Three things we learnt at DNA Club

Family Tree Plus is a brand new online community for family historians around the world. Members can enjoy three exclusive clubs each month: DNA Club, Genealogy Gadgets and Study Club.

Find out more and start your free trial (no credit card, no commitment) here. 

The first DNA Club meeting took place on 21 September and here, we share just a few of the many things we learnt:

DNA News

In the news section of the meeting, Karen Evans shared a video recommendation for working with Ancestry's new Sideview tool. WATCH HERE.

DNA research and matches presentation

Michelle Leonard's presentation 'Your Traditional Family Tree: why it matters more than ever when it comes to DNA research'  included lots of helpful tips such as:

• Combining DNA and traditional research is the way to success in both/either field. Build your tree out as far, wide and deep as possible to set yourself up to succeed – whether or not you’ve taken a DNA test. In order to be able to connect with potential matches, you'll need to know which ancestors you potentially share - and you can't do this without a family tree.

• Don’t forget to build up the collateral lines of your tree, for example the lines of the siblings of your direct ancestors. You can build these forward to living people in the present day, who may be a DNA match. People on these sibling lines will have descendants, and it is these descendants who are your potential DNA matches, and so the more collateral lines on your tree, the better your chances of identifying potential matches. This can be a lifelong project as you build out information on the siblings of your grandparents, your great-grandparents, and so on.

Join us for our next Family Tree Plus meeting. This will be the Family Tree Study Club on 10 October at 6.30pm. Simply register for your free trial to Family Tree Plus here before the meeting and you will receive the link to attend free. We look forward to seeing you on Zoom!