Hi, thanks for visiting. My name is Ken Waters from Mesa, Arizona, and I’m in the process of setting up a Blog to discuss genealogy, especially my experiences and knowledge of genetic genealogy, also known as “DNA”. I have many ideas of what I want to post here such as DNA success stories, tutorials getting started, etc. I just have to figure everything out with WordPress so I need to watch some instructional videos I suppose. I need to “pretty it up” to make it more attractive. I also need to figure out how to set up a subscription tool so that those who are interested can get notifications whenever an update is done to the blog.
By background I am a physical scientist so I naturally gravitate towards things technical, including genetics. I also have an IT background including programming (mostly Perl and Python), SQL databases, IoT sensor networks, and Data Science. I’ve been doing genealogy research since 1999 when I suddenly realized I only knew of a few of my relatives and couldn’t even name my paternal Grandfather. Back in those days you had to really work hard at searching records by visiting National Archives locations and spinning endless film strips searching through the census. I’m so grateful now to be able to do a census search with just a quick web query. It’s still a lot of work as many records can not be found online. But still, we’ve come a long ways since then.
I’m especially interested in DNA. Genetic Genealogy is an amazing new field with explosive growth. It’s been a privilege for me to meet many of the early trend setters in this field by going to workshops and conferences. I’ve administered more than 15 tests for me, my family, and my friends. All autosomal tests were done through Ancestry.com, and I’ve also tested for Y-DNA on FTDNA.org. I really enjoy doing chromosomal comparisons and triangulation, especially on GEDMatch.com in an effort to find those common ancestors. It is a nice blend for me, putting together my interests of science, computer programming, and family history.
Hope you can come back to visit!
Ken