Gearing Up for All Your New DNA Matches

How many people do you think are opening a DNA kit today?

Not everyone finds their DNA makeup or their ancestry intriguing.

My relatives in Italy barely know about anyone beyond their great grandparents. An Italian man told me he couldn't understand why Americans and Australians were so interested in their ancestry.

Merry Christmas!

Don't you think it's logical that people from America, Canada or Australia would be curious? These are countries of immigrants. And, more importantly, immigrants who started arriving relatively recently.

If you're from Italy, your ancestors probably lived in the same area for the last 500 years. Maybe before that there were some immigrants from northern Europe or the Middle East.

But it's a rare American whose roots in this country stretch back 399 years to the Mayflower. Personally, I had not a single ancestor set foot in America until the 1890s. Before he came here, they were all in southern Italy.

I started my genealogy hobby by finding the 1915 and 1920 ship manifests for my grandfathers. Of course I'm curious about who they left behind in Italy!

If you're giving or receiving a DNA kit today, here are some articles that can be a real help to you:

Making Sense of Your DNA Results

How are you going to feel if your ethnicity is nothing like you expected?

When DNA Says You're Related, You Determine How

Are you ready to collaborate with your DNA matches? You never know who you'll find.

Free DNA Analysis Finds Kissing Cousins

Now that you have your DNA, upload it to other websites for other kinds of results. I discovered a ridiculous fact about my parents from my DNA.

Collaborating with Your DNA Matches

Doing the research, working with your DNA matches, can lead to exciting new branches to explore.

The Leeds Method May Have Solved a Big Family Puzzle

With this method, I think I found the needle in a haystack that will solve the puzzle of my parents' shared DNA.

If you're not giving or getting a DNA kit this Christmas, thousands of others are. How many of them will be your match?

Which Global Map is Best for Genealogists?

Don't rely on one mapping tool when there are a few excellent ones.

I'm the oddball who searches on Bing instead of Google. I love Bing's features (a daily image and top news stories). Plus I rack up points to swap for $5 Amazon gift cards.

As a genealogist, I wondered which of these free map systems is better:

• Google Maps
• Bing Maps or
• Google Earth Pro

So I tested them side by side.

I chose to explore a small island in Italy where my uncle was born. I don't know the name of the street where his family lived, but I wanted to have a look around town.

When you enter a place name in both Google Maps and Bing Maps, there is a left panel with information. Both offer some quick facts about the place from Wikipedia. Google Maps offers photos, Street View or panoramic pictures. Bing Maps seems more interested in helping you travel to this destination. They offer info on places to stay and things to do. Note: Google Maps has that information, too, but it takes an extra click to get to it.

When searching for places where my ancestors lived, I want clear images, street names and a street-side view. For this location, the tiny island of Ponza, Italy, Bing Maps came up way short. You can see by these side-by-side comparisons that Bing's images are not clear and it's missing some street names.

Comparing Bing Maps and Google Maps side by side was eye-opening.

Google Earth Pro is a downloadable program, but you can launch it from a website, too. It offers the same image detail as Google Maps, but it adds a topographical component. You can see if the town is flat, mountainous, or in a valley. (It is available for Windows and Mac. Go to their website for more information and to download.)

To test the level of detail each tool can give you, I zoomed in on a church in the town. I went all the way to street level and Bing Maps was the clear loser—for this location. It could not zoom in very far on the church and street view was not available at all. Google Maps and Google Earth Pro gave me the same streetside view of the church. But Google Earth Pro also gave me the lay of the land.

I did more side-by-side comparisons using 3 houses I've lived in: one in Pennsylvania and two in New York. Once again, Bing's overhead view didn't get very close to my house, and it was a bit fuzzy. Google lets me zoom in all the way until it switches to street view. Google Earth Pro also lets me get really close, and adds a more 3D quality.

It may seem like a slam-dunk to you that Google Maps is the clear winner, with Google Earth Pro coming in second for its topographical view. But I always check both Google and Bing. You will find cases where an address doesn't exist in one map, but it does exist in the other.

Bing has one terrific feature important to a genealogist. It shows the county name. I can put in a street address, and at the top I see "United States - PA - Bucks Co. - Upper Southampton Township."

This feature is one reason why I always go to both maps.

As a genealogist, you owe it to yourself to bookmark Google Maps, bookmark Bing Maps, and install Google Earth Pro. Happy virtual travels!

And speaking of maps:

• Mapping Your Ancestors Can Answer Questions
• How to Visit Your Ancestral Hometown at Your Desk
• Take a Genealogy Vacation This Summer

How to Make Custom Family Trees for the Holidays

On Friday I watched a presentation by a woman who creates one-of-a-kind family tree charts. (You can see it now.)

Her designs inspired me to work on a special family tree design for my sister-in-law. We're going to her place for a party soon. My husband is making a traditional Japanese dish they grew up with. Me? I'm carrying the bottle of wine.

Now I'm thinking, why not give her a keepsake she'll treasure? I can create a custom family tree chart for her. Wouldn't this be a unique and heartfelt gift for someone on your gift list? (If you answered "no", see How to Share Your Family Tree Research with Relatives.)

I don't own a separate program for making family tree charts. I have only what's built into Family Tree Maker. But after seeing that online presentation, I want more than Family Tree Maker can offer.

Imagining the Family Tree Chart

I'm envisioning a tree with my father- and mother-in-law in the center, his family to the left, and her family to the right. I'd like to add some photos and more details for special memories.

Now I need to figure out a good format to use. One where I can have design freedom.

Earlier in my career I had a lot of desktop publishing experience. I created brochures and newsletters for big companies. But now I design web pages, not print pages.

What software do I have that I can use for this? Microsoft Publisher comes free with my Office 365 subscription, but I've never used it. I launch it and start looking at templates. When I type in "family tree", Publisher offers me a PowerPoint template.

That can work. I've done some design in PowerPoint when I needed to produce PDFs for my current company.

I open up the PowerPoint family tree template, and it looks like this:

This family tree is a free PowerPoint template.

I can use these elements to make the type of tree I have in mind.

Print Considerations

Before I go any further, I have to think about how I'll print this tree. My husband has access to a plotter at work with a 24" maximum width. He'll be more than happy to print a chart for his sister.

You may not have access to someone's plotter at the office. But you should have some nearby commercial options. The first time I printed a big family tree, it was 2 feet wide and 5 feet long. I had 40 copies printed at Kinko's (now called FedEx Office Print & Ship Center) and gave them out to all the cousins.

Your local FedEx, Staples or UPS store can take your digital file and print it out on a big plotter. Check with them for their requirements and size limitations.

Design Time

Start by looking for inspiration. Watch the video linked at the top of this article, Google family tree charts, or check Pinterest. You're bound to find something you like.

I want to include my in-laws' wedding photo and any photos I have of their parents. I want to make room for my late father-in-law's 5 siblings and my late mother-in-law's 7 siblings.

I begin by changing the page size in my PowerPoint file. I copy the tree format, then flip the copy so I wind up with a bow-tie tree format. I take out the template's colors and go with grayscale. Here's how my template looks now:

You can duplicate and move pieces of the template to create what you want.

I want to add some more space at the bottom for photos and captions. But first, I can fill in all the names I have. Here's how it looks with a tall stack of my in-laws' siblings in the center:

I used an unusual format to accommodate lots of siblings.

The template comes with a sample paragraph. I add some formatting to the paragraph so I can use it to add captions to the photos I'll choose.

I find a generic Japanese landscape photo to use as the background of my sister-in-law's tree. I fade it way back and push it to the bottom layer. All the text boxes and photos are in front of the image, so it doesn't interfere with anything. Here's my final product:

The final product didn't need a plotter. It fit on an 11"x17" sheet of paper.

With the holidays upon us, it's best not to get too caught up in what's missing from the tree. Focus instead on the personalized touches you can add that will make your loved one so happy. Those touches can include:

• A special family photo
• Their parents' marriage certificate
• A war hero's military record
• A picture of the family home

Which family tree chart do you want to create first?