Voting is now open for Rockstar Genealogists 2014

John Reid, who writes the popular Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections blog, has organised the third annual Rockstar Genealogists poll. Here is John's definition of a Rockstar Genealogist:

Rockstar genealogists are those who give "must attend" presentations at family history conferences or as webinars. Who, when you see a new family history article or publication by that person, makes it a must buy. Who you hang on their every word on a blog, podcast or newsgroup, or follow avidly on Facebook or Twitter?

This award seems to attract more attention every year. In 2012 the nominations were all from the US, and just 676 votes were cast. You can see a list of the 2012 winners here. Last year there were many more nominations, and the nominees were split up into separate categories for Australia and New Zealand, Canada, the UK and Ireland, and the US. Seven hundred and eighty-four people took part in the voting last year. Rather oddly, given the international nature of genealogy, only the votes of those who self-identified as living in the region in question were counted. I was somewhat surprised but honoured to find that I received the Silver Medal for the UK and Ireland last year. You can find links to all the relevant articles relating to the 2013 competition in this blog post by Randy Seaver.

This year there are 150 nominations. I am honoured that once again my name has been put forward. You can find a full list of the nominations for 2014 here.

It's good to see so many genetic genealogists on the list including: Bennett Greenspan,
Blaine Bettinger, Katherine Borges, Roberta Estes, Maurice Gleeson, CeCe Moore, Chris Pomery, Judy Russell and Megan Smolenyak and Tim Janzen. Members of the Guild of One-Name Studies are also very well-represented.

The voting has now opened so if you want to cast your vote go to:

http://anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/rockstar-genealogists-2014-voting-now.html

The voting will end late on Friday or Saturday with the results starting to come out late on Sunday or Monday. It's all a bit of fun but don't take the results too seriously!

A big price reduction on the Y Elite test from Full Genomes Corporation

As of today's date Full Genomes Corporation (FGC) has reduced the price of their Y Elite test from US $999 to $850. The FGC Y Elite is currently the most comprehensive Y-chromosome sequencing test on the market. The Y Elite sequences around 23 million bases, of which between 12 and 16 million are in mappable regions. There are nearly 60 million base pairs in the entire Y-chromosome, around half of which are in highly repetitive regions, but with currently available technology it is not yet possible to sequence the entire Y-chromosome.

For a comparison of all the available Y-SNP tests see the ISOGG Y-DNA SNP testing chart.

FGC also has a whole genome pilot which is due to launch very soon. The pilot programme was announced on the Anthrogenica Forum on 25th August. The test has a read length of 150 base pairs and will cost US $1850 per sample. The read length will be for 150 base pairs.