Trace Your Roots with DNA: Using Genetic Tests to Explore Your Family Tree PDF

Rating: (43 reviews) Author: Visit Amazon's Megan Smolenyak Page ISBN : 9781594860065 New from $11.90 Format: PDF

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From Publishers Weekly

Genetic typing is the newest tool for amateur genealogists, and it’s enthusiastically espoused by the experienced authors of this useful guidebook (Smolenyak is the lead researcher for PBS’s Ancestors and the author of In Search of Our Past Ancestors; Turner contributes to the GENEALOGY-DNA mailing list). How does it work? By tracing one’s "DNA heirlooms," the two forms of DNA that are passed on in a family from generation to generation. These "heirlooms" include genetic markers on the Y chromosome, passed on by fathers, and mitochondrial DNA, passed on by mothers. If it sounds hard to understand and do, the authors reassuringly offer clear explanations of the science and how to use it. DNA typing can tell you if you’re related to someone with the same surname, pinpoint a certain ancestor and verify your other research. But, as the authors warn, it could also prove your previous assumptions wrong or uncover unwanted information, such as that a family member was adopted. If you have been researching your family’s history and have unanswered questions, this enlightening book may offer some answers; at the very least, it will walk you through the benefits and drawbacks of DNA testing.
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About the Author

Megan Smolenyak has been an avid genealogist for more than three decades and is an expert at family history research. The lead researcher for the PBS Ancestors series, she is a contributing editor for Heritage Quest and the author of Honoring Our Ancestors, In Search of Our Ancestors, and They Came to America. She currently resides in Williamsburg, VA.

Ann Turner was hooked on genealogy when she learned that her parents' ancestors had arrived in the United States on the same ship yet went their separate ways until her parents met 300 years later. She works at home, writing computer software and composing messages for the popular Genealogy-DNA mailing list. She currently resides in Menlo Park, California.

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• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (October 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594860068
• ISBN-13: 978-1594860065
• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 6 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Trace Your Roots with DNA: Using Genetic Tests to Explore Your Family Tree PDF

Millions of Americans have become hooked on genealogy, the science or study of family descent. The popularity of pursuing one's ancestors through tracing one's roots backward generation by generation has soared since the advent of the Internet, which made it possible to rapidly search the world for even remote family members and set up family websites, and the creation of special computer software which enables anyone to use the power of the computer to trace his or her domestic roots. Now it is possible to go to the next level of searching one's family tree through the availability of DNA testing. And that is what this book, "Trace Your Roots with DNA," is all about.

Co-author Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak (no, that's not a typo!) has been an eager genealogist for more than thirty years, is an authority on family history research, and was the lead researcher for the Ancestors series on PBS. She is also a contributing editor for "Heritage Quest" and the author of a number of books related to genealogy and ancestor historiography. The other co-author, Ann Turner, became interested in genealogy when she learned that her parents' ancestors had arrived in the United States on the same ship, yet went their separate ways until her parents met 300 years later. That sort of coincidence would also have piqued my interest in my family history if I knew something like that about my parents. Sometimes facts are really stranger than fiction.

"Trace Your Roots with DNA" is not really for leisure reading, but it does contain very valuable information for those who want to use the new DNA tests for help in tracing their family ancestry.

This book explores the convergence of genetic research and genealogy, and provides its own convergence of the academic with the practical.

Some people make a life's work of tracing their family roots. I'm not one of those people. But a few years ago, my sister researched our family's immigration on the paternal side and found the account we'd been told our whole lives simply wasn't true. So when I saw this book, I thought it might be interesting. That's exactly what it turned out to be--in spades.

The authors took care to make the book readable to both novices and experienced genealogical researchers. As I have no experience in genealogy, I very much appreciated Part I. It gave me a good background, so I could understand and enjoy the rest of the book. Folks who already knew the basics could skip over Part I, without missing out on something of value to them.

This modular organization of Trace Your Roots is something I want to explain a bit more, by looking for a moment at a different genre. One of my pet peeves with computer books is most of themare either extremely basic throughout so you get bogged down in boring detail, or they are so advanced you just can't move forward. The correct approach is to include a primer on the basics for those who need it, and then write the book as though everyone knows the basics. I was pleased that Trace Your Roots took this approach.

Moving beyond the primer (which addresses genealogy and then genetics), the book takes one subject at a time and explains it in a clear and interesting way with examples and anecdotes.

In Part II, we start with tracing roots along the paternal path. There are two basic reasons for taking this path. The first is biological--the Y chromosome.