Global Family Reunion Festival in New York

News of a major worldwide DNA conference being run by FamilyTreeDNA (www.familytreedna.com) and Global Family Reunion (http://globalfamilyreunion.com) in New York:

Family Tree DNA is proud to offer you an opportunity to deepen your understanding of your genetic past and meet your cousins from around the world - and have a blast doing it!

Family Tree DNA has partnered with The Global Family Reunion to put on a unique event: the first-ever gathering that brings together genetically linked people. While at the gathering, you will get to hear from top scientists and entertainers on all aspects of DNA and family.

All Family Tree DNA members are being offered a limited-time early-bird price of $25 for the event.

Event Details

When: June 6, 2015
Where: New York Hall of Science, New York City

Click here for early bird tickets and more information.
Click here for exclusive reward packages!

This offer is only available until April 1, 2015.

All proceeds from the Global Family Reunion go to benefit the Cure Alzheimer's Fund and the Alzheimer's Association NYC.

If you can't make it to New York, there will be simultaneous festivals around the world with a livestream of the speakers.

The Global Family Reunion will be an entertaining, eye-opening festival for all ages - a TED conference meets a World's Fair - so bring your kids, nephews, grandkids, and grandparents. All proceeds from the event go toward fighting Alzheimer's Disease.

What can you expect at Global Family Reunion?

• See more than 30 top speakers with fascinating presentations on genetics and family heritage, including Henry Louis Gates of PBS's Finding Your Roots, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, NPR host Scott Simon, and Family Tree DNA President Bennett Greenspan
• Meet thousands of cousins and figure out how you are related
• Explore more than 450 interactive science exhibits from the New York Hall of Science
• Enjoy live entertainment, including music by Sister Sledge, who will be singing "We Are Family," of course. There will also be comedy from The New Yorker's Andy Borowitz and comedian Nick Kroll
• Take part in family-themed trivia contests, scavenger hunts, games, and potato sack races for those who are bold
• Help build the biggest family tree ever
• Meet the staff from Family Tree DNA, as well as Family Tree DNA partners such as MyHeritage and Findmypast, and get exclusive tutorials
• Break world records, including the biggest family photo ever

(With thanks to FamilyTreeDNA)

Chris

For details on my latest book Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, and my other genealogy guide books please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. To commission me for genealogical research, please visit my research site at www.scotlandsgreateststory.co.uk.

FamilyTreeDNA Father's Day sale

Family Tree DNA (www.familytreedna.com) has a Father's Day DNA test sale from June 9th-17th. From its announcement:

Savings (no coupon code required)

Family Finder: $79 (was $99)
Big Y: $595 (was $695)

Prices quoted are in American dollars.

(NB: To my kids, this is a brilliant idea for a gift - but in my case, Laphroaig might just work better, if you're looking something a little more liquid for me!)

Chris

Now available for UK research is the new second edition of the best selling Tracing Your Family History on the Internet: A Guide for Family Historians, whilst my new book British and Irish Newspapers is also now out. And FindmyPast - please reinstate the original Scottish census citations on your new site.

DNA tests via TheGenealogist

From TheGenealogist (www.thegenealogist.co.uk), some news on price cuts concerning various DNA tests offered for sale through the company. Here's the blurb:

DNA Testing is now accessible to everyone as TheGenealogist offers DNA tests from under £50 and slashes prices by up to £150 on other tests!

There’s never been a better time to let science help you with your family history research...

Due to the increase in popularity of DNA testing and advances in technology, TheGenealogist is now able to offer DNA testing for genealogical research at significantly reduced prices. It’s never been more affordable to add your DNA to the world’s largest genealogical DNA database and start finding matches. You can see the prices and compare the various tests at www.thegenealogist.co.uk/dna

As family historians, DNA testing can really assist our family history research and help us break down those brick walls. Many researchers find the maternal line difficult to trace using traditional methods such as census and parish records. However, an mtDNA test could prove invaluable to your research and help you discover missing ancestors or add a new line to your research. The test can be taken by both males and females and helps you trace that maternal line.

It’s straightforward and can all be done online with the minimum of effort. A kit is sent out to you and you simply post it back to get added to the DNA database and discover your results!

Mark Bayley from TheGenealogist comments: ”With prices from under £50, DNA testing is now finally affordable to the vast majority of family historians. DNA matches are provided against the largest database in the world.”

The Range of DNA Tests on offer
TheGenealogist offers 3 types of testing- the ‘Mitochondrial’ mtDNA (maternal line) testing, the’ Y-Chromosome’ Y-DNA test (for paternal lines) and the Family Finder test, which tests both male and female lines and also tells you your ethnic percentages. With prices starting from under £50, it’s become more affordable than ever.

It’s amazing to discover how far DNA testing can help us trace our ancestry. A skeleton of a twenty three year old hunter who died 9,000 years ago was discovered in a cave in Cheddar, Somerset and Mitochondrial DNA testing was able to identify a local school teacher as a direct descendant. The same principles are being applied to the discovery of at least twenty eight early human skeletons found recently in the mountains of Northern Spain, the ‘Sima de los Huesos’ tribe, who are undergoing Mitochondrial DNA tests. This DNA is passed down through the maternal line and is easier to recover from ancient bones.

More information and the new price offers are available from www.thegenealogist.co.uk/dna

COMMENT: Although I can find no mention of it on the website at all, I have since confirmed with the company that the tests are still being carried out by market leader Family Tree DNA (www.familytreedna.com) - TheGenealogist has a distribution agreement with them. For DNA results to mean anything you need to be able to compare them against somebody's else results to find potential matches - TheGenealogist does not host such a database, so you would need to use FamilyTreeDNA's database, or others accepting the company's results.

UPDATE 22 DEC - see the FAQ link on the bottom right of the DNA page for further information on the tests.

(With thanks to David Osborne)

Chris

My latest book, Discover Scottish Civil Registration Records, is now available from http://www.gould.com.au (print) and http://www.gen-ebooks.com/unlock-the-past.html (ebook), whilst Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet is available at http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Irish-History-on-the-Internet/p/3889/.

FamilyTreeDNA sale extended - & Geno 2.0 post

The Family Tree DNA sale that I announced on December 20th (see http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/family-tree-dna-offer.html) has now been extended to January 14th.

Staying on the theme of DNA, do take a look at the latest blog post from Ali MacDonald, Family Tree DNA's Scottish rep, about the results that he has just received from testing via the Geno 2.0 project. The whole DNA field is moving fast, with some extraodinary developments on the deep ancestry side of things - well worth a read at http://yourscottishancestry.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/genographic-project-results_7.html.

Chris

Pre-order my new book, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet, through Pen and Sword (30 April 2013), or purchase early at Who Do You Think You Are Live 2013 in London. For my other genealogy books, please visit  http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html; whilst for online Scottish based genealogy courses please visit the Pharos Teaching and Tutoring Ltd site.

Patton DNA project

I thought I would just give a plug to a DNA project I contributed my results to some time ago. My surname of Paton is a variant of Patton, and on the back of taking my Y-DNA test some time back I sent my results through to the Family Tree DNA affiliated World Families DNA project at www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/Patton/results.

My results are currently in the Plain Jane / Johnny No Mates category ('Haplogroup R1b - Not Yet Assigned to a Lineage') but after a period of being virtually dormant there have been a few additions to the project in the last 6 months or so. In due course, as more people submit data more lineages - hopefully including mine! - can help the as yet unassigned lines become grouped together more specifically.

If you are a Paton or Patton from anywhere in the world, and fancy having a go, please do consider adding your results to this project page! Family Tree DNA tests can be obtained from www.familytreedna.com/default.aspx; other World Families project pages are available from www.worldfamilies.net.

By the way, there's no such thing as a Clan Paton - for most of us, we just had an ancestor called Patrick (and not the same one). But we're no less Scottish for it! :) My lot are so far known to have come from Perthshire (at present traced back to the parish of Dunbarney circa 1750, although I strongly suspect they relocated there from Auchtergaven), with lots of connections to the city of Perth itself.

Chris

Pre-order my new book, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet, through Pen and Sword (30 April 2013), or purchase early at Who Do You Think You Are Live 2013 in London. For my other genealogy books, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html; whilst for online Scottish based genealogy courses please visit the Pharos Teaching and Tutoring Ltd site.

Family Tree DNA offer

From Family Tree DNA (www.familytreedna.com) and MyHeritage (www.myheritage.com):

Family Tree DNA and MyHeritage are teaming up once again to offer you a unique, limited time only discount on access to more than 4 billion historical records in MyHeritage’s specialized historical records collection - SuperSearch. SuperSearch is the perfect companion to DNA for boosting your personal ancestral research and for improving our more than 7,000 Surname and Geographic projects.

The door now opens for our community to make use of the MyHeritage SuperSearch data collections at a significantly reduced price. The following is included in this excellent family history resource:

- More than 4 billion historical names
- One billion exclusive family tree profiles
- Birth, marriage, death and census records
- World's largest collection of historical newspapers
- Millions of tombstone photos
- Hundreds of exclusive online databases
- Millions more records added each month

Record Matching
With this unique offer, you will also enjoy full access to MyHeritage’s Record Matching Technology at no additional cost. This is an extremely powerful feature that matches historical records to names in your family tree with no work on your part. After taking the offer below, you can automatically receive Record Matches for free by creating a family tree at MyHeritage using their friendly tools or importing an existing GEDCOM file. Learn more about Record Matching and see the praise this technology received from some of the world’s foremost genealogists.

All of these features are now available to Family Tree DNA customers and friends for unlimited one year access at the special price of $69.95. This represents a savings of 42% over the regular price. Plus, you will receive two additional months for free. This offer is only available until December 31, 2012 and it is a h-u-g-e bargain compared to prices of the competitor Ancestry.com which are 4x higher.

Together, Family Tree DNA and MyHeritage represent the most advanced combination of genealogical research tools available in the market.

Take advantage of this offer at https://www.myheritage.com/partner/familytreedna.

(Thanks to Max Blankfeld)

Chris

Having a Christmas present crisis?! Check out my range of genealogy books at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html - perfect for the family historian's Christmas stocking...! Also now out - new Kindle edition of Tracing Your Family History on the Internet, from http://tinyurl.com/d3vqtz5