I hadn't expected to attend Jamboree
this year, but when the schedule first came out with a full day of
excellent speakers on intermediate/advanced sessions for DNA Day and
an extra Friday workshop, I was hooked for the whole conference.
Unfortunately for my blogging, the daily commute precluded my posting
each day...more on that later. Here's a summary of my impressions. A blog post on the rest ofJamboree to follow.
DNA Day
Even though I allowed 90 minutes for a
commute that can be done in an hour-ish, I was 30 minutes late and
arrived to find myself “locked-out” of Kitty Cooper's session on
triangulation. Fortunately, her blog posts are thorough so I think I
can tough it out and fill in the gaps myself. I spent the time left
that session in with Katherine Borges & Linda Magellan on
Recruiting DNA in Europe. Those few minutes were enjoyable and
informative while I let myself unwind from the drive. On to the rest of my day:
10am with James V. Bartlett on
Intermediate DNA: Autosomal DNA – Specific Steps to Insure
Success
An
excellent presentation and syllabus: lots of detail yet very easy to
follow. I need to follow his suggestion of having a few “standard
messages” ready to use for cousin contacts. Duh..no wonder I was
never happy with my attempted messages...I was trying to make one fit
them all. Also, I need to keep trying: Jim cited much improved
response rates by the third inquiry he sends out to an individual.
His tips on spreadsheet management are useful, too.
11:30an with Tim Janzen on Organizing
All of Your DNA Match List Data
Another excellent presentation in every
regard. He provided very detailed info on how he structures his
spreadsheets. Maybe I can make this work...I really like the idea of
giving a new cell to each individual email to/from a cousin contact.
In general, he works his analysis more at the segment level than by
total size of a match.
2:00pm back with James V. Bartlett on
Segment-ology: Learning about Autosomal DNA
Still very good and by this point I didn't need to take as many notes. I choose to think that's because of all my new knowledge and
synthesis skills rather than from info overload! I think I've really
got a good grasp now on analyzing matches that could be on either one
of a chromosome pair.
3:30pm with Diahan Southard on Circles
or Triangles? What Shape is your DNA?
Another excellent presentation as always from Diahan! I went into
this expecting to still be strongly favoring triangulation. However now, I must admit that I see there is indeed some logic & science behind
Genetic Networking (seems to be the generic term for “DNA Circles").
I still count myself in the triangulation camp, but I will be less overtly critical of a certain company's circles. I really liked Diahan's
emphasis that while you may have DNA matches in circles, you MUST
then “do the genealogy.”
5:00pm with Blaine Bettinger for
Genetic Genealogy: Year in Review 2016
Good presentation, well
organized.
Yes, a lot really did happen in just the last year. Key quote: “We need
to expect our match lists to change over time.” It's clear that
more updates and more changes are going to be a fact of life.
Overall, a great day and it's going to take me hours and hours of work to start implementing all that I learned and/or am now more motivated to actually do.
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