CeCe Moore on DNA at Western Michigan Genealogical Society

We made an early morning trip to Grand Rapids for CeCe Moore’s October 13, 2018 Seminar “So then what did you do? DNA!” hosted by the Western Michigan Genealogical Society of Grand Rapids. The trip was well worth it with a beautiful fall color drive to bookend the day. At FGS, Rootstech, and Dallas Genealogical Society conferences, we have attended perhaps a half dozen sessions on DNA, and have a pretty good understanding of the various tests and how to use them, but we don’t have a great handle on how to really integrate DNA testing into research. This seminar gave some wonderful case studies that help in figuring out how to proceed.

Although she gave a good overview of the DNA tests and basic uses, most of the audience was already quite familiar with the basics–about 90 percent raised their hands for the opening questions on how many have tested. Most of the day focused on how to figure out which matches to pursue and how to pursue them to prove or disprove particular relationships. Because her specialty has been locating parents of adoptees, there was a lot of material on building out trees of living relatives. For several of the DNA-related proofs that we need, we both have to test some living people with specific probable relationships and these case studies were invaluable in figuring out how to approach this problem.

For society presidents who are looking for a full-day DNA seminar, but are concerned about having a speaker who can effectively present to both beginners and those with some experience with DNA testing, CeCe Moore would be a good speaker. Based upon the number of attendees who have already done tests compared to other seminars that we have attended, the problem of vastly different experience levels is probably not as great as it was a few years ago.