How Do I Level Up the DNA Evidence for My Ancestors?

Last week, I looked at the current state of research into my ancestors – focusing on my assembled DNA evidence. (This is a modification of Yvette Hoitink’s original Level-Up Challenge for genealogy research). Here, I'll walk through the steps I take to bring my genetic genealogy research to the next level. My goal for this process...

The Level-Up Challenge – For DNA Evidence

Last week I wrote about taking Yvette Hoitink’s Level-Up Challenge for my genealogy research, which pushed me to clarify what I know about my ancestors and helped me focus my research moving forward. As I mentioned in that post, though, when I classified my ancestors at different levels based on how thoroughly I’ve researched them...

Taking the Level-Up Challenge!

Last week, I wrote about evaluating my family tree in terms of completeness, or simply counting how many ancestors I have identified (with at least some confidence). There is much more to genealogy research, though, than simply putting names on a tree - even if you have one or more pieces of evidence that seem...

Research Check-In: How Complete Are My Trees?

I’m starting this year by checking in on my tree completeness. Why am I doing this? While it can be nice to keep tabs on genealogy research progress, and I like a good set of statistics as much as the next person, it’s more than just curiosity. For any research project, it’s useful to start...