The Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Daniel Henrie and his membership in the Mormon Battalion. The 52 ancestors prompt that brought about this post was about membership in a broader community - what churches, clubs, fraternal organizations, service groups, or military units did your ancestors belong to? Exploring membership in those groups helps us understand our ancestors' lives better...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about an outcast in our family tree. Diana shares how she responded to the 52 Ancestors prompt to write about an ancestor who was an outcast. She chose William "Dick" Shults, who fled town after a gunfight and settled in Arizona. He made it into the newspapers several times in the early 1900s due to run-ins with the law and other events. Join us as we disc...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's grandfather, Edward Raymond Kelsey, and the cabin he acquired to house his antique collection. Diana found out more about the cabin through cousins' social media posts. We discuss the value of connecting with cousins through social media and learn about the history of the cabin and how it came to be part of the Cassia County Historical Museum...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is the final in a series about the Alford/Johnson project. We talk with Michelle Mickelson, researcher on the project, who shares how Y-DNA and autosomal DNA were applied to test the case and see if the relationships found with documentary evidence and oral history were also biological. Join us as we discuss how Michelle incorporated DNA evidence into her rep...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is the second in a series of discussions with Michelle Mickelson about the Alford/Johnson research project. The project was commissioned to determine if James William Johnson was actually Patrick Alford. The data from a deep dive into friends, family, associates, and neighbors revealed that the two men were almost certainly the same - based on records of the...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is an interview with Michelle Dickens, CG, a member of the Research Like a Pro Facebook group, who recently completed her application for certification through the Board for Certification of Genealogists. Michelle shares how she prepared for certification through studying textbooks, the RLP podcast and books, and working on her work samples. Join us for a fun...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Malissa Welch, Diana's 2nd-great-grandmother. We discuss her life and sources we have found for her, and how we incorrectly attached the parents of Meredith Welch and Susannah early in our genealogy research. Later we discovered a conflict with her name which led to discovering the correct parents for Malissa. Links Oops: Correcting an Incorrect Set...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is an interview with Peter McCracken, founder of ShipIndex.org. Peter is an electronic resources librarian at Cornell University. Shipindex is a database to assist researchers finding material about vessels. Peter tells us about ShipIndex and how it can be useful for genealogists.  Links https://www.shipindex.org/   The Enoch Train at Shipindex - https://www....

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about the Coverage Estimator tool at DNA Painter. We discuss the purpose of the tool, some ways to use it, and how to use it. We also share some examples of how we've used it. Nicole shares her Joanna West case and how the coverage estimator showed increased coverage as more test-takers were added. Diana shares how she is using the coverage estimator to tr...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about using Airtable for a genealogy research log and how to configure and save different views of your tables. Tables are like pages within a spreadsheet. In your research log table, you may have many entries of various record types. You may want to filter to just see tax records, then group them by tax district, especially if you're studying many people...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about the Family Locket Genealogists project to write up our client's research about James William Johnson and his origins. In episode 256, we interviewed James Wesley Johnson about his ancestor James William Johnson and the discovery that James was actually Patrick Alford. James asked Family Locket to verify his research and write up the research professi...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is an interview with James Wesley Johnson, author of A Horse, A Gunfight, And The Law: A Historical Account of Our Alfords in Texas, and a client of Family Locket Genealogists. He hired us to help verify his family research that uncovered a family secret kept for over 100 years. Join us for a discussion of southern roots, horse thieves, gunfights, the law, an...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana's 52 ancestors post with the prompt "out of place." She chose to write about her maternal grandfather, Edward Raymond Kelsey. After high school and a few years working at the railroad, he decided to become a hobo. This was about 1905. He stayed in hobo camps along the railroad lines and traveled throughout the northwest on the trains. Join us a...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about evaluating family trees and the sources in them to help us determine if a family tree is accurate. We review independent sources, primary information, and direct evidence. In the absence of direct evidence, we can often put together a body of indirect evidence to help us prove a parent-child link, but that requires a written conclusion. Often family...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about AncestryDNA's Thrulines hypotheses. We respond to a listener question about how accurate Thrulines is. We discuss new AncestryDNA technology SideView and how they use that to split up matches by parent. We review strategies for analyzing Thrulines to see if it's accurate or not. We talk about matches sharing small amounts of DNA and how they are ofte...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about Chapter 12 of Research Like a Pro with DNA, "What's Next? Publishing, Productivity, and Further Education." We discuss updating family tree software at the completion of a project, sharing reports, anonymizing living individuals, asking DNA matches for permission to be included in a publicly shared report or proof argument, and ideas for how to share...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about writing a research reports that incorporate DNA evidence. We talk about the elements of a research report, including tables and diagrams, the conclusion, and suggestions for future research. We also discuss tips for making your writing better and how to include document images.  Links DNA Research Reports – the Ultimate Finish - by Robin Wirthlin htt...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about using a research log to track your DNA research. We discuss spreadsheets and databases as the optimal tools for your research log, and discuss Airtable as a possible relational database that you can use. We talk about various sheets/tables to include in a DNA research log and how you might want to organize the columns in each table. Links Crème de la...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about chapter 9 of Research Like a Pro with DNA, about research planning. We talk about how to use what you've learned about available records and DNA tools to help you make a research plan. The steps for research planning include reviewing the known information and DNA starting point, creating a hypothesis, identifying possible sources and methods, then p...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about the second half of Chapter 8 in Research Like a Pro with DNA. This part of the chapter focuses on tools that use segment data to help you find common ancestors with your matches. We discuss chromosome browsers, segment triangulation, chromosome mapping, DNA Painter, visual phasing, and several third party tools. We also review tools to help analyze m...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about the first half of chapter 8 in Research Like a Pro with DNA. We discuss genetic networks and pedigree triangulation, including several tools to help with building and analyzing trees. We also discuss manual methods for clustering DNA matches and automated methods, including AutoClusters and network graphs. Links Gephi Network Graphs Series - https://...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about chapter 7 of Research Like a Pro with DNA. We discuss ethnicity estimates and how they can help with your genealogy research. We review the ethnicity estimates from each testing company and GEDmatch. We also discuss locality research and three small case studies showing how ethnicity and location were instrumental in solving the case. Links How SideV...

Today's episode of Research Like a Pro is about chapter six of Research Like a Pro with DNA. Chapter 6 is about analyzing sources, information, and evidence. DNA sources can be original, derivative, or authored, just like documentary. We go over the source, information, and evidence labels and discuss DNA examples for each. We also talk about evaluating a DNA match to determine the relationship wi...