MNJGS Event: You've Done Your DNA - Now What?

Many of us have sent our DNA for analysis, curious about what we might find. We receive an ethnicity estimate and a long list of matches ranging from 2nd cousins to more distant ones.  Sometimes we are contacted by people on the list of matches who are trying to decipher the relationship. Who are these people? And how do we make sense of their relationship to us?

Ken Bravo will help you create a strategy for reviewing and prioritizing that list. Bravo's presentation will cover his process, developed over many years, of working with genealogy and DNA matches. He demonstrates how he separates relatives due to endogamy from "real" relatives. He works with family trees and looks for linkages in the matches, often looking for common surnames. He will explain how people who have tested with multiple DNA providers can get different ethnicity results. Using examples from his own large Lithuanian family, he will demonstrate how he has identified new branches of his family tree through DNA analysis. He will also explain the Gedmatch tool and share examples to illustrate how he has used it to further his family research.

Ken Bravo is President of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) and Past President of the JGS Cleveland. and is a frequent lecturer on a variety of genealogy subjects.  He has been searching his own roots since the mid-1970s and, in more recent years, has added the families of the spouses of his four children to his research.  He is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and has his own business, The Nuts & Bolts of Jewish Genealogy, to assist others in researching their family histories.

Members are free, a $5 donation is requested of nonmembers.

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