October 2020 General Meeting on Zoom

Summary

The October General Meeting was held at 7 PM on Tuesday, September 13th. The speaker for October was our own Craig Gowens who presented “Developing a DNA Testing Plan” Using DNA to solve the mysteries in your family tree often involves testing multiple persons to reach a conclusion. We’ll look at why there are advantages to DNA testing multiple family members and give some advice on how to choose who to test and what testing companies to use. I’ll explain how to approach DNA testing from a more scientific angle, making it a replicable process you can use again and again to help build your family tree further back in time.

Craig Gowens is a web developer and programmer for a small software company. He developed a love for genealogy at a young age when he started helping his father comb through Census records on microfilm at the local public library in the 1980’s. Craig started on the path of using DNA to assist his genealogical research in 2013 and has now tested over 40 members of his extended family. Genetic Genealogy holds a special appeal to him, melding his expertise in math and science with a love of history he inherited from his parents, who were both social studies educators. 

Craig believes in using a wide assortment of tools to maximize the effectiveness of genealogical DNA testing, and has even utilized visual phasing techniques to recreate full and partial DNA profiles of his grandparents and great grandparents, who died before the advent of direct-to-consumer genealogical DNA testing. 

He has presented on DNA related topics before the Austin Genealogical Society, Williamson County Genealogical Society, Sno-Isle Genealogical Society and Seattle Genealogical Society and attended numerous conferences, including the International Conference on Genetic Genealogy and RootsTech.

Craig lives in southern Snohomish County and when he isn’t researching his family history enjoys hiking and landscape photography, especially in the National Parks.

Date: Tuesday October 13, 2020

Video

Referenced Links:

Intro Presentation for October 2020 Meeting (PDF)

Craig Jobbins London Mac User’s Group (LMUG) They meet the 2nd Monday of every month. Craig’s email is Podcast@lmug.org.uk

You can also find LMUG on their podcast on the Apple podcast app.