Have you taken a DNA test, and apart from seeing your ethnicity estimates, you wonder what’s next? Have you tried to get in contact with a ‘DNA match’ and not got a response? Have you found ‘surprise matches’ and are unsure what to do about that. Or maybe you haven’t even taken a test, and wonder what all the fuss is about? Or you’ve heard about DNA tests being used by authorities to catch criminals and it’s made you wary. All of these aspects and plenty more will covered at Unlock the Past’s upcoming event “DNA Down Under“.

Blaine Bettinger, author of the best selling book “The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy”, heads a lineup of world-class genetic genealogists, who are touring Australia during August 2019, holding 1-day seminars in most cities, and culminating in a 3-day DNA-fest in Sydney.

The dates:
Brisbane – Wed 14 Aug
Perth – Sat 17 Aug
Adelaide – Tue 20 Aug
Melbourne – Fri 23 Aug
Canberra – Mon 26 Aug
Sydney – Thu-Sat 29-31 Aug

The speakers:
These speakers will take your understanding of DNA to the next level, no matter what level you’re currently at. The team brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in family history and in particular DNA and its usefulness as yet another tool to help you in your research:
– Brad Argent
– Blaine Bettinger
– Fiona Brooker
– Louise Coakley
– Gail Edwards
– Kerry Farmer
– Mike Murray
– Michelle Patient
– Jason Reeve
– Helen Smith
For more on the speakers, click here.

The options:
Book for a 1-day event in your own city, or head to Sydney for a 3-day DNA-fest. … OR do ‘DNA to the MAX and book for your city AND Sydney and save. Note: Sydney’s 3 -day program is different to the other cities, so you won’t be overlapping in the talks offered.

Early Bird Prices End Soon
Whatever you choose, be sure to book before 30 April 2019 to take advantage of their early bird rates, and save. Save $30 for a one day event, $60 for Sydney (3 days), or $80 on DNA to the MAX (Sydney+1 other city).

DNA Down Under Ambassador
I’ve been chosen to be one of the DNA Down Under Ambassadors, and I will be attending both the Adelaide and Sydney events, so I hope to see some of you there.

I’ll admit I’m almost a ‘total newbie’ to DNA. I’ve done the tests, but am really still working on the papertrail of genealogy, rather than focusing on the DNA side of things at present, so no doubt there will be plenty for me to learn. Anyway I shall be reporting on the events, and what I’ve learned from them in due course.

More information:
For more information and booking head on over to their website, and follow the event on Facebook

www.dnadownunder.com

Next week the genealogy world converges on Salt Lake City, Utah in preparation for the world’s biggest genealogy conference, RootsTech 2019, which runs from Wednesday 27 February through until Saturday 2 March 2019.

With an expected attendance of around 25,000 people coming from 37 different countries, there’s 300 classes on offer, and over 200 exhibitors to check out – RootsTech really is something else, and nothing I’ve been to compares.

Sadly, I’m not going this year. I did make it in 2013, 2015 and 2017 (you can read about them here), and considering my first time was a “once-in-a-lifetime-bucket-list-thing”, I can’t believe I’ve made it there three times already.

Anyway, this year I’ll be a part of the #NotAtRootsTech crowd. And while I know it won’t be the same, I’m determined to still make the most of it, and ‘participate’ from home. At least when I’m not working anyway.

So how can I (and you) participate in RootsTech when we’re not at RootsTech? There are a few options.

WATCH THE LIVESTREAM LIVE
Firstly, you can watch the Livestream Live. There’s 22 presentations being livestreamed, but if you’re on Australia, you;’ll need to be dedicated as due to the time difference the streams start at 3.30am (Sydney time) and go through till around lunchtime.

Here’s a link to the list of livestream talks with both the US time, and the Australian time for each, and click here for more details on each of the talks.

It is expected (although not 100% guaranteed as I can’t find it written anywhere) that these talks will all be available to watch later in the video archive.

WATCH RECORDED CLASSES
The RootsTech website lists the following classes as being recorded (but not live streamed). they say that recordings of these will be posted shortly after RootsTech 2019 concludes and will be available in the video archive.
– Blending Family History and Technology with the Art of Storytelling
– Descendancy Research: Another Pathway to Genealogy
– Making Memories of You
– New York Research Essentials
 – You Can Do DNA
– How to Write Your Life Story in Five Pages or Less
– Heirloom, Documentation or Junk: What to Keep or Toss
– S.O.S. (Save Our Stuff): Stories and Heirlooms
– Families Discovering Family History Together
– Writing and Publishing a Family History: Ten Steps
– Artificial Intelligence in Photo Management (and How It Can Boost Metadata)
– Breaking through Brick Walls in Scottish Research

If you’re super excited for RootsTech and can’t wait for it to start, why not watch the recorded and keynote sessions from RootsTech 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. They’re all there!

BUY A VIRTUAL PASS FOR EVEN MORE ROOTSTECH
This a new feature they’ve brought in this year. For US$129 (which is approx AU$180) you can buy a Virtual Pass, and this gives you access to 18 presentations. From a look through the topics they are different from the Livestream ones, and different from the “recorded classes” sessions – so it would appear that these are EXTRA ones, just for those who pay.  They say “with the virtual pass, you’ll have access to the online recorded sessions from the conference. You can watch playbacks from your laptop, tablet, or smartphone device whenever and however you’d like!”

The list of talks covered by the Virtual Pass are:
– Chromosome Mapping for Absolute Beginners—Jonny Perl
– Must-Use U.S. Records at Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, Findmypast, and MyHeritage—Sunny Morton
– A Deep Dive into Understanding Your DNA Results—Blaine Bettinger, Angie Bush, Jonny Perl
– The Surname Is Key: History of Surnames and Conducting Surname Research in Germany—Dirk Weissleder
– One Touch Genealogy Research: Handle a Record Once—Thomas MacEntee
– You Need Both! Uniting DNA and Traditional Research—Angie Bush and D. Joshua Taylor
– Chromosome Mapping Tips and Techniques—Blaine Bettinger
– Deeper Analysis: Techniques for Successful Problem-Solving—Elissa Scalise Powell
– The Magic of German Church Records—Katherine Schober
– My Ancestors Are from Germany, and I Don’t Speak German—Tamra Stansfield
– When Details Disagree: 8 Ways to Resolve Conflicts—D. Joshua Taylor
– 20 Hacks for Interviewing Almost Anyone, and Getting a Good Story—Joanna Liddell and Karen Morgan
– Going Dutch: Finding Families in Online Records of the Netherlands—Daniel Jones
– Beyond the Mists of Time: Sources for British Medieval and Early Modern Genealogy—Nick Barratt
– The Combined Power of DNA, Records, and Family Trees—Jen Baldwin, David Nicholson, Diahan Southard
– The Genealogist’s Google Search Methodology—Lisa Louise Cooke
– Jewish Genealogy: How to Start, Where to Look, What’s Available—Lara Diamond
– Slave Traders, Speculators, and the Domestic Slave Trade—Kenyatta Berry

For details on the Virtual Pass, or to buy one, click here.

FOLLOW ALONG ON TWITTER
The geniepeeps who head to RootsTech are a very online social bunch, and you’ll no doubt find them Tweeting, Facebooking, Instagraming, and Blogging all the way through. But my advice is to head to Twitter, (yes, you will need an account, but it’s free) then type in the hashtag #rootstech or #rootstech2019 in the search box up the top and watch the tweets come up. Also type in #notatrootstech and you’ll find others also ‘participating’ from afar.

There’s plenty of tweets going on about it already, here’s a screenshot of a few …

Search results for #rootstech on Twitter

So there you have it. So from Wednesday to Saturday if you’re in the northern hemisphere, or Thursday to Sunday for those of us down south – it all happens. So let’s enjoy it, and learn from so many of the world’s best genealogy presenters.

And don’t forget to share your experience of #NotAtRootsTech with others. You can do this via your own private Facebook page, on public social media, or if you blog, why not blog about your RootsTech experience from afar.

ONE LAST THING
So if you don’t make it to Salt Lake City by next week in time for RootsTech 2019, but you really, really, really wanted to go – you might like to consider going to RootsTech 2019 London in October 2019. While not quite on the scale of their US one, it’s still going to be a huge show, and would be awesome to attend. You can read about that here.

If you’re lucky enough to live in (or near) Seattle, Washington, USA, and are totally into genealogy you probably already know about this event, and already have your tickets. But for the sake of those who don’t, please bear with me.

Australia’s Unlock the Past are heading to Seattle for their Alaska genealogy cruise shortly, but before they board, they’re holding a one day genealogy seminar in Seattle with four of the world’s best genealogy speakers:
– Blaine Bettinger (USA)
– Cyndi Ingle (USA)
– Maurice Gleeson (England)
– Wayne Shepheard (Canada)

The conference is divided into two streams with a total of 10 talks on throughout the day. There will be DNA, Irish and General topics, and Wayne Shepheard, author of “Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests: The Effects Climate Change and Other Natural Phenomena have had on the Lives of our Ancestors” will be talking about the “Genealogy and the Little Ice Age ” You can view the full program here.

Now obviously, not everyone can get to Seattle, but you can pretend you are, as Unlock the Past have just announced that they will be LIVESTREAMING the conference, so you and everyone else around the world can tune in live (or at a later time) to watch the talks. And as they will be available to watch for a while after the event, for those in Australia you don’t have to stay up to stupid o’clock to watch.

As I am going on the Alaska cruise, I will be at the Seattle conference, so will write about it in due course. But I hope that some of you take the opportunity to tune in and hear these world-class speakers as well.

ATTEND IN PERSON:
Cost: US$45
Date: Thursday, 6 September 2018
Time: 9am-5pm
Venue: Seattle Public Library, 1000 4th Ave, Seattle, WA, USA
More info and bookings: https://www.utpinseattle.com/booking/

LIVESTREAM:
Cost: US$65
Time: whenever you choose
Venue: your own home
More info an bookings: https://www.utpinseattle.com/livestream/

August is here, which means Australia and New Zealand’s National Family History Month is here. The launch has happened, the events are underway, and you may well have attended a talk or two already.

While there’s over 200 events scheduled, unfortunately not everyone is able to attend onsite events for various reasons, but even so there are still plenty of ways you can celebrate and be involved with National Family History Month.

First up I do have to give big a shout-out to my good geniefriend Shauna Hicks, who originally came up with this idea of having a 31 ideas list few years ago for National Family History Month. And I must say I loved it. I even printed out the list, and ticked them off as I did them. This list is not a copy of Shauna’s but rather one that I’ve made up, but click on her name above for even more suggestions.

Have a read through the list, see what you’d like to achieve, and count what you’ve done at the end of the month. You might be surprised.

1. Contact a genealogy, family history or historial society near you
2. Visit your local State Archives or library
3. Write your life story (or at least begin it!) (click here for some topic suggestions)
4. Interview a relative about their life story
5. Hold a family reunion (it doesn’t have to be a big one, even a catchup with a reli or two)
6. Attend a family or local history talk, seminar or information session
7. Label some family photos
8. Scan some of your photos
9. Most genies I know have “piles of paperwork” (myself included). So filing is a must. However filing is never a fun job, but do it in small doses, and it’s do-able
10. Read a genealogy magazine (or emagazine)
11. Read a genealogy book (or ebook)
12. Create a to-do list of family-history related things you’d like to achieve this week/this month/this year – it will help you focus
13. Add another few names to your family tree
14. Photograph and document the story of an heirloom
15. Create at least a 4 generation chart showing your family
16. Note an ancestors ‘day’ (birth, marriage or death) that occurred during August, and highlight it
17. Order a certificate (or other original record)
18. Visit an area with family connections
19. Visit a cemetery
20. Watch a webinar, there’s lots to learn
21. Listen to a podcast, again SO much to learn from them
22. Read a few Aussie genealogy blogs – there’s an awesome bunch of bloggers out there. Here’s a list of 50 of them.
23. Many people use Ancestry, but not the others. So why not try a different one. You never know what you’ll find as they’re not all the same (Findmypast, MyHeritage, TheGenealogist)
24. When did you last visit Cyndi’s List? If you can’t remember, it’s too long, so go and recheck it out
25. FamilySearch has billions of records, all FREE. Do you use it? If no, it’s time to do so
26. Trove is the National Library of Australia’s website, which includes millions of digitised old newspapers, use it to discover an article about your family
27. And while you’re on Trove, take a few moments to do some text correcting of the old newspapers. Every correction helps someone else find something
28. Take a DNA test
29. Even better, convince a relative to take a DNA test
30. Discover how useful Facebook is for genealogy by downloading the latest list for Australian genealogy
31. Remember to check out NFHM website for events in your area

Happy National Family History Month everyone.

Enjoy August, and enjoy your family history … as a geniefriend of mine said “If You Think Family History is Boring, You’re Doing it Wrong”. So very true!

Follow what’s happening with National Family History Month on Facebook, or by following the hashtag #NFHM2018.