DNA and Descendancy Research

Do you try and connect with other genealogists to pick up tips and tricks? Living in rural America, I rely on connections over the Internet to pick up many of those tips and tricks. I've recently been watching one of the Barefoot Genealogists' recent videos: Making Discoveries with the New and Improved AncestryDNA Match List.

FamilySearch Tree and Sources

What are your feelings regarding the FamilySearch tree? Do you dislike it because anyone can change anything? Or, do you like it because of the ability to collaborate?

Even though I get frustrated with unexplained changes that don't fit my conclusions, I like the FamilySearch tree. I like it because it is the one of the places where collaboration happens. When someone else makes a change to one of my ancestors that doesn't agree with my research, I see the opportunity to collaborate. When this happens, I will often add a discussion item either questioning the change or explaining my conclusion. I also use the messaging tool to contact the contributor and inquire about their sources and reasoning.

Crawford to Rice Deed

Madison County Kentucky
Deed book B
page 269-270

page 269

Crawford to Rice

Backing Up Data

It's almost the first of the month - the time when many bloggers remind us to backup our genealogy data. Normally, I ignore those reminders. I ignore them because I feel like I have a good backup plan.

• I backup my RootsMagic database every time I close it after making any changes. (I change the name to add a character or two to reflect the time.)
• My genealogy files are stored on the hard drive of my computer and synced with Dropbox
• I use Second Copy to copy files (documents, pictures and music) to an external USB drive
• I use Backblaze to backup my files off site

Since I am backing up my files in multiple ways, I usually don't worry about the reminders. That was until this morning. When I sat down to my computer this morning, I had a BackBlaze warning that my files hadn't been backed up since May 22nd. 

So, how did my backup system fail? Two factors caused Backblaze to not be current: the weather and the loss of Internet connectivity.

Many would question how I could blame a Backblaze failure on the weather, but it is related. I try to shutdown my computer and unplug it during thunderstorms. Getting tired of this middle of the night task, I started shutting down my computer at bedtime when severe weather threatened. And we have had a lot of severe weather for the past 10 days. Since I have Backblaze and Second Copy set to run at night, neither was backing up my computer until I left it on last night.

Since we didn't have severe weather last night (thank you Lord), the backups should have run. Second Copy did run and the backup to the USB drive is current. However, Backblaze didn't run.

Backblaze couldn't run last night because our Internet was still down from a cut fiber line. Since the fiber line repair was completed this morning, our Internet is back. Thus, Backblaze should run tonight and everything will be backed up again.

The warning this morning reminded me to PAY ATTENTION to whether my backups complete as expected. 

Ancestry DNA Tips

This morning, I watched one of the Barefoot Genealogist''s new videos: What Are Ancestry ThruLines?

Even though I was already familiar with Ancestry's ThruLines - and appreciate how they are helping me with my DNA matches, I learned several things about how Ancestry's 'Common Ancestors' and 'ThruLines' work from this video.

Kennedy to Crawford Deed

Deed-KY-Lincoln-Crawford-Kennedy

Lincoln County Kentucky
Deed Book A
page 219 image 120
FH Microfilm 192238

Kennedy to Crofford

This Indenture maid this 19th day of April in
the year of our lord one thousand seven hundred and
eight six between Thos Kennedy of the county of
Lincoln and State of Virginia of the one part and James
Crofford of the state and county aforesaid of the other