The new mitotree and million mito project: what’s new for mtdna testers?

I was going to start this month’s article by talking about why we love this hobby so much but I realised that this isn’t really a hobby at all. Genealogy/family tree research/ancestor hunting or whate

My name is Mandy Geary, and I’m a professional genealogist based in Essex. Similarly to Claire Bradley in her review of RootsMagic10 (see FT August), I have to confess I’m not a regular user of any of

‘DNA isn’t a magic bullet,’ says DNA Detective Michelle Leonard. ‘Sometimes people think it’s going to be, and they think it’s going to “throw up the answers”.’ Occasionally this happens, ‘if you’re r

I remember, many years ago, a potential client making a very specific request. They wanted me to research their family but they were only interested in the direct male line. ‘I don’t want to know abou

I’d grown up wondering why I looked so different from my family. But it took 35 years to discover the truth.

I spend a lot of time talking about DNA and I love sharing my experiences with it, but occasionally I wonder what really makes genetic genealogy work for me. Below I’ve distilled my thoughts into four