MyHeritage adds DNA testing

There is one fundamental thing about DNA testing and genealogy; you can't get too accurate without a large pool of participants and particularly, you need a sample from any target area. For example, if you want to try and identify a common ancestor, you need another person who can prove a relationship to the remote person as a "control" to show the DNA markers from the remote person. You also need a large number of examples from different ethnic groups in order to establish a high probability of relationship to a group.

All of these are helped immensely by having a very large database from which to make comparisons. MyHeritage.com, the huge international family tree organization has launched a new program for DNA participation by its users. I received the following directly from Daniel Horowitz at MyHeritage today:

MyHeritage brings DNA testing to the global community

World’s largest family network offers DNA testing to a new global audience - enabling millions of families to discover their ethnic roots and previously unknown relatives

PROVO, Utah & LONDON & TEL AVIV, Israel – February 16, 2012: MyHeritage, the most popular family network on the web, announced today the integration of DNA testing into its core family history offering. The move adds genetic genealogy to the company’s suite of tools for researching family history, used by millions of families around the world.

With more than 62 million registered users and 21 million family trees, MyHeritage has become the trusted home on the web for families wishing to explore their family history, share memories and stay connected. With the new biological layer added to the MyHeritage experience, users can now enjoy a service combining science, intuitive web features and social networking for discovering and sharing their family legacy.

“DNA testing provides a fascinating new way to discover one’s origins and find previously unknown relatives”, said MyHeritage Founder and CEO Gilad Japhet. “Offering the highest quality DNA tests to our tens of millions of users around the world in 38 languages, and providing DNA matches with hundreds of thousands of people who have already had their DNA tested, significantly advances our mission of bringing family history to the masses. By combining DNA with our innovative Smart Matching™ technology, families will be closer than ever before to constructing a more complete picture of their history”.

DNA is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. By purchasing a simple cheek-swab DNA test, users can now use information contained in their DNA to find present-day relatives who share a common ancestor up to many hundreds of years ago. A DNA test can also reveal ethnic origins such as Native American, African or Jewish descent on paternal or maternal lines, as well as uncover ancestral information for those who were adopted.  While DNA tests can break through brick walls in family history research by revealing biological relations, MyHeritage’s flagship Smart Matching™ technology then steps in to help piece together the paper trail by uncovering how the family trees of related people actually connect. In addition, people with the same paternal surname can get together via MyHeritage to see if they’re related by DNA.

MyHeritage is introducing today a wide range of DNA tests to meet different research objectives and budgets, with special discounted prices for MyHeritage subscribers starting from as low as $84. Users can identify the deep ancestral origins of their direct paternal line (Y-DNA), of their direct maternal line (mtDNA), find relatives across all lines via autosomal DNA (Family Finder), receive a percentage breakdown of their ethnic roots and confirm or disprove whether someone is a close relative. View the full list of the DNA kits on MyHeritage and a list of Frequently Asked Questions about DNA tests on MyHeritage.

For the analysis of users’ DNA tests and the DNA matching, MyHeritage is working with long-time partner and global leader in genealogy DNA, Family Tree DNA. Pioneers of genetic genealogy and with a state-of-the-art laboratory, Family Tree DNA has established the world’s largest DNA database for genealogy and is well known for its work with National Geographic on the Genographic Project. All information is kept strictly confidential and is never shared.

Bennett Greenspan, President and CEO of Family Tree DNA said “We’re proud to work with MyHeritage to bring DNA testing to a much wider, global audience. The phenomenal size and reach of the global MyHeritage family network will create new horizons in collecting DNA data, helping many more people discover their ancestral origins”.

About MyHeritage

MyHeritage is the most popular family network on the web. Millions of families around the world enjoy having a private and free place for their families to keep in touch and to showcase their roots. MyHeritage’s Smart Matching™ technology empowers users with an exciting and innovative way to find relatives and explore their family history. Following the November 2011 acquisition of FamilyLink in Provo, Utah, MyHeritage offers billions of historical records through its website WorldVitalRecords.com. With all family information stored in a secure site, MyHeritage is the ideal place to share family photos and preserve special family memories. The site is available in 38 languages. So far more than 62 million people have signed up to MyHeritage. The company is backed by Accel Partners and Index Ventures, the investors of Facebook and Skype. For more information visit www.myheritage.com

Attitude - A Cautionary Tale

Sometimes I walk into some real interesting situations. Take today for example, I got to the Mesa Family History Center only a few minutes before I was supposed to teach a class. There was a patron waiting for help at the Reference Desk and as I walked by they asked me if I could help him with some Swedish Records. I said sure. Little did I know that this was going to be one of those situations I should have just said, sorry, but I have to teach a class in ten minutes.

As it turned out, ten minutes was enough for me to get into a very tense situation and a very, very unhappy patron. The cause of the problem: attitude, his not mine. Some background is probably helpful. You might recall (or not if you don't do Swedish research) that Ancestry.com purchased the Swedish database provider GenLine. In a highly predictable move, Ancestry.com has incorporated Genline into its World Deluxe program. So Genline has ceased to exist as a separate entity. Here was the problem. The patron had a set of numbers from the now non-existent Genline program and he expected someone at the Family History Center to simply plug-in his numbers and print off his genealogy.

Of course, I am caught cold with this since I have not had a Swedish question since the change over. So I looked at what he had written down because we do have a very good and extensive database of Swedish records for free access. But of course the Genline numbers weren't much help. (It turns out as I discovered later after this was all over, the numbers might have worked with the Swedish record search in Ancestry.com, but now I will never know). So I asked him where his people were from, explaining that Swedish records are located by a geographic location. So many of the names are similar, that it is important to know the exact location of the family to differentiate similar names.

Asking this question was the wrong thing to do. He immediately decided I didn't know what I was talking about and got very cross looking. He did not want to listen to anything I had to say about locating the records. This was an attitude. I looked at the places he had written down and had the audacity to ask him where his people were from? Not only did he not know, he did not care to know anything about the places. Unfortunately, the two place he had written down were a suburb of Stockholm and a district in the center of Sweden about 300 miles away. I found these places easily on Google and even had maps. This just made him more upset. At this point I had to leave, but found out later that he had previously spent over an hour with one of our other volunteers who had been able to find some of the information he was looking for but had ended the conversation when he stopped and said, "I can see that you can't help me" and left.

Why do I relate this incident other than for purposes of getting it out of my system? Easy. This is a common attitude issue. The attitude is that you go to a Family History Center and they are supposed to give you your family history! Isn't that why they are called Family History Centers? You don't have to do anything yourself of course, because that is why we are paid to do our work (by the way, we aren't paid, every last person in a Family History Center is a volunteer). If you want to talk to paid employees you have to go to Salt Lake.

I could have handled this better by asking him up front exactly what he thought we could do for him and what he expected to leave with. Given what I now know, I might have been able to decipher the numbers he had but not in the time period I had to work with.

I know a lot more than I did when he walked in the door.

New Guidelines for Fair Use in Copyright

The Association of Research Libraries has published a new Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries. The coordinators for the project include the

• Association of Research Libraries
• Center for Social Media, School of Communication, American University
• Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, Washington College of Law, American University 

 A PDF version of the code can be obtained at Download a PDF of the Code.

The Code is described in by the Association as follows:

This is a code of best practices in fair use devised specifically by and for the academic and research library community. It enhances the ability of librarians to rely on fair use by documenting the considered views of the library community about best practices in fair use, drawn from the actual practices and experience of the library community itself.

The Code is limited in its intended application but has guidelines that may well apply to a variety of situations confronted by genealogists as they do research in major repositories and elsewhere. It is also applicable to presenters who are quoting copyrighted information in PowerPoint slides and handouts.

I recommend this publication for review. 

Happy Birthday Arizona and my Arizona Heritage

This is a short post because my daughter said it so well with links to some of my Arizona ancestors. Please take time to look at her beautiful Blog, TheAncestorFiles.blogspot.com. Today, 14 February 2012 is the 100th Anniversary of Arizona Statehood.

My ancestors on both sides of my family came to Arizona with the very first Mormon pioneers starting back in 1876. Compared to the early settlers in the Eastern U.S. or the length of time my family lived in Europe, this is not so impressive. But if you realize that in 1876 there were less than 10,000 European settlers in Arizona and most of those spoke Spanish, you can get some perspective.

Posting records online -- beyond copyright

Copyright law is not the only limitation in publishing documents online, but it is a major consideration. In addition to copyright restrictions, records may be considered privately owned by both governments and other entities and therefore subject to access restrictions. One category of restricted documents are those which are considered private, secret or confidential. This designation can be imposed by private as well as public authorities. Disclosing private, secret or confidential information has much more serious consequences than violating a copyright. Violating these restrictions in some countries could get you executed.

Violating someone's privacy may not be as serious but it could conceivably be a personal disaster.

Genealogists run more of risk of violating someone's perceived right of privacy than they do of being executed for revealing state secrets in the U.S. but that may not be so true in other countries of the world. Privacy laws are vague in theory at best and really vague in practice. Some of the concerns addressed by the so-called privacy laws include:

• The right to communicate without being overheard or monitored
• The right to behave differently when alone than in a group
• The right to be left alone by governments and other entities

Reporting information from any of these categories in a publication, genealogical or otherwise, can raise privacy issues. What issues you may ask? What about divorces, illegitimacy, criminal acts and much more. It is not that unusual for genealogists to have to make value judgements as to whether or not to post "sensitive" but true information online. I happen to be in the "history is history" camp and I feel that the fact that an ancestor did things that are socially unacceptable today or even at the time is no reason to censure the record. But the rules change dramatically when the people involved are still alive. As my grandmother would have said, there is no reason to hang your dirty laundry out there for the world to see. Most genealogy programs have privacy settings that will prevent sensitive information from being accidentally published.

Now we have state or company secrets and privacy concerns, are there any other limitations besides copyright we need to be aware of? As a matter of fact, yes. There is plagiarism or claiming someone else's work as your own. Facts cannot be copyrighted, but work product should always be attributed. If you copy someone's work, have the common cutesy to give them credit where credit is due, even if there is no copyright claim to the work. Of course, this issue grades into the bugaboo of ownership of genealogical information. No one owns facts. But if someone's research effort has produced a competent set of facts, give credit for the work and effort.

In any of these areas moderation is advised. Do the work yourself and don't be too quick to worry about people stealing your work. But stay far away from the other non-copyright concerns.

Reminder from RPAC to sign petition

Call to Action - Help Save the Social Security Death Index 

Your help is needed in our Stop ID Theft NOW! campaign and our efforts to preserve the Social Security Death Index as an accessible record set for genealogists and family historians.
What you can do:

1. Learn more at the SSDI FAQ here.     
2. Sign the We The People petition at http://wh.gov/khE.    
3. Spread the word, especially to your genealogy society members and colleagues. Forward this email to them or send them the SSDI petition press release - download it here.

Our goal is to get as many signatures, as quickly as possible, so that the solutions to fraudulent tax refund claims based upon identity theft from recently deceased infants & adults can be taken seriously and implemented immediately. Doing so will help us ensure that the SSDI is available to not just genealogists, but all researchers and information professionals who rely upon its contents.
Thank you!
Note: click here for step-by-step instructions on using the We The People site to sign the petition. Some users have reported issues with creating an account and signing the petition.

Do not let technical difficulties keep you from signing! Contact petition@fgs.org if you encounter problems - we're here to help!

Follow all the latest SSDI and other records access news at the RPAC blog at http://www.fgs.org/rpac/.
Signed,
The Records Preservation and Access Committee

Newspaper Article on the Associated Press

The recent article about my scanning activities appeared in Arizona East Valley Tribune, but the article has been picked up by the Associated Press and is appearing papers across the country. Good press for genealogy for a change.

Here is the article in the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, Utah

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705550122/Mesa-man-digitizes-historic-Ariz-images.html?s_cid=s10