Blog
May 1, 2019
Around 10 years ago, I scanned all of my parents’ photographs for them. It was a huge project which I did at my dad’s request. My company Legacy Multimedia was beginning to do some archival projects and I wanted to do this for my parents but also as a way of experimenting with different scanning and archiving techniques as I worked out a process for clients. And I did it all wrong. I’m not going to go into the list of mistakes that I made but there were many. Over time, I organized and re-organized the structure of the archive and at one point, had one of my employees work on it for a few weeks; sorting out duplicates, and breaking up some photos that were in large page scans. What I meant to do was to sit down and finally get everything sorted out correctly, re-scan the badly scanned […]
April 17, 2019
I’ve been doing family genealogy for a long time but have only dug into the DNA aspect of it a couple of years ago. During these years, I’ve learned about chromosomes, centimorgans, MtDNA, Y-DNA, autosomal DNA, triangulation, phasing and some other aspects of testing. I’ve learned a lot. But what I want to share with you falls more into the category of DNA etiquette. It WILL help you find descendants of your ancestors by making it easier for others to figure out how they might be related to you and make contacting you easier. I have spent a fair amount of time looking for my own descendants of ancestors as well as helping others learn about their matches. And over time, what I have learned is that most people are not making it easy to connect. It’s okay if you don’t know anything, and it’s important to tell people that […]
October 15, 2018
Like any hobby or passion, there can be enormous expenses involved in it’s pursuit. I have paid for numerous DNA tests so that I can build a base of “known cousins” in order to find and match lost branches. I have paid for books, monthly fees to records databases, hosting and building this website, etc. I don’t expect any compensation for this and I guess I am grateful my hobby has a reasonable financial outlay compared to something like collecting Faberge eggs, mountain climbing in the Himalayas or other exotic pursuits. What I do want to share with you, and hopefully enroll your support in, is a new project I just started. Eager to find information about my mysterious grandfather Harry Spiel and his brother Morris, I’ve setup a project through JewishGen.org to transliterate the 14 documents I have so far received from a Ukrainian archive after purchasing them a […]
October 10, 2018
When I first started doing DNA testing and connecting the dots of my new cousins I had visions of the kind of family reunions you read about in Women’s Day. 100 people with matching family T-shirts grilling hot dogs and eating watermelon in a big park somewhere. Bulletin boards cluttered with family photos and three-legged sack races. Well, it didn’t take long to peel the rose-colored layer off my glasses. Not everyone was happy to hear from me. Many people with strong DNA matches never responded to my inquiries. I guess it’s a “thing” to get your DNA tested and see what percentage of you is Irish, never mind actually following up on who you might be related to. After sending an email to a second cousin who it took me months to locate, his wife told him that my email was spam and that I was probably looking for […]