DNA workshop schedule for Who Do You Think You Are? Live

It's only a few weeks to go now until Who Do You Think You Are? Live, the world's largest family history show.

The full workshop schedules are now available and can be seen on the WDYTYA Live website. There are separate schedules for the DNA workshops and the other unticketed workshops which can be downloaded here. The DNA workshop is sponsored by Family Tree DNA and this year for the first time the programme has been organised by ISOGG – the International Society of Genetic Genealogy. We have some great speakers lined up this year.

There is currently a glitch on the WDYTYA website and the speakers' biographies and lecture abstracts are not being displayed so the organisers have kindly given me permission to reproduce them here as time is running out and we know that many of you will be wanting to make your travel arrangements. If you are thinking of travelling from overseas do have a look at the ISOGG guide to WDYTYA Live where there are lots of travel tips for overseas visitors.

The WDYTYA Live programme will be provided free of charge with the February issue of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine which goes on sale tomorrow (21st January) so make sure you pick up your copy soon as it's expensive to buy the programme on the door.

I shall be attending WDYTYA on all three days and will be helping out on the ISOGG stand (stand no. 400) where we will be offering help and advice on DNA testing.  I'm also scheduled to give two talks. WDYTYA is always a great chance to make new friends and catch up with old friends. I hope to see some of you there!

DNA WORKSHOP SCHEDULE FOR WDYTYA LIVE - 20th TO 22nd FEBRUARY 2014

THURSDAY 20th FEBRUARY 10.15
Debbie Kennett

Biography
Debbie has been involved in the world of DNA testing since 2007 and is now one of the UK’s leading genetic genealogy experts. She is the author of two books for the History Press: DNA and Social Networking (2011)  and The Surnames Handbook  (2012). She writes the popular Cruwys News blog which features articles on her Cruse/Cruwys one-name study and on genetic genealogy. Debbie was appointed as an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London in July 2013. She is a member of the Guild of One-Name Studies and the Society of Genealogists.

DNA for Beginners: The Three Tests
This lecture will provide an introduction to the use of DNA testing as a complement to family history research. The cost of these tests has dropped dramatically in the last few years and is now affordable for everyone. The Y-chromosome DNA test is widely used in surname projects and explores the direct male line. The mitochondrial DNA test follows the motherline. Both Y-DNA and mtDNA tests can also provide insights into your deep ancestry. The newer autosomal DNA tests can be used to find matches with genetic cousins within the last five or six generations.

THURSDAY 11.15
Maurice Gleeson

Biography
Dr. Maurice Gleeson is by profession a psychiatrist and pharmaceutical physician. He is also an avid genealogist who has developed a strong interest in using DNA as an extra tool to assist family history research. He first used genetic testing in 2008 and by so doing traced his Spierin family connections back to the 1600s in Limerick, thus breaking through the Brick Wall that most people hit in their Irish research around about 1800. He has also set up the iCARA project to help people with Irish surnames in the Caribbean find their Irish ancestry, and is co-administrator of the Ireland mitochondrial DNA project .

Autosomal DNA – a step-by-step approach to analysing your atDNA matches
This talk will focus almost exclusively on autosomal DNA and how to use it to find long lost cousins. Maurice will explain a step-by-step approach to assessing your "matches" on the autosomal DNA test and how to narrow down the number of potential candidates for the common ancestor that you share with each match. In this regard, the adoption community in the US have developed some amazing tools to help with this process and Maurice will be looking at how the methodology can be applied to ordinary family tree research (with a particular focus on its potential usefulness from an Irish perspective).

THURSDAY 12.15
Michael Hammer

Biography
Michael Hammer is a research scientist in the ARL Division of Biotechnology at the University of Arizona with appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, as well as Director of the University of Arizona Genetics Core (UAGC) facility. Dr. Hammer received his PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Berkley and was a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton and Harvard Universities, where he pioneered the use of the Y chromosome as a genealogical tool. His work has featured the first estimate of the Y chromosome TMRCA, an African origin of human Y chromosome diversity, and the first paper showing that Cohanim are descended from a single male ancestor.

Men, Metal, and the Recent Re-Peopling of Western Europe
The highly structured distribution of Y chromosome haplogroups suggests that current patterns of variation may be informative of past population processes. However, limited resolution of the Y chromosome phylogenetic tree has obscured relationships among paternal lineages that are common across Eurasia today. Recent ancient DNA work provides another approach for inferring the timing and origins of population dispersals. I will present recent data that yield a more finely resolved Y chromosome tree, with new branches that are informative for inferring the origin of European paternal diversity, along with results from European ancient DNA studies. The emerging picture from modern and ancient DNA has important implications for both recent and more ancient migration processes into and within Europe.

THURSDAY 13.15
Jean Manco

Biography
Jean is a building historian with an inter-disciplinary approach, having been trained within an archaeological unit. She has taught at Plymouth and Bristol universities. Her previous publications include building, town, parish and charity histories. More recently she has pursued her wider interests in genetics, linguistics and the prehistory of Europe. She is the author of Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings (2013), for which there is a companion website ancestraljourneys.org.

Who are the Europeans?
Where did the Europeans come from? In recent years scientific advances have yielded a mass of new data, turning accepted ideas upside down. For decades archaeologists regarded Europe’s past as largely a story of people staying in one place. Geneticists followed suit. Now that good-quality DNA is being extracted from the bones of long-gone Europeans, a startling new vision is emerging.  It seems that our ancestors were much more adventurous than we thought. The peopling of Europe in prehistory turns out to be a much more dynamic story, with one wave of migration following another.

THURSDAY 14.15
Andy Grierson

Biography
Andy is a Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield with a BSc in Genetics and a PhD in Molecular Biology. In 2008 he became interested in Y-chromosome genetics through studies of his paternal ancestry. Since 2009 he has been researching the population genetics of north Wales, and in 2011 made contact with a group of non-academic “citizen scientists” who posted their research on a now defunct website called “DNA Forums”. This has subsequently led to a fruitful and ongoing collaboration.

Citizen Science: an online community approach to researching haplogroup R1b1a2
 I will describe the journey we have taken to identify Y-chromosome variants in western Europeans. The 1000  Genomes Project is a ground-breaking genetics programme, and was the first to make anonymised human genome data openly available on a large scale. By accessing this resource, and implementing open-source computational approaches, we  have identified hundreds of new genetic markers relevant to the ancestry of more than 100 million European men.

THURSDAY 15.15
Alasdair Macdonald

Biography
Alasdair is volunteer administrator for the Scottish DNA and R-L165 Projects at Family Tree DNA.  He is a tutor and member of the core team leading the postgraduate programme in Genealogical Studies at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

Scottish DNA – Clans, families, and surnames
Although located on the edge of Europe the population of Scotland has been enriched for millennia by the arrival of successive waves of immigrants.  Alasdair’s talk will focus on DNA testing for genealogical purposes including the origins and inter-relationships between various clans and families.

THURSDAY 16.15
Chris Pomery

Biography
Chris Pomery was an early pioneer of DNA testing within the context of surname-based genealogy, writing his first book on the subject in 2004 and lecturing across the country in more than sixty venues over the past decade. He has written two papers for the Journal of Genetic Genealogy outlining the key methods used to combine traditional genealogical research with genetic testing. He has lectured on behalf of Family Tree DNA, the world's leading provider of genetic tests for genealogists, since 2011.

Combining traditional and genetic genealogy – the Pomeroy DNA Project
The Pomeroy family reconstruction project is one of the most advanced in the world. Using DNA data and historical research in combination, researchers have organised more than two thousand living name-bearers in Britain into a handful of family groups defined by their DNA and documented them into family trees stretching back to the start of parish records. As the name has Norman origins, the team now has to tackle the five centuries back from Elizabethan times to the arrival of William the Conqueror. The team is working hard to complete its findings to coincide with the 950th anniversary of the Conquest in 2016. This talk will be of interest to anyone running or belonging to a surname DNA project, researching a British surname, or attempting to reconstruct large-scale multi-generational family trees. It will highlight issues that have arisen and ways to solve them, and general principles, rather than dwell on the details of this particular surname, and it will consider how new advances in DNA testing will help similar projects in future.

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FRIDAY 21st FEBRUARY 10.15
Maurice Gleeson

Biography
Dr. Maurice Gleeson is a psychiatrist and pharmaceutical physician by profession. He is also an avid genealogist who has developed a strong interest in using DNA as an extra tool to assist family history research. He first used genetic testing in 2008 and by so doing traced his Spierin family connections back to the 1600s in Limerick, thus breaking through the Brick Wall that most people hit in their Irish research around about 1800. He has also set up the iCARA project to help people with Irish surnames in the Caribbean find their Irish ancestry, and is co-administrator of the Ireland mitochondrial DNA project .

Which DNA test is best for you?
Many people are interested in doing a DNA test but are not sure what tests are available or what the difference is between the various tests, so this presentation will give a detailed description of the 3 main types of DNA test. It will cover what each test will tell you, and equally as important, what each test won't tell you. That way you can decide for yourself which test might be best to help answer the questions you have relating to your own family tree research.

FRIDAY 11.15
Emily Aulicino

Biography
Emily Aulicino, international researcher, blogger and member of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy, has addressed a variety of audiences including: Family Tree DNA’s International Conference; Southern California Genealogical Society’s DNA Day; the All Cultural Society of Ireland, a Jewish Genealogical Society, the West Coast Summit on African-American Genealogy, the Left Coast Eisteddfod, and various genealogical and lineage societies. Aulicino manages 13 DNA projects and a surname study at the Guild of One Name Studies. She has been interviewed for television and various newspapers. Aulicino’s article on "DNA Testing  ̶   Solving Mysteries and Uniting Families" appeared in Irish Roots (Dublin).

Autosomal DNA Projects: What are they and what can you get from them?
Autosomal DNA (atDNA) is the latest phenomenon in the genetic genealogy world! This session will review the basics of atDNA testing and how it can help you find cousins anywhere on your pedigree chart for several generations. It will explore the types of autosomal DNA projects being created, the goals for each type of project, and a few of their success stories.  Discover how to create your own project, the tools needed and the process to produce your own success stories. So who’s your cousin?  atDNA knows!

FRIDAY 12.15
Geoff Swinfield

Biography
Dr Geoff Swinfield has been addicted to genealogy and family history since 1972. He has been a professional researcher for over 30 years and since 1999 he has run his own genealogical company, Geoff Swinfield Genealogical Services. He has a Ph.D. in Genetics from Nottingham University and has used this training to apply genealogical techniques and sources to the study of families that are at risk from genetic diseases. One of his specialities is locating living relatives and missing people.

How DNA rewrote my family tree!
This talk will illustrate how DNA testing can be used to learn more about paternal ancestry and to discover the story of my English surname of Swinfield. By integrating Y-chromosome testing with a one-name study, I have unearthed what is to me, and I hope to you, a fascinating story about my direct ancestral line and others who share my rare surname. The techniques used are applicable to all who want to use genetic testing to look critically at their genealogical tree or who are seeking evidence of how others with the same surname may be related.

FRIDAY 13.15
Jean Manco

Biography
Jean is a building historian with an inter-disciplinary approach, having been trained within an archaeological unit. She has taught at Plymouth and Bristol universities. Her previous publications include building, town, parish and charity histories. More recently she has pursued her wider interests in genetics, linguistics and the prehistory of Europe. She is the author of Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings (2013), for which there is a companion website ancestraljourneys.org.

Did your folk go wandering as Rome fell?
The Roman Empire held so much of Europe in its grip that the fall of its western half shook society for millions. Barbarians burst across its former borders. They included Germanic, Slavic and other peoples looking for room to spread themselves. When the complex criss-crossing of their movements consolidated around AD 700, a new Europe had emerged. Can we find clues in our own DNA to an ancestral wanderer in these great migrations?

FRIDAY 14.15
Professor Chris Stringer, FRS, Natural History Museum, Kensington, London

Biography
Professor Chris Stringer has worked at the Natural History Museum since 1973, and is now Research Leader in Human Origins and a Fellow of the Royal Society.  His early research concentrated on the relationship of Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe, but through his work on the ‘Out of Africa’ theory of modern human origins, he now collaborates with archaeologists, dating specialists and geneticists in attempting to reconstruct the evolution of modern humans globally.  He is currently leading the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain [AHOB] project in its third phase, which began in 2009, to reconstruct the patterns of the earliest human colonisations of Britain and Europe.  He has written and published extensively in this area.

Out of Africa and ancient migrations to Europe and Britain
This talk will discuss the most recent results from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project and related recent scientific studies by other groups to try and understand how the British Isles and continental Europe was populated.  This work draws on a number of archaeological and dating techniques including recent advances in ancient DNA methodology.  This work will also form part of a new exhibition area at the Natural History Museum, due to open on 13th February 2014.

FRIDAY 15.15
Katherine Borges
Katherine Borges is Director of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) and administers several DNA projects including the Haplogroup N mtDNA and Ireland mtDNA projects.

Famous British DNA
To be supplied

FRIDAY 16.15
Debbie Kennett

Biography
Debbie has been involved in the world of DNA testing since 2007 and is now one of the UK’s leading genetic genealogy experts. She is the author of two books for the History Press: DNA and Social Networking (2011) and The Surnames Handbook (2012). She writes the popular Cruwys News blog which features articles on her Cruse/Cruwys one-name study and on genetic genealogy. Debbie was appointed as an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London in July 2013. She is a member of the Guild of One-Name Studies and the Society of Genealogists.

Chromosomes, conquerors and castles - DNA testing and the Cruise/Cruse/Cruwys one-name study
The combination of a DNA project with traditional documentary research can provide a unique insight into the origin and distribution of a surname. The Cruise/Cruse/Cruwys DNA Project, founded in 2007, now has over 100 participants, and has earned a reputation for pioneering best practice.  This lecture will review some of the success stories from the project, and will take a look at the latest developments in Y-chromosome testing which are set to transform the interpretation of Y-DNA test results in the coming years. The lessons learnt from this project will be equally applicable to anyone who is interested in starting a project of their own.

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SATURDAY 22nd FEBRUARY 10.15
Katherine Borges

Biography
Katherine Borges is Director of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) and administers several DNA projects including the Haplogroup N mtDNA and Ireland mtDNA projects.

The basics of DNA testing
To be supplied

SATURDAY 11.15
Maurice Gleeson, Katherine Borges, Emily Aulicino

Biographies
Emily Aulicino is an international genealogical researcher and blogger, manages 13 DNA projects and a surname study at the Guild of One Name Studies. Maurice Gleeson is a psychiatrist and pharmaceutical physician with an avid interest in genealogy and DNA. He runs the Spearin and iCARA projects. Katherine Borges is Director of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) and administers several DNA projects including the Haplogroup N mtDNA and Ireland mtDNA projects.

Autosomal DNA Success Stories – how atDNA solved family mysteries
A practical session demonstrating how autosomal DNA helped solve specific problems in the speakers’ family tree research. Examples include tracing Irish relatives to the Australian desert, how family illegitimacies were revealed, identifying a Scottish 4th cousin, use with adoptees in search of their biological families, and more.

SATURDAY 12.15
Michael Hammer

Biography
Michael Hammer is a research scientist in the ARL Division of Biotechnology at the University of Arizona with appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, as well as Director of the University of Arizona Genetics Core (UAGC) facility. Dr. Hammer received his PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Berkley and was a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton and Harvard Universities, where he pioneered the use of the Y chromosome as a genealogical tool. His work has featured the first estimate of the Y chromosome TMRCA, an African origin of human Y chromosome diversity, and the first paper showing that Cohanim are descended from a single male ancestor.

Men, Metal, and the Recent Re-Peopling of Western Europe
The highly structured distribution of Y chromosome haplogroups suggests that current patterns of variation may be informative of past population processes. However, limited resolution of the Y chromosome phylogenetic tree has obscured relationships among paternal lineages that are common across Eurasia today. Recent ancient DNA work provides another approach for inferring the timing and origins of population dispersals. I will present recent data that yield a more finely resolved Y chromosome tree, with new branches that are informative for inferring the origin of European paternal diversity, along with results from European ancient DNA studies. The emerging picture from modern and ancient DNA has important implications for both recent and more ancient migration processes into and within Europe.

SATURDAY 13.15
Kirsten Bos

Biography
Dr. Kirsten Bos is a graduate of McMaster University in Canada, where she obtained her PhD in 2011. Her main focus was on molecular work with human skeletal and dental material from the East Smithfield Black Death Cemetery in London to isolate and study the strain of Yersinia pestis implicated in the Black Death.  This work was conducted with Canadian and European research grants, and led to an increasing collaboration with the research group at the University of Tübingen led by Professor Johannes Krause where she is currently based.

Genetic investigations into the Black Death in London
Advances in molecular capture techniques have permitted confirmation of authentic ancient Y. pestis DNA sequences from victims of the Black Death, and reconstruction of almost all of the ancient pathogen’s genome.  This talk will describe the problems of working with ancient DNA samples and the recent spectacular advances in isolation and analytical techniques that make the recovery of ancient DNA from various samples now possible.  Although this talk will concentrate on the story of the organism causing the Black Death in Europe, as it has a local connection to London, other work in the ancient microbial DNA field underway at the University of Tubingen will be mentioned.  The evolutionary significance of the close proximity of humans and animals in the spread of diseases across species barriers is just beginning to be understood and to become amenable to analysis.

SATURDAY 14.15
Andrew Robertshaw

Biography
Andrew Robertshaw is a military historian, author and broadcaster who has been working on the archaeology of the Western Front for over twenty years. He was lead historian on the television series ‘Finding the Fallen’ and ‘The Trench Detectives’ and has appeared in ‘Time Team’, ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ and ‘Find My Past’. His approach to family history is based on his extensive knowledge of the primary sources at The National Archive, Regimental and Corps Museums and other databases. He regularly helps people with their research and runs the Military Ancestry Road Show (MARS) in which a team of experts deal with enquiries ranging from Waterloo to the Second World War.

Finding the Fallen - Identifying soldiers recovered from WW1 site excavations
This presentation looks at various techniques to identify human remains found on the Western Front and uses a range of case studies from recent projects. This process begins with the discovery of the remains and concludes, hopefully, with a formal identification of an individual who was previously one of the ‘missing’. Evidence ranging from uniform and equipment to anthropology and DNA are required to establish the casualty's identity in a step by step process that can take months or years. Although the Fromelles excavation is well known hundreds of other bodies have been recovered over the past twenty years. The lucky ones are those found and recovered by teams with archaeological and conservation backing. The well intended with shovels and bin bags or the outright treasure hunters are a feature of Great War sites. This presentation will explore the best and worst examples of the process.

SATURDAY 15.45
Bruce Winney
Note that this talk will take place in the Celebrity Theatre/SOG Theatre 1 and tickets can be booked in advance. There is no DNA workshop lecture in this slot.

Biography
Bruce Winney is a researcher in Sir Walter Bodmer’s Laboratory at Oxford University. His background is population genetics of animals (i.e. looking at genetic differences between populations) and has previously worked on birds and large mammals before moving onto humans. After a spell looking for susceptibility genes to colorectal cancer, he is currently running the “People of the British Isles” project at Oxford, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust. This work will form the basis of his talk.

Where do we come from? – What genetics tells us about the peopling of the British Isles
There is a great deal of interest in fine-scale population structure in the UK, particularly as a signature of historical immigration events. A powerful means of detecting such structure is to control and document carefully the provenance of the samples involved. Here we describe the collection of a cohort of rural UK samples (The People of the British Isles), aimed at providing a well-characterised UK population that can be used as a resource by the research community as well as providing fine-scale genetic information on the British population. Analysis including Europe sheds light on the peopling of the British Isles.

SATURDAY 16.45
Brian Swann

Biography
Brian Swann obtained a PhD in organic chemistry in 1971 from the University of East Anglia and then worked in and around the pharmaceutical industry until his retirement in 2011.  He first became involved in family history in 1967 and in the use of DNA in family history in 2000.  From 2007 he has been regional co-ordinator for the International Society of Genetic Genealogy and in 2008/9 helped introduce the DNA Area into Who Do You Think You Are.  He still enjoys research using paper documentation as well as trying to understand and explain the latest advances in the DNA field.

Wales, DNA and Surnames
The surnames of Wales and Welsh family history in general still remain under-appreciated by many family historians.  Like Ireland, Wales has a unique culture and bardic history which has no real equivalent in England.  This talk will discuss where DNA fits in today to the study of Welsh ancestry and its unique set of problems.  The new book by John and Sheila Rowlands on The Surnames of Wales is a new and major contribution to this area.  Other types of records that could go online to further the cause of family history research in Wales will be considered, with a particular emphasis on resources before 1800.  Finally a short summary of key advances in DNA sequencing will be given with a particular emphasis on the Y-chromosome.  This has the potential to revolutionise (yet again) the way that DNA can be utilised in family history research, as whole genome sequencing of the Y-chromosome moves into commercial reality.