BBC on African-American Genetic Genealogy

via news.bbc.co.uk

The BBC has an article about Americans looking for their roots through their DNA. There is some criticism of how African Ancestry interprets their results. I used African DNA for my tests because African Ancestry was a bit expensive ($349).

The criticism of African Ancestry is not unwarranted. What I liked about African DNA was that they were very clear to state that maternal DNA CANNOT conclusively link you back to a tribe in Africa for several reasons. Chief among these reasons is that the database that your DNA is compared to comes from people who are "known" to be--or say they are--of a particular tribe or region that are living. It's simply not conclusive.

This is not to say that the information is not useful. It can give you some ideas, confirm some leads and even offer new leads. DNA doesn't stand alone, but it can be combined with thoughtful genealogical analysis to draw conclusions about ancestry.

I was particularly offended by the quote from Mr. Ofori Anor, Asante magazine editor, "African Americans just want to be able to say they were once kings and once ruled the world." That is simply not true. What African-Americans want is what was TAKEN from us: our history, our heritage and our culture. We want connections to understand how we came to be here. We want a better understanding of what our ancestors believed and what gave them the strength to survive the holocaust that was American slavery. It's a shame that Mr. Anor fails to grasp the power of knowing your roots.


Found via the The Genetic Genealogist

What event or person inspired you to start your genealogy research?

Genea-Musings posted a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post asking the question: What event or person inspired you to start your genealogy research?

I started doing genealogical research on my family in my sophomore year in high school (1994). During the previous summer, I attended my paternal grandmother's family reunion where I had received a tree full of names. I wondered if anyone knew more about these people. What did they do? How did they meet? When I started school, my psychology teacher mentioned that she was into genealogy (I had no idea that's what this art/science was called) and she wanted to start a Genealogy Club. So, I gathered the names and recruited some folks and served as President for 2 years (until she left and we couldn't find an advisor).

I think what really hooked me was the trip to the National Archives. We didn't have the wealth of genealogical resources on the internet that we do now and I had no idea back then how fortunate I was to live 45 minutes away from the Archives (wish I lived there now...Houston is SO far). Anyway, I found my family names in the Archives and there, in the census, my first questions were answered: my great grandfather was a sharecropper. He couldn't read or write, but his grandson had a scholarship to a university and his great granddaughter would eventually go to MIT.

That trip was inspiring for me. I've been doing genealogical research ever since then. Every year, as more documents become available, I learn more and want to go out and find more. I've found cousins and documents that tell stories about my family that were long forgotten. In those stories, I see my past and my future.

Family Search Adds New Content

I know it's been a while, but I got so excited about the new content at the Family Search Pilot Search website that I had to post.

One of the things that irritated me about the old Family Search is that they rarely had any unique content or content that I hadn't already paid for on Ancestry.com. Well, they've changed that with their new content. The content recently uploaded includes more data from death records than I've seen available anywhere else. I searched the Florida Death Records for my Reddick relatives, thinking I'd find the same information that I find on Ancestry: name, date, location. To my surprise, the records on FS have the key piece of info that helps me disambiguate the 3 Albert Reddicks I found on Ancestry: Parent Names. Also included is the cemetery name and burial place. With this new database, I've found at least 4 new records in the past 10 minutes alone.

The search interface is slick, fast and efficient. You can copy and paste the data onto your desktop in 2 clicks. I did notice a lot of spelling errors though. One way to improve the site would be to add in features to allow family members to correct some of those errors. As usual, you should search on various spellings of the names you're looking for to make up for human indexing errors.

Find the Florida Death Records and more new US records at the Family Search Pilot Site. AND, be sure to volunteer to help index records so that Family Search can put even more records online for us!

Happy searching!

Florida 1935 Census Alachua County Town Index by District

The LDS Family History Search Pilot site has loads of scanned images that volunteers have yet to finish indexing. One of those is the Florida 1935 Census. The counties are divided into precincts, but there no indication of what towns are in each precinct until you open up the files and start looking.

I've been scouring the Alachua County portion looking for my ancestors and thought I'd share the index I created as I scanned.

1. Waldo
2.Lacross
3.Alachua
4. missing
5. missing
6. Newberry
7.Gainesville
8.Hawthorne
9. Island Grove/Lochloosa
10. Micanopy
11. Gainesville/Archer
12. Gainesville
13. Fairbanks
14.Hawthorne/Earlton/Melrose
15.Windsor/Rochelle/Route #2
16.missing
17.Hague
18.missing
19.Route #2/Orange Heights
20.High Springs/
21.missing
22.Campville
23.missing
24.Alachua/Bl??d
25.Gainesville
26.Gainesville/Brooker
27.Gainesville
28.Gainesville

Ancestry adds Dawes Rolls Indices

For those who think they may have Native American ancestry, Ancestry.com has just added the indices to the Dawes Rolls:

US Native American Enrollment Cards for the Five Civilized Tribes, 1898-1914

U.S. Native American Application for Enrollment in Five Civilized Tribes, 1896

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database

I'd heard about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database but didn't realize that it was available online. About.com's genealogy page tipped me to it and I can't wait to explore.

Enjoy! If I find anything, I'll let you know. I'll also add it to the resources and links.

New State Census Records on Family Search Pilot Site

Imagine how excited I was to see this news come across one of the 5 million genealogy mailing lists I'm on:

Florida State Censuses from 1935 AND 1945 available on the new Family Search Pilot site (why not Beta?, it's so Web 2.0). Unfortunately, they haven't been indexed yet, but hey, there's images. I volunteer for the Family Search Indexing Project and the Ancestry Indexing Project (in beta), so as soon as I see this project come across the wires, I'll definitely be helping to index it.

Anyway, take a look here. Snazzy interface and it's pretty fast. I'm excited about finding something new about my ancestors just when I thought I'd hit a brick wall.

Happy searching!