Robert Cameron Weir (you can call me “Rob”) is a professional genealogist in Dover, New Hampshire.  He is a 12th generation New Englander with 16 years’ experience in genealogical research and also has a certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University’s Center for Professional Education and is a member of the Association for Professional Genealogists.  

"The test kit was on sale. You bought one, dutifully deposited your saliva in the plastic tube and mailed it in. Now, a few weeks later the results are in: haplotypes and ethnicity estimates, something about earwax type, and a giant list of 537 people who (apparently) are your kinfolk. It is all a bit overwhelming.

In this talk we’ll cut through the distractions and walk you through the exact steps to take to find, organize and interpret shared matches, a technique that works with all the major DNA testing services, and can be done with a spreadsheet, a word processor, or even a stack of index cards. Using this technique, we’ll make sense of the chaos and start extracting genealogical value from our DNA.

This is designed to be a practical “how to” talk on genetic genealogy. I keep jargon to a minimum, and focus on a simple way to work with shared matches. This method taught is applicable to all DNA services, including those like Ancestry DNA which do not provide their customers segment-level match data.

No prior background with genetic genealogy is assumed."

Participants have the choice of viewing this program in person at the Irondequoit Public Library or at home via livestream using Zoom. Registration required with an email address. Participants will receive an email with the log-in information for Zoom.