Roots Television | Megan's Roots World

In conjunction with VH1 Soul, African Ancestry is running a special for the month of February -- $99 off per kit! That makes it $250 for the MatriClan test, $250 for the PatriClan test, or $500 for the combination! To learn more, click on the image below.

I learned about this from a press release about Spike Lee producing a spot to encourage viewers to take this test. What a change from a few years ago when so many dismissed ancestral DNA testing!

If you happen to sport Northeastern Pennsylvania coal mining roots like I do, then you'll be interested in this article: Digging area history from records, sites Let's hear it for the John Dziak's of the world!

Well, there's only one Genealogue -- and 1,556,837 Christophers and 26,997 Dunhams in the United States -- but there are apparently 139 other people running around with our friend's name.

You can play around with your own name at How Many of Me -- but with one caveat. You're out of luck if you have a name like Smolenyak because it only works for the 88,799 most popular surnames. Still, it's nice to know that I was one of the first of the more than 220,000 Megans! (warning: site sometimes sports tacky ads)

A few weeks ago, I appeared on a morning talk show in Utah called Studio 5. They asked for a few genealogical basics to pop on their website and recently added them here:

Easy ways to get started with genealogy

On this show, I demonstrated Ancestry.com's "shaky leaf" system by poking into one of the host's roots. More than a million family trees and 400,000 photos have been uploaded just since July 2006 using this new functionality (see the press release for more details), and once you play with it, you'll discover why -- it's pretty darn addicting. In fact, one New York Times reporter described it as "digital crack."

If you'd like to try it, just enter some date or upload a GEDCOM into Ancestry.com's Member Trees. Here's wishing you many shaky leaves (and if that doesn't make sense to you now, it will once you give it a go)!

This might be a bit intimidating if you're new to genealogical research, but if you've been at it for a while and are comfortable online, you'll want to check out these great pages of links from ProGenealogists (incidentally, the company I use for virtually all of my Family History Library research).

United States Genealogy Sleuth

International Genealogy Sleuth

These are links that they use themselves when tackling their case work, and they've been kind enough to share them with all of us. Definitely worth a careful study. You just never know what terrific resource you might have been overlooking!

Did you know that 7% of U.S. marriages take place in Nevada -- even though the state only represents about 1% of the U.S. population? You can learn this and a gazillion other details about marriages and divorces in Nevada (yup, including all those celebrity marriages and quickie divorces) at VegasWeddingOdds.com by Ancestry.com.

While you're there, though, take some time to play the slots and learn about the odds on your own marriage. I entered my name and my husband's -- Brian -- and found out that I had better keep him away from anyone named Michelle. Should Brian ever decide he's had enough of me and my genealogical ways, my best bets for another marriage would be Robert, James, Joseph, Daniel, Timothy, Matthew, Eric, Joshua, Gary and Sean. So if you sport any of those names, don't say I didn't warn you!

If you'd like to read more, check out this press release. And when you're playing the slots, you might want to take a peek at the disclaimer as well.

The first guest will be John Philip Colletta! Just click on the image to be taken to the site.

Running a little behind and missed an article of mine that appeared in Ancestry.com's 24/7 Family History Circle. It's another in my series about books with a genealogical theme that aren't overtly genealogical -- although one of the two I review this time is pretty darn genealogical. Check out Feeling Bookish -- not only for the article itself, but for the additional suggestions in the comments. And you can look for a lot more ideas for your next book binge here in the book category.

Had a great time chatting with Mike O'Laughlin of Irish Roots Cafe, and you can listen to our discussion -- mostly about Annie Moore, the first immigrant through Ellis Island -- by checking out podcast #10. While you're there, take a little time to explore. There's a lot to this virtual cafe!

I don't blame her for playing it safe. About a week ago, I spotted an article entitled Mystery Surrounds 1865 Medal of Honor in the Indianoplis Star. Unfortunately, the article (written by Virginia Hilbert) is already tucked into the archives and only available on a fee basis, but the gist of it was that a Civil War Medal of Honor had strayed from its family of origin, and the present owner, Marjorie Grismore, was seeking descendants of Joseph F. Carter from Maryland.

How could I resist? It took about half an hour, but I tracked down a great-granddaughter in Baltimore, and gave Ron Wilkins, the fellow doing the sleuthing on behalf of the current owner, her contact info. He called and she confirmed her relationship. You can read about it in this follow up article by Ms. Hilbert -- Medal of Honor could be back in family soon.

Not surprisingly, Ms. Grismore wants to be absolutely sure about the relationship, so I'm awaiting her call so I can provide the details she needs to feel reassured. What's especially nice, though, is that the descendant was aware of the medal and had been looking for it for 20 years. She shouldn't have much longer to wait!

FindMyPast recently announced that they had added another decade's worth of UK emigration records, so now the site covers 1890-1909. I use Bob Hope's immigration record as an example in my Ellis Island talk, so I knew that he left England in 1908. Of course, I had to go see if I could find his departure, and sure enough, I could! Here we see toddler Leslie Hope with his mother Avis and siblings:

View image

When I first reviewed FindMyPast, I mentioned that I wasn't keen on the pay-as-you-go approach. It sounds good in theory (and is the norm for most European genealoical sites), but doesn't work well with my search style. I was impressed that Elaine Collins, FindMyPast's Commercial Director, took the time to explain (you can see her complete remarks as a comment on my earlier posting, but here's a selection):

"The minimum expiry time on the findmypast.com is three months, rather than one month, for the $10 package, and most packages are valid for one year. We send emails to remind you when units are about to expire and you have an opportunity to extend the life of units.

Finally, you may be pleased to hear that we will shortly be introducing unlimited access subscription packages for the passenger list records alongside the pay-per-view options, so each researcher can decide which payment method meets their needs. It's about customer choice."

Well, that's the best of both worlds! Let the searching begin!

How cool is this? Since the Annie Moore story broke back in September of last year, I've been contacted by a number of students working on immigration-related projects. As best I can, I try to answer questions and be generally helpful.

Well, Christina Jacko of Martinsburg, WV just sent me this snap of her recently completed Annie Moore project which scored an impressive 98 out of 100 points! Check out those models! Great work, Christina! Thanks for sharing your project with us -- and for keeping Annie's memory alive!

Megan is scheduled to speak at the DuPage County Genealogy Society Conference on February 24. She will be presenting "Trace Your Roots with DNA," "Beyond Y-DNA: Your Genetic Genealogy Options," "Reverse Genealogy: Techniques for Finding Your Lost Loved Ones" and "Jump-Starting Your Eastern European Research" from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn, 4070 East Main Street in St. Charles, IL. Hope to see you there!

It isn't often that you get to speak at a venue that's only a couple of blocks from your home, but last night was one of those times. I broke in a new talk at the Haddon Fortnightly and I'm grateful to the hardy souls who braved the snow and sleet. I was pretty darn sure I would end up speaking to myself, but that turned out not to be the case.

As to the new talk, it's called "Cases That Made My Brain Hurt," and you can learn more about it here -- although the content is probably fairly obvious from the title! This and a talk on Annie Moore are my new ones for the year. I really enjoyed last evening, but probably my favorite part was the Q&A which meandered all over the place! Lots of fun!

On a completely different note, my blogging will be light to absent over the next 5-6 days or do. Assuming the weather permits, I'm off to London -- and I'm not the most ambitious about blogging from the road. But who knows? Sometimes I surprise myself . . .

Greetings from London! It figures that even here I couldn't help but look at everything through a genealogical lens. So it shouldn't be a surprise that I spotted this family tree for kids -- in the shop for the Naval College of all places. Not sure why these were being sold there, but thought it would be a nice way to engage kids in a roots quest. Climb as high as you can go!

Yeah, I know -- this isn't strictly genealogical, but I just enjoyed this advertisement for the Cutty Sark and wanted to share it. For some reason, I'm always weather-blessed when I come to London. It doesn't matter whether it's October or February, the weather's always unseasonably pleasant when I come here, and this time is no exception. So I've been meandering all around the city and spotted this while wandering in Greenwich.

P.S. Here's some language trivia for you. Did you know that ahoy (written "ahoj") is Slovak for Hi!?

Sorry to be light on blogging of late. My schedule has been a little crazy!

At any rate, I wanted to show you, Austin, the handsome fellow below. He's my nephew and the instigator behind the Flat Stanley piece we've just added on Roots Television. He sent me Flat Stanley a few years ago (if you have no clue who that is, be sure to watch!), and of course, I made F.S. do his roots! Thanks for the adventures you prompted, Austin!

Megan is scheduled to present "Trace Your Roots with DNA" at 9:00 a.m. on August 4, 2007 for the Tidewater Genealogical Society. The event will be held at the 1st Advantage Credit Union in Yorktown, VA. Hope to see you there!

Once again, I've neglected my blogging duties because I've been consumed by other activities. In this case, it's the research and media involved with Rev. Sharpton's roots and the fact that the family who owned his great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, is related to Strom Thurmond. If you haven't caught any of it, you can find a sampling of articles here (at least for a while). I'll never stop being amazed at how interconnected we all are, often in unexpected ways.