HONOLULU COUNTY GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY MEETING MARCH 11, 2023

  HONOLULU COUNTY GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY

               ZOOM MEETING                        MARCH 11, 2023    SATURDAY 9AM

                           CONTACT  LENORE FOR SIGN-IN INFORMATION

                               MINUTES FOR THE MARCH 11, 2023

    Present: Janice Choat-Zavaval, Lenore Hansen-Stafford, Sue Miller, Isabelle Rivera, Deborah Richards, Ellen Schneider and Donna Wendt

   Meeting began at 9:00 a.m.

   Topic of the Day - DNA

   Sue Miller shared that she has been busy looking into her Irish relatives. She has also been watching DNA Painter tutorials. She especially wanted to note an interesting tutorial on upcoming technology.

   Donna Wendt has also been viewing tutorials and recent 2023 Rootstech online and live presentations. This began an open discussion about DNA. Deborah Richards stated being intrigued by the DNA trees on herAncestry.com account.  

   Using the Zoom Shared Screen, Donna Wendt did a quick overview of Ancestry’s DNA page. Opening the DNA section, one has the option of viewing

      1) your DNA Story which shows your ethnicity estimate;

     2) your DNA Matches; and 3) your ThruLines which are suggestions on how you may be related to your DNA matches. 

    When "Ancestry" introduced the capability of splitting your ethnicities between Parent 1 and Parent 2 that was amazing, but they are now able to specify maternal or paternal ethnicity divisions based on DNA matches to other people in your tree. The key is finding that “common ancestor” in tree connections.  

Matches are difficult to trace without trees, and quite a few matches do not include any family tree.  How does Ancestry do it?  They say "You and your matches have identical segments of DNA, likely passed down from common ancestors. By comparing these segments, we can split your matches into two sides."

     In the DNA Story section you are taken to a map highlighting the portions of the world your ethnicity is linked to. On the right side of the page, scroll down to “DNA Communities”. This section identifies specific cultural groups or locations where your ancestors probably came from.

     In ThruLines, you discover how people in your tree connect with other people’s trees. Treat these matches as a “hint”. Make sure the other trees have good sources and you are able to look deeper to confirm a tree is indeed part of your family. Some trees simply copy other trees if they believe it is a match. You want to find good solid matches.

      If you desire to learn more about DNA there are numerous books, YouTube tutorials, podcasts, blog sites, as well as our choice of online genealogy sites and organizations (Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, FamilyTreeMaker.com, RootsTech, etc).  Besides the “DNA Painter” tutorials, another DNA expert suggested is Christa Cowen, aka as “The Barefoot Genealogist”. She is one of Ancestry’s well known DNA experts with a blog site and YouTube tutorials.

                  
      Donna also demonstrated how to locate Ancestry’s teaching tools.  Begin at Ancestry’s Home page > click on Extras > click on Ancestry Academy. There are many topics listed: Researching Your Military Ancestors in the US, Newspapers.com, Getting the Most Out of Ancestry, Researching Outside the United States, Understanding DNA, Census Records, etc.   Other genealogy sites offer similar teaching tools to their subscribers. The software program,

     LegacyTreeMaker also has wonderful webinars. Subscription is $49.95 for one year.         

     Sometimes you will make a surprising and exciting connection on your genealogy site. Donna recently replied to an Ancestry message. It turned out that this person had a photo of her 3rd great-uncle, Henry Hunt Hague, sitting beside a dog, taken in England, circa 1900, at Newton, England!   

        CALABASH BOWL:

   It was asked, “How does Zoom work?” Lenore provided the following information –

Open up a free account in Zoom.com. You can now create a meeting with your family and friends. Keep in mind that the limit is 40 minutes per meeting. If you choose to pay the monthly fee, then you have 30 hours to meet.  Google has a similar program.

       Interested in creating your own blog? Create one for free at Blogger.com.  To view a great example of a blog site, go to https://anotherdaywithdonna.blogspot.com. This is a personal blog Donna Wendt created full of interesting genealogy data and family stories.

    Organizing our photos and mementos for the generation who follow us can be a daunting task. Do we have a family member who will look through and take possession of our traditional photo albums?  Donna continues to inspire us to organize our collection of photos and keepsakes.  After scanning a stack of photos in her hardworking Epson FF680W scanner she tosses non-essential photos, takes some to her daughter and stores ones she cannot part with. Good portraits are packed

with archival material, but simple snapshots are now sorted by years, placed in zip-lock bags and stored in marked boxes.    Donna also scans letter and files by years. Letters, cards and calendar pages are also scanned and a computer folder created to file them into. Now you can, hopefully, discard those old cards and calendars to create more space.  A great suggestion is to make a timeline of your life, and those in your family.   

800 photos (1600 images front & back) for 1989

     Deborah Richards aptly dubbed Donna a “living archivist” for her family. Yet, all of us who value our families’ history and search for relatives and their stories are also living archivists. Let’s strive to be living archivists for our families while we are able.

    

           Member Notes:

 Alan Toft will be traveling to England, Nice and Italy in April.

 Lenore Hanse-Stafford will be traveling to Turkey at the end of April.

 In mid-April to mid-May, Donna Wendt will be off to Uzbekistan and three other "Stans" in Central Asia.

            We wish our world travelers a safe journey and lots of good memories.

Our next meeting will be on Saturday, April 8, 2023, 9:00 a.m. 

           Sue Miller will discuss DNA Painter.

    Meeting adjourned around 11:18 a.m.

(by Bella Rivera)