The New Family Tree Magazine: Episode 120

Need help deciding which DNA test is right for you? In this month’s podcast we’ll share tips for selecting your test. We’re also discussing Family Tree Magazine‘s new look. Join us!

Ep. 120: May 2018

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In this episode:

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News from the Blogosphere with Diane Haddad

Introducing Family Tree Magazine‘s new look!

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Top Tips

Top tips for selecting the right DNA kit with Shannon Combs-Bennett

Shannon suggests:

• Start with asking yourself “What do you want to find out?”
• Think of DNA as another genealogical records
• Go beyond Autosomal DNA. Consider Mitochondrial (your mother’s direct line) and YDNA (your father’s direct line) testing offered only by Family Tree DNA.
• If you’re tight on money, keep an eye out for sales which are run regularly

Look for Shannon’s 5 part series which will offer practical tips about each genetic genealogy testing service on the Family Tree Magazine website in the coming months.

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101 Best Websites

Lisa chats with David Fryxell, author of the 101 Best Websites for Tracing Your Family History, about Elephind.com, the historical newspaper archive search engine.

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Family Tree University Crash Course

Gena Philibert-Ortega, instructor at Family Tree University, shares tips from her Become an Ancestry.com Power User class.

Tips:

1. One important thing to remember about Ancestry is that it’s not just about searching on an ancestor’s name. Yes, we do that for the census, vital records, and other databases but there are collections that do not include names. Let me explain…Ancestry has collections like the Sears Catalog, postcards, and photos. The Sears Catalog is one of my favorites. This is a great database for understanding your ancestor’s life, identifying fraternal order jewelry in photos, or even learning more about the dishes and kitchen tools you inherited.

2. Use a Private Tree to work out problems. Ancestry.com family trees needn’t be public proclamations of your research. They can be a private tree where you work out if that Samuel Johnson is really your Samuel Johnson. Once you feel comfortable with your results you can make the tree public, download it to your genealogy software program, or you can delete it altogether.

Class topics include:

• The Online Family Tree
• Searching Ancestry’s Online Records
• Ancestry.com DNA
• Using Ancestry.com to solve research problems

This class is more than just searching Ancestry.com, it’s about taking your ancestry subscription and making the most of the tools that are offered.

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The Publisher’s Desk with Allison Dolan

Allison share background on Family Tree Magazine’s history, it’s mission, what’s changed, and where to find it! If you’d like to sign up for one of the memberships discussed in this segment, visit our subscription page.

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Your Host: Lisa Louise Cooke

Listen to Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems Podcast in your favorite podcasting app or with the Genealogy Gems Podcast app in your app store, and visit her website for great research ideas, podcast episodes and videos.

Have fun climbing your family tree!