Using Longest Segment in Endogamous DNA Analysis

When you're from an endogamous population, you tend to share a lot of small segments with others from that population--which causes relationship predictions that are significantly closer than they are in actuality.  For example, someone who's predicted to be a second cousin may actually be your eighth cousin in 12 ways.  So in such populations, the amount of shared DNA is not necessarily indicative of the actual relationship.  So what can be done?

I don't really have over 2100 fourth cousins--let alone that many who have tested at Ancestry

Kreina Dimant Mazurik--Another Tidbit

Back in 2013, I wrote a short post about my grandfather's sister Kreina.  I wrote the little I knew about her--that she was born about 1916, that she married (to David Mazurik) and had a child (Rivka), and that she was killed in the Holocaust, as were her husband and daughter.

Turns out even the little bit I knew wasn't entirely correct--she was actually born in 1915.

Birth Record of Krejna Diment, 1915

So Close...And Yet So Far Away

Often people look at a match, and if that match doesn't also match cousins on one side, they conclude that the relationship is on the other side.  That isn't always a correct assumption.

Recently, I checked my uncle's kit (my father's brother) on AncestryDNA and discovered a new potential 3rd cousin match.

My uncle's AncestryDNA match with D

Sonia Diamond's A-File

After "only" 16 months, I received my grandmother's A-File.  Some of the documents were contained in her C-File, but there were lots that I hadn't seen before.  [To learn how to order A- and C-Files, see here.]

Sonia Diamond's Alien Registration form; page 1

Ukraine Trip Post #14--Ukraine Trip Wrapup & Trip Tips

(To see everything from my Ukraine trip, see here.)

This wrapup post will address things people have asked as well as tips for taking such a trip.  If you have other tips, please add them to the comments so that future readers can benefit!

Safety

Many people asked me if I felt safe in Ukraine.  I felt entirely safe during the entire trip.  The only time I even saw a mention of the conflict with Russia was in shops and at markets in Lviv.

Ukrainians aren't fans of Putins.  They also sell lots of Putin doormats.

Ukraine Trip Post #13--Day 9 (September 9, 2016), Part 2

(To see everything from my Ukraine trip, see here.)

As mentioned in my previous post, my 10th great grandfather (Dovid HaLevi Segal "The Ta'Z) lived in Lviv.  He was buried in the old cemetery--which was entirely razed and covered over by the Nazis and then the Soviets.  It is currently the site of a huge market.

Lviv's Old Jewish Cemetery :(

Genealogy and Medical History--Happy Cancerversary to Me!

Three years ago today, I was diagnosed with cancer.  And I only found out at that point because of genealogy.  (Details about how that happened are here.)  But in retrospect, I could have identified that something was up in my family by looking at death and other records I'd been amassing for years.  (And it looks like the family knew something was up years ago, even before genetics' tie to cancer was discovered; a 1955 relative's obituary requested that donations be made to the family's cancer fund.)

When you collect those names and dates to populate your family tree, you're also collecting your family's medical history.  Look at causes of deaths on death certificates and mentions of places for donations to be given in obituaries.  Is there a pattern down one line of your family?

Medical Genealogy (no, this isn't my family)

Fold3's Holocaust Collection

I'd received an email about Fold3's WWII collection being free to search through November 8, so I went to check it out.  While I did find some things on my family who was in the US during that time period (like my grandfather's draft card which I haven't seen anywhere else!), I was very surprised that some of the surnames that I looked for popped up under a sub-collection which I hadn't seen before--Fold3's Holocaust Collection.  While there was not a lot on my father's side of the family, since most of those relatives were killed before they made it to a concentration camp, there were multiple documents on relatives from my maternal grandmother's Subcarpathia side.  Here are just a few examples of what I've found with some quick searching

Flossenburg Concentration Camp Inmate Entry Register--Zoltan Eisikowicz

Ukraine Trip Post #12--Day 9 (September 9, 2016), Part 1

(To see everything from my Ukraine trip, see here.)

On Friday, we toured around Lviv, which is a beautiful city with a ton of history.

In Lviv

There were fragments of Lviv's Jewish past all over.