Genetic Genealogy Education

At the end of October this year I had the great pleasure of attending the Genetic Genealogy Ireland conference in Dublin. I am pleased to report that the recordings of all the DNA lectures are now available free of charge online on the Genetic Genealogy Ireland YouTube channel. There are just a couple of lectures which could not be recorded, generally because the speaker was presenting unpublished results. If you attended the conference and weren't able to attend all the lectures now is your chance to catch up. If you didn't attend you are in for a real treat. If you only have time to watch one presentation I highly recommend Diahan Southard's very moving presentation on The Marriage of Genetics and Genealogy. This was the story of her mother's search for her biological parents.

I gave a presentation on The Future of Autosomal DNA. I'd love to know what you think about my vision for the future. Do you think my predictions will come true?

The same weekend that Genetic Genealogy Ireland was on in Dublin there was also a big DNA event in America with the second Institute of Genetic Genealogy held in San Diego. The lectures from this conference are also available online. These talks were recorded professionally with both sound and video. They are available online for a small fee from the i4GG website. You can either pay for each individual lecture or purchase the whole set of 19 videos for just $99.

I've not yet had time to watch all the presentations and I shall look forward to catching up when I have a bit more time after Christmas. Of the lectures I've seen so far I particularly enjoyed Leah Larkin's talk When Your Tree Is a Banyan: Coping with Endogamy in Genetic Genealogy. She provided a fascinating insight into the problems of interpreting autosomal DNA results in a highly endogamous population. She has some ancestors from whom she has an astonishing 10 or 11 different lines of descent!

With so many talks available online there will be something to learn for everyone whether you are a beginner or an advanced genetic genealogist.