Posts Tagged: Ethnic Research

Taking Yet Another DNA Test

Yesterday I gave myself a belated Christmas present: yet another DNA test. To date, I had tested my DNA with AncestryDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, and MyHeritage DNA. I tried testing with Living DNA, but in three separate swab sampling attempts, that DNA testing service was unable to get meaningful results from my samples so they refunded my

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Finnish Newspaper Features My Visit to Finland

This morning, I received an email from Cousin Matti in Finland with a digital image of the report in the Savo regional newspaper about my visit to Finland during the last week in June. The headline translates into “Enjoying a Visit to My Grandparents’ Birthplace.” I wrote a basic article and sent it to Matti

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Making Sense of My DNA Test Results

I have tested with AncestryDNA, MyHeritageDNA, and FamilyTreeDNA, so I have a lot of results to study and work with. Today, I discovered two YouTube videos by Crista Cowen at Ancestry.com. In them she explains two key aspects of my DNA test results: 1.You Received Your Results. Now What? (Part One) | AncestryDNA 2.You Received

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User Report: MyHeritage.com

For almost a year now, I have been tapping into the resources of the genealogical database provider known as MyHeritage.com. I started out by creating a free website, then I downloaded its free computer family tree database program Family Tree Builder. Intrigued by what I found, I next opened a subscription that provided access to

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Surnames in Finland

Today, I accessed the wiki page on FamilySearch.org labeled “Finland Surnames.” It was quite helpful as it very clearly explained the surname practices in Western Finland versus those in Eastern Finland. Eastern and western Finland have different naming traditions. Both naming customs date back to the earliest written sources. There was frequent overlap of these practices

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MyHeritage Yields Finnish Researchers Interested in My Ancestors

I just gave myself a Christmas present of a premium membership to MyHeritage.com. By poking around in the free version, I gathered the strong impression that this genealogical database provider has a bigger presence in Europe than Ancestry.com. I entered some very limited information about my Huuskonen (original spelling) ancestors on an online tree I created

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Evert and Ida Huuskonen from Vesanto and Rautalampi, Finland

For years, we wondered about why Grandpa Evert Huuskonen moved from Rautalampi to Vesanto in Finland. The two towns are about 45 km apart. After learning the history of Rautalampi Parish and its daughter parish, Vesanto, we concluded that the Huuskonens did not move at all, but that Evert Huuskonen and his wife Ida simply

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Ancestry Announces 2015 Product and Content Lineup at Rootstech

Ancestry <http://home.ancestry.com/> has rolled out innovations and new collections in time for the 2015 Rootstech Conference <https://rootstech.org/?lang=eng> in Salt Lake City. Here is the official company announcement: (PROVO, Utah) – February 11, 2015– Ancestry, the world’s leading family history service, is ushering in the next generation of family history, with the debut of an updated story-centric website,

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Megan Smolenyak Does It Again–Her Report on Stephen Colbert

This morning I opened an email notification from Facebook about Megan Smolenyak sharing a link. When I checked out the link, I learned that it actually was dated 29 Jan 2015. So what’s a few days delay? Anyway, the link was to Irish America magazine and its new issue with her genealogical report on Stephen Colbert

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