activated and usable.

Summary

Genetic genealogists avoid using small segments when making genealogical conclusions. There is science behind the limitations of DNA matching. Genetic genealogy needs to be treated like documentary research: start with the present and work your way back.

 

The benefits of taking a break

Sunrise at Kilauea Crater, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, photo by Connie Davis

I’m returning from a wonderful trip to the Big Island, and I’m privileged to have that opportunity. I’m reflecting on the benefits of a break.

According to the Harvard Business Review, vacations benefit “mind, body, and soul.” The potential benefits include an uncluttered mind, improved creativity, and enhanced mood. A reduction in circulating stress hormones allows the immune system to recover and can reduce your blood pressure. And if you are in your “happy place,” you may have the opportunity to reconnect with who you truly are and what matters to you.

The vacation was an opportunity to reflect on the beauty of the world around me and on serendipity. When our rental car was unexpectedly available at midnight, we added a middle-of-the-night visit to Kilauea Crater to our agenda and saw glowing lava and a beautiful sunrise. When our rental car’s “Check Engine” light came on during our first day, our budget rental was replaced with a brand-new 11-miles-on-the-odometer SUV, perfect for our seven nights of beach camping. When a storm caused the Hawaii County officials to close their parks to overnight campers, we were able to find a sweet, inexpensive hotel room in a family-owned operation one block from a beach where turquoise blue waves crashed into the rocky shore. As an added bonus, whales cavorted offshore. When another camper couldn’t finish his last papaya before boarding his flight, we received an unexpected treat of the delectable fruit. We were among the less than one thousand people who will visit a protected national wildlife reserve in 2025. Our trip did end with a return to our own vehicle at 11:45 PM, buried under 6 inches of snow with a dead battery. Luckily we were prepared with a Battery Jump Starter and it started right away. (Seriously, if you don’t have a Battery Jump Starter, add it to your wish list!)

Our travel experiences remind me that I need to accept my family history research journey with the same attitude of wonder and the ability to change strategies as needed. I’m easing my way back into my genetic genealogy projects with renewed energy and hope.