World Class Event in Sydney

I am still on a high after spending three days at the DNA Downunder event in Sydney last week. It has taken me a while to pen this last post because I have so much to say about this event which was world class. I wore my Ambassador Badge with pride during the event.

Kudos for taking a risk and staging such a professional event must go to Alan Phillips from Unlock the Past. Alan has been staging genealogy roadshows for several years but with DNA Downunder he took this event to another level. Right from the start the event promotion, including the appointment of Ambassadors, was top notch. 

Alan Phillips directing proceedings at DNA Downunder

 The venue in Sydney was excellent and only the most persnickety could find fault. The little things that make a great conference stand out from a good conference like smooth online registration, name tags, lanyards, programs (both online and in hard copy), signage, a strict timetable that was adhered to, opportunities to spend a few $$$ and get advice from vendors and societies coupled with an amazing star presenter, Blaine Bettinger, with solid supporting acts made this conference a success. Without the support of Alona and Anthea, the two family members and co-workers who are Alan's right hand women, this show would not have been such a fantastic event.

Alona and Anthea 

On a personal level I got so much from the feast of lectures on the program and took away a Doggie Bag full of ideas and tips to apply to my DNA research.I always enjoy geneaevents while I am there; I find many talks interesting and entertaining with content that is nice to know but they are not educative or inspiring.  DNA Downunder was an educative experience of the highest calibre.

Eager genies - Ready to learn

I attended every one of Blaine's 14 lectures, I had many items reinforced and learnt something new from all of them. As I predicted I am suffering from Blaine Overload but that is a positive outcome. As well as learning about methodology and resources I particularly enjoyed the emphasis on the ethics of DNA use and the constant reminders of the emotional effects that DNA discoveries can have on those involved. 

Blaine, a a genuine nice guy, spent so much time chatting with attendees

Shelley Crawford

I must apologise to the other speakers on the program as, because I went to all of Blaine's talks, I only managed to go to two other presentations. There was no way I was going to miss my genimate Shelley Crawford's talk so I was lucky she spoke when Blaine was having a break. Shelley was one of the first Australians to enter the world of genetic genealogy.

Shelley had a full house

One of the first people I encountered when I went to take my seat was Blaine. Getting  a hug and a hello from him set the scene for a super event. 

Blaine and GeniAus

I revelled in the out of school opportunities that a face to face conference offers. I caught up with some of my dear online pals, genimates from all over the place, loads of geneabloggers and met several genies for the first time.

Geneabloggers at DNA Downunder 

I just hope that Alan hosts a similar event in the future. These events educate, energise and enthuse our family history community.

Blaine Overload?

I have just been perusing the program for Diving Deeper in Sydney, Unlock the Past's DNA event in Sydney next month.

It was pleasing to see that there are plenty of opportunities to hear DNA Guru, Blaine Bettinger on the program. Blaine will be the opening act on each of the three days of the conference when he will give a keynote type address to all attendees.The remainder of the sessions that cover a wide variety of topics are at three levels: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced with two of the days concluding with a panel session. 

Blaine is giving 14 presentations in all and I will endeavour to attend most of them. He is such a knowledgeable and affable presenter that I am sure my case of Blaine Overload will be easy to handle. 

Others on the program I want to hear are two knowledgeable out of towners,  Louise Coakley from Cairns and Shelley Crawford from Canberra. 

There are still a couple of TBA slots on the program, I would love to see one of these filled with one or more experienced genies who are not  DNA experts but DNA dabblers. I would love to hear how ordinary genies like me deal with this exciting new tool in their resource repertoire. No doubt Alan Phillips (Mr Unlock the Past) will let us know via social media when the program is complete.

No matter what is offered I am confident that this event will be am amazing learning experience for all who attend.

Getting ready to Dive Deeper

Many of you will know that I have been cruising around the Mediterranean since my attendance at The Genealogy Show. Mr GeniAus and I had a super time at this event in Birmingham and are both looking forward to attending in 2020.

We thought our cruise would give us a much needed rest but with 17 ports in 17 days and one or two excursions each day we were exhausted by the time we disembarked. A couple of days after arriving home I celebrated a significant birthday with all the associated hoopla. Today I find myself back in the geneacave working on a long list of geneatasks. I will spend the next few days at my keyboard playing catchup.

I do have something to look forward to....I love a geneaevent and I need all the help I can get with DNA so I am really excited about the next BIG Geneaevent on the Australian calendar. I am proud to be an Ambassador for the DNADownunder series of events being hosted next month by Alan Phillips and his team at UnlockthePast.

Blaine Bettinger and GeniAus at Rootstech 2019

Alan has put together a world class event with Blaine Bettinger, DNA Guru and nice bloke, as the star act. I have been lucky enough to hear Blaine present at both Rootstech and The Genealogy Show. As well as being an expert in the field of DNA he is an entertaining and engaging presenter who can clearly explain DNA concepts.

Blaine will be supported at the events by a cast of Australia's finest genetic genealogists. I am particularly excited to see Canberra genie Shelley Crawford, one of my DNA heroes, on the program, Shelley got me interested in DNA way back in 2010 when she started blogging about her adventures with DNA. She got me started on my DNA adventure.

Those who attend a DNADownunder event in one of the six Australian cities are in for a treat. I will be going to the three day Diving Deep in Sydney event. I have been attending talks on DNA every year since 2011 at Rootstech and latterly at other events and find that I learn something new at each event. DNA is such a rapidly evolving field that there is always something new to learn. I also find it valuable to attend further lectures on familiar topics to reinforce my knowledge.

The beauty of the Sydney event is that there are three streams so there is something for everyone from the raw beginner or someone contemplating a DNA test to those who have already dived deeply into the DNA pool.

DNA is the genealogy tool of the 21st century - Anyone with an interest in genealogy should not miss one of these events.

The ironing's not done ....

.... and it's all Shelley Crawford's fault.

Since she wrote about her network graphs for Visualising Ancestry Matches last year last year I have been hooked. Shelley posted detailed  instructions for creating these very useful visual representations of one's Ancestry matches (and beyond 4th cousin level too). What was easy for a cluey chick like Shelley was hard labour for this old girl. I persevered and created my first graph which helped me work out a few connections.

Since I created my first masterpiece my number of Ancestry matches has grown greatly. In October before I went on holidays I started the process again but it took me ages and my resulting graph looked like a dog's breakfast.

Shelley must have realised that there were quite a few people like me who didn't really have the patience and persistence to create these useful things because in December she announced her ConnectedDNA service. For a small fee one can avoid the headaches associated with creating network graphs by contracting Shelley to do the dirty work for you.

I placed my order and coughed up my $80 on Saturday. I was sent a link to upload some files to Dropbox for Shelley to work on. When I opened my email Sunday morning my files were waiting for me.   I received four files : the most amazing spreadsheet that listed all my matches with lots of relevant data, my very pretty network graph in two formats (.pdf and .jpg) and  a group map that gives an overview of my pretty graphs.

My pretty graph looks something like this but it also has names on each of the dots

The pretty graphs show clusters of relationships of my matches so I can see at a glance who matches with whom and therefore deduce where in my tree a relationship may be (very handy for those matches who are treeless and have meaningless kit names).

I love the spreadsheet and have gone down a rabbit hole today adding the notes from my own basic sheet of matches into Shelley's.  I have already been able to work out where a few more matches fit into my tree. I'm so impressed that I want to order graphs for all of the kits I match on Ancestry and FTDNA but I had better work with what I have and save up some pennies for more graphs from ConnectedDNA.

Perhaps I could even do some ironing.