Watching the BIFHSGO Conference. Most interesting. I did misinterpret the titles a little. The "Using DNA in the North of Ireland" I anticipated a discussion on projects and indeed more than half of the time was on their projects. I should realize that it really is necessary to review DNA and the particular value of each type of DNA to a project in most presentations. The speaker Martin McDowell did an excellent job. I have family lore on an Irish ancestor and two of my siblings show up with a large portion of Irish origin sufficient that one would think a great grandparent/2xgreat grandparent. That is basically the family lore that my great grandmother was Irish. However she was born in Birmingham, Midlands, England and it does look like her mother was born there as well and her mother. But it is this mother (the grandmother of the great grandmother) who has a possible Irish surname Lawley. That is what makes maternal DNA so interesting. Since I have five siblings tested I have collected up all of their matches at all of the databases but have not really looked at these matches in terms of ethnicity. Perhaps time will come to me to do that one of these days. The next speaker has the title "how to use Hints, ...." I almost never follow hints and I was thinking family lore with this one but has also proven to be very interesting and is ongoing now. I am finding the process she is using to be quite interesting.
The first lecture was also very interesting and entirely what I thought he would cover. My mysterious mtDNA line which has both Irish and Scot ancestry and is ancient to the British Isles according to the Blood of the Isles database. I manage the FT DNA project for the H11 haplogroup where this mtDNA is found. Generally the members are in Eastern Europe for the most part or descend from Eastern European ancestors so has proven to be quite fascinating. My line (two of my siblings are tested including me) arrived in Scotland very early. Perhaps significantly the commoner line that is almost identical but has one extra mutation not shared by my matches or my sibling and it is at least thirty times more frequent in the British Isles than ours. Possibly our line reverted back to the original value. Most members of the study with the extra mutation are in southern England whereas those without the mutation are in Scotland or Ireland. The North in Ireland project is interesting in this regard as they are looking at autosomal DNA. I have not done that with the mtDNA project that I manage although occasionally I do take a peak at the results by looking at some of the results using the tools to do so.
Next session is the Conference Connect where questions can be posed to the speakers. I actually do not have any questions but will likely head into that portal as well to have a listen. I will prepare a query to see if it would be of any value to the project to pass in what I have on my mtDNA line eventually. Family lore is always interesting I think but no real facts yet so will probably continue to investigate but think about the North in Ireland project.
First Genealogy Conference, outside of the involvement that I had with some medical projects, for the last few years that I have attended. It has proven to be most interesting. It is always informative to hear how other people work through information. Last year I did register but forgot to attend as I was working on my Siderfin revision book. Tomorrow looks equally interesting.
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