Written by Michelle Leonard

​AncestryDNA have just announced that their database has surpassed the 4 million testers mark!  Considering they only announced 3 million testers in January the database is expanding at an amazing rate of knots.  This sale is a great opportunity to join that rapidly expanding database.  In particular if you have a mystery to solve (e.g. adoption, unknown parentage, illegitimate grandparent etc) testing at Ancestry must be at the top of your list due to the sheer size of their database.

The price of the AncestryDNA test in the UK has been reduced by 25% from £79 to £59 for DNA Day
(Please note that this does not include shipping which is £20 for the first kit and £10 for each additional kit)
*Sale end 26th April (although it appears it will continue until 2nd May for pre-existing customers)

Ancestry are also running DNA Day sales in Ireland, USA and Canada:

Ireland: Price reduced by €25 from €95 to €70
Shipping €20 per kit and €10 per additional kit
*Sale ends 26th April

USA: Price reduced by 20% from $99 to $79
Shipping $9.95 per kit
*Sale ends 26th April
(AncestryDNA is also sold by Amazon in the US with the 20% off plus Free Shipping - see HERE)

Canada: Price reduced by $30 CAD from $129 CAD to $99 CAD
Shipping $19.95 CAD per kit
*Sale ends 25th April

​FTDNA

The FTDNA DNA Day sale runs for a week this year - it began on 20th April and ends at 11:59pm (CST) on 27th April

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​Please note that Y-DNA upgrades and upgrades from MtDNA Plus to MtFull Sequence are not included in this sale.  There are, however, excellent deals on FTDNA's autosomal offering (Family Finder), their many Y-DNA tests and their MtFull Sequence test.  FTDNA are the only company with Y-DNA and MtDNA matching databases so if you are interested in Y-DNA and MtDNA testing they are the company to test with.  They have also been around the longest of all of the testing companies.

FTDNA sells worldwide, all prices are in US dollars and shipping is not included (shipping costs $12.95 (£10) per kit but return postage is only included for US kits).  

Additionally if you have tested at Ancestry or 23andMe you can now transfer into FTDNA's Family Finder database and get all of your matches for free - if you wish to unlock access to all of FTDNA's tools and features it costs a modest $19 per kit.  HERE is a link to the autosomal DNA Transfer programme.  Please be aware if you tested at Ancestry after May 2016 you will only get access to your highest confidence matches at FTDNA due to the fact Ancestry began using a different chip at that time.  If you wish to gain access to all of your lower confidence matches you can choose to take FTDNA's own autosomal test after transferring for a reduced fee of $59 (£46) - this is in line with the current sale price.
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LIVING DNA

​​Living DNA have reduced the price of their test by £21 from £120 to £99 for DNA Day
*Sale ends 26th April

They are also offering DNA Day sales in other countries:

EU: Price reduced by €30 from €159 to €129
US: Price reduced by $40 from $159 to $119
Canada: Price reduced by $40 CAD from $199 CAD to $159 CAD 
​Australia: Price reduced by $40 AUS from $199 AUS to $159 AUS

Living DNA are a relatively new entrant to the market but a very interesting one.  Their test gives a detailed regional breakdown of UK Ancestry and also includes Y-DNA and MtDNA haplogroup information.  Please note that Living DNA currently do not offer a matching database but this has been promised in the near future.
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MyHeritage are also new to the DNA testing world.  They have not announced a particular sale for DNA Day but they do have an ongoing reduced price for their new autosomal DNA kit of £69 in the UK (shipping costs £12 per kit).  The ongoing reduced price in the USA is $79 (plus $12 per kit shipping).

It is also still possible to transfer into MyHeritage for free from any of the other major companies - HERE is a link to upload your results to their site.  As new testers take the MyHeritage test their database will grow and you will begin to see unique matches here.

23ANDME

There has been no indication that 23andMe will be holding a sale for DNA Day - their test, which includes autsomal matching, Y-DNA and MtDNA haplogroup information and certain health reports, can be purchased in the UK for £149.

In the USA, however, there is a 23andMe sale for Mother's Day taking place with $20 off until 14th May (limit of 2 per person).

23andMe's CEO and Co-Founder, Anne Wojcicki, recently announced in a Bloomberg interview that they now have over two million people in their database so testing here cannot be overlooked especially if you have a mystery to solve.  Hopefully there will be other sales throughout the year.

If you would like to take advantage of any of these sales I would urge you to do so via the links contained in CeCe Moore's post HERE as that way you will not only be helping yourself to a discount but you will also be contributing to the DNA Detectives Kits of Kindness Program which will help others too.  This is a program that donates DNA kits to those who are seeking biological family members but cannot afford the cost of testing.  Each kit sold via one of these links contributes a small amount to the Kits of Kindness Program - over 400 people have received donated kits since the instigation of the program in January 2016 and many of them have been reunited with previously unknown biological relatives. 

If you're not sure which test to go for in the sale or you just wish to chat about DNA testing for genealogy pop along to #AncestryHour tonight at 7pm where I will be on hand to answer any queries.
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Michelle Leonard (@GenealogyLass)

You’ve spent several years and quite a bit of money on tracing your ancestors and building up your family tree. So should you then hand over that information to a stranger on a family history website? Rachel Bellerby of Family Tree magazine weighs up the pros and cons.

The Family Tree team were delighted to meet and chat with many family history enthusiasts at the recent Who Do You Think You Are? Live! in Birmingham earlier this month. One of the recurring questions I noticed when talking to visitors, both new and experienced, was how generous should we be when sharing our family tree data online?

Of course, most of us want to see family history thrive, both as a profession and a hobby. But it’s human nature to feel a bit of a pang when a complete stranger approaches you after being shown a ‘match’ on a family history website. Why should you hand over information about your ancestors to someone who might then take their resulting brand new, shiny family tree and show it with pride to all and sundry? After all, that was your hard work…

Let family history thrive!

But perhaps we’re looking at this the wrong way. Isn’t it great to think that someone’s new to the hobby and is inspired enough to try to find out more? A generous response in terms of sharing your online tree (or part of it) and maybe even answering some questions about your ancestors could lead not only to helping someone develop their passion for family history, but maybe even putting you in touch with living relatives you never knew you had.

And of course, because you’ve taken such a pride in building your tree, researching your ancestors and double-checking all your information (of course you have!) you can feel the satisfaction of knowing that your rock-solid research is helping others – and maybe helping to counteract some of those hastily drawn up and scantily researched family trees that we’ve all come across online.

Fringe benefits

Sharing your information need not all be one-sided either. Not only might the person requesting your family tree be a distant relative, they may have access to family stories, documents or photographs which you haven’t yet seen.

The reason many of us love family history is because we never stop learning. So why not be open to sharing some of the information that you’ve gathered, in the hope that you might learn something new yourself – if not from the person who originally contacts you, but maybe further down the line? Once your tree has been shared, it’ll potentially match with other visitors to the website in question, putting you in the path of some useful contacts.

So let family history thrive! Despite my natural instinct to guard ‘my’ information (and the all-important rule of not giving out information on people who are still alive) I’m going to be generous with my ancestry. After all, if my grandparents hadn’t spent their time telling me family stories, I wouldn’t be enjoying family history as both a hobby and a job today; my forebears took the time to share their tales with me and I want to repay their kindness by being generous with the next generation of family history enthusiasts.

Enjoy everything you need for the hobby you love in each issue of Family Tree magazine. Order your copy on our website.

(image copyright Christiaandup – Creative Commons Licence)

It is less than 20 years since family historians first had access to digitized images of records in the form of the 1901 census.  Many of us date our interest in family history to then and remember how demand crashed the website then we all had to wait what seemed like months until they had sorted it all out and it was back online.  Bandwidth was a consideration in those dial-up days and those early downloads were designed to be low resolution so as not to take hours over a line where an incoming phone call cut off your internet.

​Now we have so much available to us on the Internet, in the form of officially licensed records and the less formal community archives, personal websites and social media and we are told that:

​Last summer the National Archives held a series of round table workshops with archive staff from around the country aimed at producing a Digital Strategy – “A New Vision for Archives”.  I was privileged to attend one of these in Birmingham, (as that rare being a “User”), and we were asked to envisage the future of archives and their users as an exercise in Blue Sky Thinking.

According to their blog about this 
​http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-sector/projects-and-programmes/consultation-on-a-new-vision-for-archives/

And that:

​To my mind this was all about digitising records and attracting funding to do so whilst preferably generating income for archives as well.  They wanted to attract new users from the community at large so that they could tap into new sources of funding.

The results of this exercise and the resulting consultation (4 round tables with 179 participants, an online survey with 235 responses and a public consultation with 130 responses) and a reference group from across the archive sector plus an expert panel composed of much the same have led to the final document “Archives Unlocked” released this month.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-sector/projects-and-programmes/strategic-vision-for-archives/
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In its introduction it states that 

And that

“The publics (sic) interest in archives and what they have to offer is growing and digital technologies are opening up our archives like never before, to local, national and global audiences keen to learn and to be inspired”

It articulates three ambitions for the “benefits which archives will deliver"

​One of the key drivers of change is highlighted as User Expectations.  

“Society is changing, opening up new uses for data and records, and posing new questions about what is collected now and in the future, in both paper-based documents and digital formats.”

At the end of the document is the Action Plan (still very broad brush so far) saying that they have to tackle the “barriers to success”, meeting the key challenges facing the sector whilst still advocating for archives and making sure that they are valued or that their value is understood. 
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The plan would address 3 vital themes of digital capacity, resilience and impact.  Within the archive sector digital capacity would be developed so as to make it easier to find both paper and digital records, and  increasing resilience would encompass more Archive Accreditation, open up the archive sector to new skills and a more diverse workforce, and increase income generation and support innovative service models.

Finally the pledge was to increase the impact of archives “by developing and expanding audiences, piloting approaches to using data and evidence, and influencing thinking in the IT, commercial and knowledge sectors.”
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Whilst in general agreement with its aims, my feelings about this document are mixed.  On the one hand I applaud its identified ambitions but deplore the fact that it talks grandly about “User Expectations” without any significant user input nor any plans it seems to find out what exactly the user, either existing or future, actually wants or needs.   It is all very much “if we build it they will come” with not a hint of market research!

​Based on what has happened in the archive sector so far I have a number of concerns.

Quite a lot of what has been already digitised for family historians was already on microfilm so that the issue of conservation of original documents cannot always be said to be relevant except that Familysearch will be discontinuing their microfilm loans to their outreach family history centres at the end of this year due to the discontinuation of film stock manufacture.
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It is a complicated issue.  As users we have not had a say in what has been digitised and to a large extent are expected to be grateful for what we are given.  It is all very Oliver Twist.

I feel it is time for Users to discuss the whole issue of digitisation and its implications. 

We know that the digitisation of parish registers, for instance, has generally reduced footfall in those record offices which have entered into licensing agreements with commercial companies. 

Are we by asking for increased access online condemning record offices and archives to cuts and reduced service? Did we in fact ask for it directly or was it just an opportunity grabbed? 
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Are we in fact complicit in reducing archival services by not supporting or using them?

In addition are we the genealogical and historical research community condoning the reduced standard of research which the assumption that “it is all on the internet” generates?
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How can we change this and educate the average researcher that there is so much more out there if archives are difficult to access and what is digitised is not decided by the genealogical community ie the users?

Some archives and record offices have licensed their datasets to commercial companies.  In the case of the National Archives these licences run for 10 years.  Recent controversy about the purchase of Fold3 by Ancestry and its subsequent transfer of UK military records licensed to Ancestry from there to Fold3 has highlighted the minefield that this is.  At present users have no say as to licensing conditions and usually online access is only guaranteed actually at the site of the original records.

This is fine as long as that access is actually possible although there have been occasions when this was not.  Some archives will allow production of the original document if access is not possible online but this is not always the policy and can be problematic if it has been placed in long term storage from which it is difficult and expensive to be retrieved.
The argument is that digitisation and making records available online will attract new users (for instance in other countries) but is this perhaps a case of attracting new paying customers at the expense of the existing ones? 

There are considerable costs involved in putting a digital dataset online but when is the break-even point reached and how much profit do the commercial companies make? 

Certainly some users feel “ripped off” by the commercial companies.
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Should the commercial companies be paying more attention to user education – in fact who should be responsible for educating users as to how to use the datasets effectively and responsibly for their research? 

Should this be a function of the archives which hold the originals or the commercial genealogy sector (and in this I include professional genealogists and archival researchers)? 

It seems to have been a bit of a battle to actually get complete source citation information and information about datasets included on some of the websites and there are still some where it is woefully lacking.  Should this be a component of the licensing conditions?
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Another area of concern is the quality control of digitised images.  This seems to be based on mechanical sampling making it inevitable that mistakes, and missed images will slip through the net.  This is even before transcription and indexing errors come into play.

Some document series such as State Papers and Prize Papers held at the National Archives have been licensed to companies which service the academic sector to whose subscriptions the genealogical community has no access.   Whilst the user still has onsite access digitally this has impacted the way in which researchers work. 

Digital access via these subscriptions means that access now has to be via the computers available onsite and there seems to be a lack of understanding of how professional researchers both academic and otherwise work nowadays.  Rather than pore over the original documents making notes and transcripts onsite many of us tend to photograph where possible so that the digital photos can be viewed and transcribed in our office or home.  These photographic images are in colour and at a relatively high resolution and can be manipulated electronically to zoom in, change the colour palette or merely view on a larger screen to aid transcription. 

Onsite subscription access to digitised images often offers none of these advantages particularly when using onsite computers with which we are unfamiliar and where the only option for obtaining multiple images is to photograph the screen or make a large number of prints as downloading or sharing via email is not an option offered.

Should attention be given to making these subscriptions more user friendly?

Should the accessibility options available for the physical documents such as UV lamps to pick out faint handwriting be replicated in the software tools offered by commercial companies as a matter of course?

Should onsite computers at archives be of a higher standard to compensate for difficulties eg larger monitor screens?

Should difficult to read documents be scanned at a higher resolution to make it easier to zoom without blurring?
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And of course there is the elitist nature of the whole issue given the aim to open up documents to new users expressed in “Archives Unlocked”.  Who benefits from this hiving off certainly not the genealogical community or the “personal interest” public?

These are just some of my areas of concern about digitisation.  I am by no means a Luddite – in my view digitisation is a godsend.  However there comes a time to stand back and take a long hard look at what has gone before and where we want to go next.  In my view that time is NOW and the most important part of that process – the User – is being largely ignored.

I call on you all to become more vocal, questioning and participatory in your use of archives and digitised material.

Persuade your local archive or record office or museum or library to set up a User Group to discuss user issues including archive strategy or apply to join it if it already exists.  Find out who is representing you and contact them with your concerns.

Keep up to date with what is going on in the archive and library sector – you don’t want to suddenly wake up to find your archive access has changed without your knowledge.

Encourage plain speaking and the cutting through of jargon and waffle.
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Above all demand the same high standards of archives and commercial companies as we apply to our own genealogical research.

Jacqui Kirk - Montague Cottage Research

​The history of the identification tag has been little researched or logged, despite there being a lot to learn from these discs, now known as ‘dog tags’, because of the information they provide. Nothing could have hit home harder than when relatives received one of these discs - possibly even still blood stained. The first British disc was produced in 1907, the order stated that the discs should be made of 1/8th inch thick steel and should be stamped with the soldier’s number, rank, name, regiment and religious denomination, however the rank was later dropped. In 1914, when WW1 broke out it was quickly realised there would be production and cost problems due to the large volume required, and so a new disc made of red/brown vulcanised asbestos fibre was made. However stockpiles of the original aluminium discs continued to be issued, but these are rarely found today.

​Dan Mackey, an avid relic hunter tells us about the amazing discovery of thousands of metal dog tags the team found in 2016…

​I have recovered dog tags from both world wars and from various nations, going on a number of quests, including one to have a WW1 Canadian soldier’s name added to a war memorial after it was missed off, almost a 100 years ago. I have found dog tags for those who have been outcast by their own family and who would rather post me photographs and medals than have the dog tag returned to them. Here’s how myself and two fellow relic hunters, Alan and Jay made an incredible find, which has resulted in a task that we need help with today.

​Before the team travel miles to a new site, usually someone goes out to have a quick look to see if it’s worth a really good search for relics. The site that my fellow hunter, Alan had discovered was a WW2 anti-aircraft battery, but once on site he found pretty much nothing of interest. The site seemed bare, but whilst having a look at the surrounding fields, he found a small copse of trees that contained red brick rubble and typical wartime rubbish. Then something caught his eye amongst the leaves. He picked it up and within seconds realised that he was holding what he thought was a post-war British dog tag. Every digger we have ever spoken to believed that all British dog tags made from metal are post-war, but more on this later. He turned his detector back on and with a wave of it he was receiving signals everywhere. When he put his spade into the ground it revealed not one or two, but what looked like hundreds of dog tags. In fact he found so many that he couldn't carry them all back. So, he back filled the hole, re-burying them, and left for home. In an excited phone call, Alan let Jay and I know of his discovery, he even jangled handfuls of tags down the phone! We agreed for all three of us to dig that site the following Saturday. 

​Morning came around and the excitement was almost unbearable, we quickly jumped into one car and drove to the site. I was very unsure of what I was about to see. A short walk into the woods, past some old building bases and rubble and I found my first dog tag of the day just on the surface. I was excited to find one, Alan said "just wait till you see this!" We walked a few more steps away from the rubble and he put a spade into the ground. He removed what he had put back over his previous hole, and it was as if someone had lifted the lid on a treasure chest full of silver coins. I was sure that Jay and I stood there open mouthed for several minutes, before simultaneously almost diving in head first. We had with us two large buckets which were quickly filled. Everywhere we dug in this area we found dog tags. In most places they were as lovely as the day they were thrown in, still glinting in the daylight and with one wipe they looked brand new. I started the day by wiping each one and then reading the names out loud, however this soon grew too time consuming, so we threw them all into the bucket, to be discovered later after cleaning. At the end of the first day the buckets looked rather full and extremely heavy! I rang my beloved and very understanding wife to see if it would be a problem for us to dig again tomorrow. She wasn't keen, but she understands my passion for what I do. Despite the barracking from Jay and Alan she said it was alright. So we lugged all of the dog tags back to the car, which was no small feat! Then back to Alan's to hose them off and divide them into three roughly equal piles. It’s amazing what you can do with bathroom scales. 

​Once back at Jay's I emptied my bucket of tags onto a sheet on the floor. There were so many tags that they flowed like water revealing names and numbers as they spilled out. I spotted Jays surname on one tag, and handed it to him. I had from the first moment that Alan had found this site said that all these names and numbers needed to be recorded, in the hope that we could return some of them to the families or better still to the veterans themselves, if they were still alive. So the laptop came out and I started right there, that night, logging the serial number, surname, initials, religion, quantity and other notes. I think I wrote about 500 before almost falling asleep with my head on the screen. 

​The next thing I knew, the alarm on my phone was going off. Surely it couldn’t be morning. Light rain, mist, darkness and cold almost sent us back to our beds, but we knew that it would be worth the trouble, and so we were soon out of the door and on our way to Alan's. Once we arrived, Alan called me over and handed me a single dog tag that we had lost when jet washing them clean in his drive the previous day. It was named MACKAY! It was clipped on my house keys and remains there now.

​Once we arrived back at the site we started filling the same huge buckets all over again. The finding of the dog tags didn't seem to be slowing down at all. Thousands and thousands were being dug up and with no sign of stopping we soon realised that this site would keep us going for some time. Again we left the site and lugged everything back to the car before embarking on another jet washing session to clean them off and divide them up. At that point, I had been in the same clothes for two days of solid digging. I found myself standing in the car park of a bus station with a bag I could barely lift due to holding over six stone of dog tags. I waited for the bus and when it arrived I hauled my bag aboard, and the second I sat down I fell asleep and woke up just outside Bicester, phew, a close call I could have missed my stop. I struggled once again with my bag, which was completely soaked through. 

​For the following few days the list got longer and longer and I wondered how I could even start returning them. Generally, when finding one tag, the thing to do is either return it to the family if they want it, or find out as much as you can and hope you can get a photo of the original recipient. But I had thousands in front of me and no idea where to start, so I just kept writing my list which soon reached 1,500. Tobin, another friend of mine, who has contacts everywhere, suggested that he ask around to try and work out how all the dog tags were related to each other. Together we coined the name 'the forgotten army' for the dog tags; it stuck! Meanwhile I contacted the British Legion hoping that they may had details of ex-servicemen service numbers which meant it would be simple to return some. A few emails went back and forth but ended with them not really wanting to help. Meanwhile the list continued to grow reaching over 2,500 and with another batch of the worst dog tags cleaned up, I could see this topping well over 4,000. I started asking Jay and Alan how they were getting on documenting their share, to which they responded "I would rather go and re-bury them than have to do that". I really wanted the list to be completed as soon as possible so I offered to document their tags as well. The thought of going to dig up more, when we hadn’t even finished dealing with what we already had worried me that we would get totally overwhelmed. 

But we finally finished compiling the list, and I wrote to all the national newspapers, then to all of the local towns that the three of us were from. Nobody was interested in helping to return any of these dog tags, but not being deterred and thinking that someone must want to help us, or be interested in this story I wrote to all of the TV archaeologists such as Tony Robinson, Dan Snow etc... I was mostly ignored, and Dan Snow was just too busy with other projects. Fine! I then wrote to every military magazine that I could think of, again nothing. I hit a wall. I took out a handful of random tags and started punching names and numbers into Google. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing... this continued for hours. I gave up. The tags then sat in organised boxes for over two years, until the last couple of months. I moved house and the tags sat behind me in the window of my new office, casting a shadow over me... literally! I plucked out a couple and a search brought up a website I had seen before - Forces War Records. I figured that if they had information I needed then I would subscribe. With the easy task done, I loaded up the information. What a great website! I then sat entering every name and serial number I had on the list. It was at this point that I was contacted by a gentleman who had heard about my dog tags, and one in particular. It was a dog tag of a soldier called V. Berrett, Service No: 556457. He informed me that it belonged to his friend’s father who fought with the Wiltshire Regiment. He had enlisted in 1936, fighting Rommel in Africa. I told him that I would return it to him as soon as I could. He asked if I could send a letter explaining all that I knew about the tag and in the letter I, of course, asked for as much information that he could tell me about his father’s war time experiences. I also asked if he had a photograph of his father in uniform. So the first tag made its way home. How many more, if any could I return?

​Using Forces War Records I had a hit with the dog tag to A HINITT 556057, which led to me to the discovery that he was involved in the Normandy invasion. I then found out that he had revisited Normandy in 2014, from an article written by the Nottingham Post, so I emailed the newspaper and I’m currently hoping that they will be able to contact either Arthur Hinitt or his family, so that I can return the second tag. Arthur Hinitt enlisted at the age of 16 after lying about his age. He served with the Sherwood Rangers, saw action at Operation Market Garden, North Africa and was amongst the first tanks to attempt to take the beach in Normandy. However his tank was hit and it sunk before making it onto the beach. Later in Belgium, whilst in a different tank that was hit, and seconds after he bailed out, it exploded, leaving him with hearing problems.

​The best result was yet to come. On 6th Feb 2017 I handed a dog tag over in person to not only a family, but to the veteran himself. Fred Bills’s dog tag began like all the others, cleaned, input into my database, and then run through the Forces War Records website. A hit! I saw that he was wounded once in 1944. I clicked save, then this is where the magic happened. On the site, if someone else has saved a record, a message can be sent to them. I already had a prepared message for this scenario. It basically explains about the dog tags, and if family or friends get in touch I will do my utmost to return it to them. Sure enough the very next day I had an email from Fred’s son, John. John said he was a little sceptical, so I invited him to join my group on Facebook - Extreme Relic Hunters. He did, and from there he sent a few photographs and shared some small snippets of information. We exchanged messages and as I won his trust he invited me to his home when his father would be there and we all had a very pleasant time. Fred told us many stories from his time in the army, from his attempts to volunteer for the RAF, to being drafted into the army and then through Africa, Italy including Monte Cassino and into Austria and later Greece. Most of his stories would have me laughing and some, of course contained the far more serious aspects of war, although even some of those were amusing. Fred had no idea that I had his dog tag with me and was pleasantly surprised to see it, let alone be told he could keep it, as at first he tried to hand it back to me. So another is truly home. A very fantastic experience and one that will certainly spur me on to keep working on these thousands of dog tags.

​The next tag that looks like as if it has an almost 100% chance of going home is one that was issued by the Royal Ulster Rifles. Although when I looked him up on the Forces War Records website, it showed that he was wounded serving with No.3 Commandos in NW Europe. I knew that as a specialist unit, they were bound to have an online forum. A quick search online saw me swiftly joining a forum and moments after I put up a post I was given the information and supporting documents to prove he was actually in No.3 Commando and more importantly that he had a daughter, although nobody knew where she was. I was however sent the address of who they believed may be his grandson, so I was able to send him a letter.

​Now although I don't have leads on these next three interesting tags, they are certainly worthy of a mention.
 
Firstly, Harold Anthony Kilpatrick 4697547, a corporal who served with the Royal Armoured Corps out in Burma. He won the Military Medal and the original Gazette recommendation reads:

​Harold Anthony Kilpatrick was serving in 149th Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps, a component of 50th Indian Tank Brigade, at the time of the above cited deeds. The regiment was formed from the 7th Battalion (King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry), in November 1941, and originally went into action on the Manipur Road in April 1944.

​The Deputy Commissioner's bungalow, famous for the battle on its tennis court and grounds in the desperate defence of Kohima ridge in April 1944, witnessed the demise of numerous British, Indian and Japanese troops in May, not least on the 4th, when Kilpatrick's tank had the dubious distinction of being the first one to reach the location. ‘Burma Victory’, by David Rooney, takes up the story:

​Sadly his medals, like so many others have been sold off by the families over time and went up for auction in 2014 making £2300, £500 over their estimated value. As nice as those medals are, the dog tag I now hold in my hand was worn around his neck that very day.

​Next is Trooper Stanley John Pickard, who served with the 22nd Dragoons part of the Royal Armoured Corps. On the 22nd of October 1944 he was awarded an unusual medal, the Belgium Croix de Guerre 2nd Class with palm. His recommendation papers state: 

​The last tag, from ‘the forgotten army’ belonged to Quartermaster Sergeant Alan Brazendale who had reports of being wounded and then being awarded the Military Medal. Brazendale served with the 4th Country of London Yeomanry, a unit in the Royal Armoured Corps. The recommendation is rather bland and simply states that “in devotion to duty and disregard to safety he kept up the fighting strength of the unit.” I began to feel that maybe Pickard had been a little short changed with his Croix de Guerre, however, after doing a bit more research I then found a photograph of Brazendale being awarded the medal from General Montgomery! 

​You can see more information on our ‘the forgotten army’ at www.extremerelichunters.com, although it is still in the construction phase, the site is live. On a more important note - if anyone would like to help, either with particular units, awards, or with specific details about metal British dog tags from WW2 then please get in touch. At the moment it’s only myself working on these dog tags and it’s quite a monumental task!

Dan MacKay - I am a lifetime military history enthusiast and self-published author of two books, currently writing my third with more planned. With a couple of friends I formed a group called Extreme Relic Hunters for which I run facebook groups and a website.
My main interests are Canadian WW1, German WW2, US WW1, NAAFI items, Combat photography, Dog-tags and named items from both world wars. I aim to return named items and also collect my own family named medals. I metal detect, dump dig and trade items to specialise my collection which takes me around south-east England and part of Europe.

Extreme Relic Hunters, Facebook Page ​https://www.facebook.com/groups/560495727421114/

Forces War Records, Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=forces%20war%20records
Forces War Records, Twitter ​https://twitter.com/F_W_Records

#AncestryHour Ambassadors will be on hand at the this year's #WDYTYA Live from 6th-8th to help visitors get the most from their visit.  Just look out for the badges and lanyards and if you need any help or advice please just ask!

Among our numbers we are delighted to welcome a VERY special guest - Andrew Gardiner better known to fans of BBC2's 'The Victorian Slum' as the 'Rentman'.  Andrew like the rest of us can't wait for the show to begin.  Below are a few words from the man himself on his thoughts regarding the forthcoming show, family history and what working for the hit TV series taught him about ancestors with disabilities.

It's not too late to book tickets to the #WDYTYA event, so why not take advantage of #AncestryHour's fantastic discount offer today!

​​Before affordable DNA testing for genealogical purposes burst onto the scene in recent years many family history mysteries were simply filed away in the unsolvable drawer. DNA testing has opened up a whole new world of possibility for adoptees and those with unknown parentage mysteries and by unknown parentage mysteries I'm not only referring to an unknown parent but perhaps an unknown grandparent or even great grandparent as in the case of Jack Ridley. DNA testing has become the logical next step for those faced with brick walls such as a grandfather's birth certificate with a blank next to the father's name. It is a very powerful tool that can be used to help reconnect biological family members in the here and now as well as unlock secrets from the past whose answers we thought had died with those who kept them.

​DNA testing is not a magic bullet, however, and can't be used in isolation. Some people will get lucky with a close match that solves their mystery as soon as they test but for most a lot of hard work is on the horizon. I like to think of DNA as another tool in the genealogist's varied toolbox and it needs to be used in conjunction with traditional research to get the best results. Before deciding to test people also must be aware, and make those they are asking to test aware, that surprises are possible. Many test in order to try to solve the riddle of an NPE but for some the act of taking the test itself is what informs them they have an NPE in the first place. NPE stands for non-paternity event although I much prefer to call it "not the parent expected". DNA is scrupulously honest and, while the percentage of people who discover an NPE is small, everyone should be prepared for the possibility they may receive answers they are not expecting. ​

So, like Jack Ridley, you have a recent mystery in your tree and you decide your next step is DNA testing. Which tests are available and which would best help you with your mystery? There are three different types of test on the market today; autosomal DNA tests, Y Chromosome (Y-DNA) tests and Mitochondrial (MtDNA) tests. In recent years autosomal tests have become the most popular but all have their own merits and limitations. ​

​Autosomal DNA is a mix of the DNA you inherited from all of your ancestral lines but, due to the way it recombines as it is passed down, some DNA from your most distant ancestors drops off each generation. This means autosomal DNA is limited to the past 5-7 generations and is also why testing older generations can be so crucial - they have more of your ancestors’ autosomal DNA than you do.  While this filtering out of older DNA is a limitation of autosomal testing, it is also why it can be so useful for recent family history mysteries - you inherit 50% of your autosomal DNA from your mother and 50% from your father so if you were adopted or have a recent unknown ancestor autosomal DNA testing is crucial and should be your first port of call if you want to use DNA to solve your mystery. ​

​Only men have a Y-chromosome which is passed down from father to son along a continuous male line and, therefore, Y-DNA tests can only be taken by men. The limitation of a Y-DNA test is that it only tests one of your ancestral lines - your direct paternal line.  You have sixteen lines stemming from your great great grandparents and an autosomal test can cover all of these while a Y-DNA test only covers one. The advantages of Y-DNA testing, however, are that the particular line it covers is the line that carries your surname and it can reach much further back in time than autosomal. If your mystery is on a line for which you have a Y-DNA tester (a man who shares the Y-chromosome of the mystery man) I would recommend Y-DNA testing in addition to autosomal DNA testing as there is a chance it could identify a surname. If, for instance, out of your top ten Y-DNA matches seven of them have the surname Campbell, there’s a good chance your mystery man was a Campbell too. This is a huge clue. There is only a 10-15% chance of identifying a surname in this way at the moment but if you don’t test you will never know and that percentage will rise over time as more people enter the database. Unfortunately female adoptees and females with unknown fathers cannot utilise Y-DNA testing but don’t think Y-DNA is only useful for your direct paternal line as it can help you with any mystery male ancestor so long as you can find an appropriate Y-DNA tester for that line.

​​Mitochondrial DNA, like Y-DNA, also only covers one line of your tree - this time the direct female line.  There is, however, no gender limitation on who can take this test as both males and females inherit mitochondrial DNA from their mothers (males just don’t pass it on). The main difference with an MtDNA test is the fact that a direct female line you can test usually changes surname every generation due to marriage and as such this test cannot give clues that point to a particular surname in the way a Y-DNA test might. MtDNA testing tends to be most useful when examining a hypothesis and, due to how slowly it mutates, is usually the least genealogically useful of the three tests - you can have an exact MtDNA match that is many hundreds of years back in time. It is certainly worth considering though if your mystery is on a direct female line you can test or you are an adoptee as it can be useful to cross-reference your MtDNA haplogroup with close autosomal matches if they have also tested their MtDNA.

All of the different testing companies have their own pros and cons but when you are testing to solve a mystery you have to think in terms of getting into the largest databases as the larger the database the more chance you have of hitting upon a close enough match to aid your search. Entry to a matching database showing all of the other people who have tested with whom you share DNA is the most crucial thing you receive with your results. You also get an ethnicity estimate from an autosomal test and haplogroup assignments from Y-DNA and MtDNA tests but while ethnicity estimates and haplogroups can be useful when dealing with unknown parentage, you will really want to concentrate on these matching databases as the key to solving your mystery. My top recommendation for those with an adoption or unknown parentage mystery is to get themselves into as many of the major autosomal databases as they can afford to. It's like going on a fishing trip and not knowing which pond your big fish might be swimming in; if you are fishing in them all then you won't miss out on landing your personal big fish. AncestryDNA has by far the largest database now with over 3 million testers so I recommend testing there first then transferring into FamilyTreeDNA to get your top matches in their database (remembering if you want all the matches available you will have to upgrade your test). I also highly recommend uploading your DNA to GEDmatch as soon as you receive your AncestryDNA results. GEDmatch is a fantastic and free volunteer-run website that allows matching between those who have tested at all the major companies and also, in my opinion, offers the best tools for working with your DNA. I find it invaluable in my work. Finally 23andMe also have a large database so if your mystery is no closer to being solved after testing at AncestryDNA and uploading to FamilyTreeDNA, GEDmatch and MyHeritage then I would encourage you to also test at 23andMe in order to have complete coverage of the databases on offer. 

​​Here's a hypothetical family tree for a situation like Jack’s:

​​With a case like this we're not looking for extremely close matches – we need first cousins1xrem or more likely second or third cousins (full, half or removed) as those are the closest matches that could descend from the mystery great grandparents. We can see from the chart that Jack shares approximately 12.5% with each of his mystery great grandparents so that means that around 25% of his DNA came from them combined. So far only Jack has tested meaning the combined 25% of their DNA that he has inherited from them himself is all he has to work with and, since 75% of his DNA does not pertain to them, a large number of his matches won’t be relevant to identifying who they were. His matches will be a mix of people related to him on all of his lines. Think of his tree in terms of quarters – there’s the paternal grandfather’s quarter, the paternal grandmother’s quarter, the maternal grandfather’s quarter and the maternal grandmother’s quarter. In this situation we want to eliminate the matches from the three other quarters that he already knows about in order to pinpoint the ones from the mystery quarter he doesn’t. How do we go about that though? Well firstly we have to identify as many matches as we can on the other three quarters! The more DNA that can be attributed to them the easier it will be to assign matches to the mystery quarter. This can be done by identifying matches who have already tested but by far the easiest way to do it is to proactively test other close relatives yourself.

​Father: if he doesn’t have his mother to test then in terms of narrowing down his own matches his father is one of the most important people to be tested if possible. He is unrelated to the mystery grandparents but 50% of Jack comes from his father and by testing him all the matches he has received that are on his paternal side can be eliminated in one go. This is very simple to do once his father’s results enter the system; he can just check his match list against his father’s and anyone who matches his father can be eliminated from the search. Those that don’t match his father will be maternal matches that could either be on his mystery line or his maternal grandmother’s line but at least using his father’s results he will have narrowed them down that far. If he doesn’t have his father to test other close paternal relatives such as paternal aunts, uncles or first cousins can still narrow many of his matches down in this way.

​Maternal Grandmother: you might think testing those on his maternal grandmother's side who share 0% with the mystery ancestors won't help but you’d be wrong! If Jack was lucky enough to have his maternal grandmother herself to test he could eliminate all matches that stem from her and that would help enormously with pinpointing those who stem from the mystery side especially if he also had his father tested too. If he doesn’t have her to test he can still eliminate many of these matches by testing her siblings (his grand aunts/uncles) or their children (first cousins1xrem) or grandchildren (second cousins). Note that as he’ll share less DNA with each successive generation the number of matches he’ll be able to eliminate by testing them will decrease accordingly too.
 
I liken DNA testing for genealogy mysteries to trying to complete a giant jigsaw puzzle - the more important pieces you can place on the board yourself, the easier it will be to identify other key pieces and build the jigsaw.

​​Finally educating yourself about DNA testing for genealogy is of great importance. There are so many helpful blogs, books and groups out there; try to take advantage of them all. If you're confused about something seek out some answers! The ISOGG wiki is a fabulous resource you should become familiar with. I recommend reading all of the excellent information outlined at DNAAdoption.com as well; although set up to cater to the adoption community the advice there can help anyone with a mystery to solve. There are some excellent books too - Blaine Bettinger's new book "The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy" is an superb overview on the subject and if you’d like to try out some practical exercises try his new workbook “Genetic Genealogy In Practice”. If you would like to read about a successful adoption search I can highly recommend Richard Hill’s book “Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA”. If you use Facebook I recommend following the DNA Detectives and ISOGG groups. The most important thing to do is just to work with your DNA matches as practising is the very best way to become more familiar with the whole process. It can be a rollercoaster ride of emotions so be prepared, be patient and don’t give up.

Michelle Leonard is Ancestry Hour's resident DNA #genesgenius!  You can contact Michelle by email and you can follow her on social media. You can catch her on Twitter as @GenealogyLass and her business page on Facebook is Genes & Genealogy.  She is on hand most weeks to answer #DNA queries during our #AncestryHour live chats each Tuesday evening 7-8pm GMT so feel free to join us sometime soon.  ​

​Remember you can download the text only version of Michelle's article to keep handy for future reference!