FEBRUARY 13, 2013

INTRODUCTION TO GENETIC GENEALOGY
Speaker/Member:  Nancy Niles Wehner

Exhaustive searches of tradional and non-traditional records that our ancestors left behind and the application of sound analytical thought can resolve many questions of relationship encountered in genealogy.  But, paper trails can run cold for a variety of reasons, or provide tantalizing but inadequate information to decisively solve a relationship question.  In these cases, the biological record of our ancestry that is coded in our genes may provide the final bit of information needed to prove a relationship case.  Nancy will take us through the basics of DNA structure and inheritance, the types of genetic testing that are available for genealogical purposes and what each one tells us, and guide us through a case study in the use of DNA testing.

Nancy Niles Wehner is a consulting pharmaceutical toxicologist whose real love is genealogy.  She has been actively engaged in genealogical research for 25+ years.  In addition to work on her own and her husband's family trees, she has done volunteer research for friends and organizations, volunteers at the Hayward Stake FHC, and is currently working on her genealogical certification.