Mom is the girl in the window smiling, behind her mom. This is one of my favorite pictures of her. Not sure of the year or the car make/model. #CoSoPhotography #history #Genealogy

Ancestry says one of my DNA matches has a tree with 70 people in it. I click on it and see one private person not connected to anyone else. It's rare, but sometimes people have their home person disconnected from everyone else in the tree. I click to see the list of all people. The list doesn't show anyone. 🤔🧐 Perhaps EVERYONE is private. But then why not just have a locked tree? It may be a glitch. Ancestry has many glitches. #Genealogy

If someone is listed as a possible second cousin, the person has three people in their tree, all private. If a person is a possible 8th cousin, they will have 3,000 people in their tree with whom I still can't find a match. The inverse proportionality of #Genealogy

Ancestry releases records on 183K enslaved individuals in America. #Genealogy

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancestry-releases-records-183000-enslaved-individuals-america-180984515/

Thinking about surnames. There seem an infinite number around the world, but in China there are only five-ish.

Another random thought. The family name Donjon is extremely rare in the United States, but it's very common in France. It's the word for a castle tower or keep. It's where we get our word dungeon. A tower and a basement are very different things, but that's how cognates sometimes work. #Genealogy

I met a couple recently and discovered their surname is Genin. Not too common. I have Genin in my tree. The most recent was born 1796 in the Territory of Belfort in France. Will be interesting if we can find a connection. Or maybe Genin is as common in France as Smith is here. #Genealogy

Dad would be 98 today. Photos from 1939, 1956, 2015. #Genealogy

Finding Your Roots is on again this week. Yay! Missed it for two or three weeks. #Genealogy

A new source of records for Irish #Genealogy
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/08/world/irish-ancestry-guinness-brewery-archives-cec/index.html

Ancestry.com uses optical character recognition (OCR) to find names of relatives in a person's obituary. Not always accurate. I doubt this guy named his son Nascar. 😂 Even if he really loved Nascar races. #Genealogy

I decided to word my message this way:

"Your test appeared in my DNA matches today. We have a number of shared matches on [shared surnames and locations]. I don't know exactly how we are related on these lines but I have some guesses. Hoping you have success in your family tree search. If you're interested I can provide further information."

#Genealogy

When I have DNA matches who are African American, I always know which branch of my family they are related on. I'm always uncertain whether to share this information, because it almost certainly means they have a white slave owner in their family tree. I often doubt this is a branch of their tree they are wanting to trace. Any thoughts, wisdom? #Genealogy

If there's going to be a wave of DNA matches on Ancestry due to Christmas gifts, it hasn't happened yet. DNA has proven that my research led me to the right ancestors. It also helped me discover close relatives I never knew about. But I fear the "golden age" of DNA genealogy is over until much stricter hacking safeguards are in place. #Genealogy

Ancestry is offering a potential mother for Edmund Cutler who has no name, no birth, no death. Useful. #Genealogy

23&Me data breach completely exposed all data on 6.9 million people. Their new terms of service relinquish any right to sue and force arbitration. #Genealogy #DNA

Because of the data breach 23andMe is no longer letting me see the matching people I have in common with another DNA match. This effectively makes it useless for genealogy. When I first saw this I'd forgotten about the breach. Another thing destroyed because people can't get past hate. #Genealogy

#Genealogy tip. It's difficult to get married after you're dead.

Anyone else having problems signing in to Ancestry? #genealogy

I am 33 people away from having 120K people in my family tree file. But I'm not at all obsessive. 🙄

#genealogy

Doing a family tree for someone. The mother died in 1911. Daughter married her stepfather that same year and had five children. Pretty sure that's the first time I've seen this. #genealogy