Just in time for Father’s Day! This new DNA ethnicity chart design is a classy and cutting-edge way to share your family history. As wall displays, this is the perfect conversation-starter for your home or heritage gift for a loved one.
There’s a gorgeous new way to display your genetic genealogy from Family ChartMasters! It’s a new custom DNA ethnicity chart, and it’s a fantastic way to spark conversation about your family history with friends and loved ones.
“At Family ChartMasters we believe that family history can save the world,” says owner Janet Hovorka. “The more people know about their background, the more they are inspired with civility, gratitude and compassion for other people because they find out we are all more alike than different. We want to help people make that easy to remember every day.”
Your ethnic “pie chart”
DNA ethnicity results–those “pie charts” that come with your genetic genealogy test results–are one of the most popular aspects of testing. Even those without an active interest in researching their roots often test just to learn what their DNA says about their genetic roots: How Irish are they? Do they have Jewish roots? Is there any truth to that old family story about being descended from an Indian princess?
The science behind DNA ethnicity percentages is still being refined, as is evident from the varying ethnicity results you may receive from different companies. But it’s still fascinating to learn–and super shareable with just about anyone!
DNA ethnicity chart options
Family ChartMaster’s new DNA ethnicity chart comes in three themes to fit a variety of different décor styles: Basic, Antique, and Modern. The Basic theme is clean and fresh, and complements most decorating styles. The Antique theme’s sepia-tone finish brings together the styling of antique maps with your high-tech DNA profile. The Modern theme is graphic and bold, with neutral tones well-suited to contemporary décor.
In less than five minutes, you can upload an optional photo and then manually enter your ethnicity estimates from a DNA test. The categories are currently aligned with AncestryDNA’s ethnic regions–which is running a great sale for Father’s Day, by the way, if you’ve been waiting to purchase a test. (Other DNA test providers also have some great prices now; click here to see them.)
After viewing a preview of your DNA ethnicity chart, you can place an order that can be printed on archival Professional Paper or Artist’s Grade Canvas. Following Family ChartMasters’ proven track record of superior service, the beautiful print will arrive rolled in a tube and ready to frame. You can also order PDF downloads for immediate delivery to an email inbox. Pricing starts at $19.95.
(Will your chart come in time for Father’s Day? According to the Family ChartMasters website, orders take 24-48 hours to prepare, and regular shipping takes 2-3 days within the U.S. Faster shipping options are available for an additional charge. If in doubt, order the PDF download.)
These DNA ethnicity charts are perhaps the easiest heritage display you’ll ever make! They also take advantage of the current widespread interest in DNA, making a conversation about your heritage more meaningful and appealing even with those who have never expressed interest in your heritage. Click here to see how to order your DNA ethnicity chart.
More than DNA charts: Family ChartMasters is an award-winning genealogy chart printing and design service. It is also the official printing service for most worldwide genealogy software, database, and research companies. Family ChartMasters prints any style of family history chart from any kind of file. They offer oversized draft-quality family reunion charts as well as custom decorative designs.
The Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode #211 with Lisa Louise Cooke
Photo Credit: Beth Forester
In this episode, host and producer Lisa Louise Cooke talks with Barry Moreno, Historian at Ellis Island. Hear about the life cycle of this busy U.S. immigration station (1892-1954) and Barry’s research into thousands of Ellis Island employees who worked there.
More Episode Highlights
Archive Lady Melissa Barker tells us about the National Archives Citizen Archivist program and Lisa profiles a volunteer effort coordinated by the British Library to geo-tag thousands of old maps that are already online.
A giant genealogy lost-and-found! Two listeners write in about rescuing old artifacts and returning them to those who might be interested.
Military Minutes contributor Michael Strauss talks about Official Military Personnel Files for 20th-century US servicemen and women?files that were unfortunately partially destroyed. Hear what he learned about his grandfather.
The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox, by Lisa Louise Cooke. This book has 7 full chapters on Google Earth! Available in print.
Google Earth for Genealogy Video Training by Lisa Louise Cooke. Available now as a digital download.
Available in the Genealogy Gems Store
New Video for Premium Members
“Share Your Life Stories More Meaningfully” Premium Video
Every life is fascinating when it’s well shared! Learn from the author of Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy what stories you have that are worth telling–and several inspiring reasons to write them. Review different kinds of memories, why some memories are more vivid that others, and how to flesh them out. Learn tips for researching gaps in your memories, how to turn a memory into a good story, what to leave out and several ways to share your stories.
Genealogy Gems App Bonus Content
If you’re listening through the Genealogy Gems app, your bonus content for this episode is a preview of the new Premium video class, “Share Your Own Life Stories More Meaningfully” by Contributing Editor Sunny Morton. TheGenealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and is only $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users
Mailbox: Roland’s Heirloom Rescue
Mailbox: New Listener Photo Rescue Project
What can you do with a collection of unidentified photos?
Return them to a loving home. In this case, it was a local historical society. Linda wisely kept the collection together because often there’s power in what some of the photos may tell you about others.
Get them digitized and online so those who want them can find them. The historical society put images on Find A Grave memorials and Iowa GenWeb. They even plan to display them for locals to look at personally and try to identify!
Historical and genealogical societies can also share mystery photos on their websites (or their local library’s website if they don’t have their own) or on their blogs, Facebook pages or even in their regular newsletters. These are great conversation pieces, especially when you can later report that you have solved the mystery! (Click here for more tips aimed at supporting genealogy societies.)
Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommendsRootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search historical records on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. RootsMagic is now fully integrated with Ancestry.com: you can sync your RootsMagic trees with your Ancestry.com trees and search records on the site.
Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems. Learn more at https://www.backblaze.com/Lisa.
MILITARY MINUTES: OFFICIAL MILITARY PERSONNEL FILES
The military service files for your ancestors who served during the twentieth century or later are located at the National Personnel Record Center in St. Louis, MO as part of the National Archives. The files are called the Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF) and are available for each of the military branches; namely; Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard.
Researchers should be keenly aware of the devastating fire that occurred on July 12, 1973 at the research facility that destroyed or damaged between 16-18 million service files from the United States Army and the Air Force. Remember that the Air Force wasn’t officially organized until September 14, 1947. Before this date Air Force records were part of the United States Army Air Corps, then part of the U.S. Army.
National Archives at St. Louis. Overview of the holdings, media articles and PowerPoint presentations (download as PDFs)
Start creating fabulous, irresistible videos about your family history with Animoto.com. You don’t need special video-editing skills: just drag and drop your photos and videos, pick a layout and music, add a little text and voila! You’ve got an awesome video! Try this out for yourself at Animoto.com.
Watch the video below for an example of a family history video made with Animoto:
Barry Moreno is a leading authority on the history of Ellis Island, the famous receiving station for millions of immigrants to the United States from 1892-1954. He has worked in the Museum Services Division at Ellis Island for more than a decade. He is the author of several books, including Children of Ellis Island, Ellis Island’s Famous Immigrants (including Bob Hope, Bela Lugosi, and Max Factor) and Encyclopedia of Ellis Island(which includes information on displaced persons).
Ellis Island: Historical highlights
Prior to 1890, immigration was handled by the states (primarily New York, as most passed through the Port of New York).
1920-1921: New regulations cut down immigration dramatically. Each country had quotas that could not be exceeded. New regulations were passed requiring immigrants to
have a passport from their home country
have medical examinations
pay a tax to the American Consulate in their home country.
During the last 30 years, Ellis Island mostly handled immigrants who were “in trouble.”
Starting in the 1930s some immigrants arrived by air (Colonial Airways from Canada). After WWII, Air France started service, and German and Italian airlines came in the 1950s.
Ellis Island was closed in 1954 by President Eisenhower. Immigrants who were still detained when it closed were sent to jails.
After 1954, Ellis Island was still used by the Coast Guard for training and by the Public Health Services department.
Barry’s research on workers at Ellis Island:
Most employees were men. Interestingly, blue collar men tended to die before age 60, and better educated ones lived much longer.
Female employees were typically widows, unmarried or had husbands who did not support them. “Char woman” was a common role held by Irish, Swedish and German women. Char means “chores” (cleaning women). They worked often for about $400/ year with no pension, and lived to old ages.
A nursery was opened at Ellis Island; many Christian missionaries worked there. Ludmila Foxlee (1885-1971) was one of them, a social worker with the YWCA. Click here to read more immigrant aid workers at Ellis Island.
Three more great resources for discovering the stories of your immigrant ancestors:
If your search at the Ellis Island website doesn’t retrieve your ancestors, head on over to Stephen P. Morse’s One Step Pages. There you will find dozens of links to search resources, including the Ellis Island Gold Form for arrivals between 1892 and 1924. Even the folks at Ellis Island refer researchers to Morse’s site. Listen to Lisa’s interview with Stephen Morse in Genealogy Gems Podcast episode #153.
In Lias’s free Family History: Genealogy Made Easy Podcast (episodes 29-31), genealogist Steve Danko covers immigration and naturalization records in depth and even offers up some little-known tips about deciphering some of the cryptic notes researchers often find on passenger lists.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer
Sunny Morton, Editor
Diahan Southard, Contributor: Your DNA Guide
Michael Strauss, Contributor: Military Minutes
Hannah Fullerton, Production Assistant
Lacey Cooke, Service Manager
Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting this free podcast and blog!
This Saint Patrick’s Day we’re highlighting new and updated genealogical collections for Ireland and Scotland! You’ll see new and updated records from Ancestry and Findmypast, with particular emphasis on newspaper additions including birth, marriage,...
At this time of sheltering at home, we’re fortunate that we can continue to pursue our favorite past time at home. Here are some of the latest genealogy records to come online this month. From my family to yours , stay safe and well friends.
The latest genealogy records from Genealogy Gems.
Ancestry
The first two items in this list of new and updated records is important for everyone who is researching their family history. If you had difficulty finding an ancestor in the 1850 or 1860 in the past, now is the time to search. Ancestry has updated portions of these two important census records.
Speaking of the census, all genealogists are looking forward to the release of the 1950 US census. We don’t have that long to wait now. The 1950 US Census is due to be released to the public in April of 2022. Until then, be sure to read our article answering the most important questions about this census. Read 1950 Census Substitute: What To Use Until its Release Date.
Listen to Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 181 for more about finding your family history in the 1950s.
Let’s continue on looking through the newest records on Ancestry:
One of the important aspects of this update according to Ancestry is that “changes were made to improve the performance of this collection. Family relationships such as parents and spouses are enabled to attach to your tree.
Note: This database does not yet include the entire collection of personnel files. Currently, only the file numbers listed in the browse are included. The remaining files will be added to this database at a later date.”
According to Ancestry, “This present work is a consolidated reprint of two pamphlets by Mr. David Dobson that shed light on more than 1,100 Irish men and women and their families who emigrated to North America between roughly 1775 and 1825. As such, this volume adds to the list of 1,000 men and women compiled by Mr. Dobson in three earlier pamphlets in this series, which were published by Clearfield Company as Irish Emigrants in North America. Unlike the earlier collection, which was derived from a variety of Scottish and North American source records, the persons named in Irish Emigrants in North America, Parts Four and Five, were found primarily in contemporary newspapers in Canada and the United States. Each of the two lists of Irish persons is arranged alphabetically by the emigrant’s surname and, in the majority of cases, provides us with most of the following particulars: name, date of birth, name of ship, occupation in Ireland, reason for emigration, sometimes place of origin in Ireland, place of disembarkation in the New World, date of arrival, number of persons in the household, and the source of the information.”
Unique to Findmypast, these records can reveal details about the start of your relatives’ lives in Middlesex. The collection has been enhanced with over 17,000 new records from the following parishes:
Over 6,000 burials from Mt Pleasant Cemetery, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire have joined the largest collection of British parish records online at Findmypast.
These latest additions join the largest collection of UK parish records online at Findmypast.
“The burial records date from 1881 to 1925 and have been provided by Fenland Family History Society. You won’t find them anywhere else online.”
Jamaica, Civil Death Registrations
Discover your Caribbean roots with over 1.5 million new civil death registration records from Jamaica. Brought to you in partnership with FamilySearch, these death records can tell you more about your relative’s life and death in Jamaica.
As you trace your Jamaican past, be sure to also delve into these other useful resources:
Dating as far back as the 1500s, our Jamaican family history records are essential for finding out more about your Caribbean ancestors. What’s more, they’ll provide hints for any Jamaican ancestors already on your Findmypast family tree.”
Newspapers
“The Caribbean-themed releases continue in our newspaper collection this week. We’ve added new papers from Jamaica and Ireland and updated a range of others. Brand new to the site are:
Royal Gazette of Jamaicacovering the years 1779-1781, 1793-1794, 1809, 1811-1819, 1824-1828, 1834-1836 and 1838-1840
We’ve added almost a century’s worth of pages from one new newspaper along with substantial updates to 10 titles from England and Ireland this week. Brand new to the site is:
Newspapers are a goldmine of information on your family’s past. Not only could you find your ancestors making headlines, but you’ll also get insight into the world they lived in, the kind you won’t find in other records.”
Thanks to the amazing new colorization tool at MyHeritage, their collection of old family history photos is larger than ever before. (Learn more this new tool in our article Myheritage Launches Colorized Photos!)
As of Mar 26 2020, the updated collection of old photos reached a total of 141,129,707! This is a great time to check your smart matches
Now through April 23, 2020, you can enjoy Free and Unlimited Access to MyHeritage In Color™. Read more about that here.
DNA ethnicity results–those “pie charts” that come with your genetic genealogy test results–are one of the most popular aspects of testing. Even those without an active interest in researching their roots often test just to learn what their DNA says about their genetic roots: How Irish are they? Do they have Jewish roots? Is there any truth to that old family story about being descended from an Indian princess?
More than DNA charts: Family ChartMasters is an award-winning genealogy chart printing and design service. It is also the official printing service for most worldwide genealogy software, database, and research companies. Family ChartMasters prints any style of family history chart from any kind of file. They offer oversized draft-quality family reunion charts as well as custom decorative designs.
Click below to read more about….
Start creating fabulous, irresistible videos about your family history with Animoto.com. You don’t need special video-editing skills: just drag and drop your photos and videos, pick a layout and music, add a little text and voila! You’ve got an awesome video! Try this out for yourself at 
