Day 4: Oh, no! Only One More Day! #SLIGExperience

When there are technical glitches, beta software utilities, long downloads and uploads and you're STILL excited about all the learning, then you KNOW it's a good course. I highly recommend reviewing this year's syllabus for the "GPS with DNA" course. You'll see top-notch presenters, riveting topics, and lab time to work and explore.

Syllabus

Honestly, I would check out the schedule each day and think how awesome the day was going to be. And every day WAS great. I was never disappointed, always learning and usually highly entertained. Certainly you have all heard, or seen video, about Paul Woodbury and his singing. And then there were the "endogamy" balloons. Lesson learned and we had fun at the same time!

Dr. Michael Lacapo gave three great case studies, highly infused with humor (but no singing or balloons, darn it) to help us learn how to use mtDNA, atDNA and YDNA to its fullest potential for teasing out those answers to our brick walls.

Our fearless leader, Karen Stanbary and amazing Melissa Johnson were incredible as they methodically went through the GPS and how it applied to DNA. Today we broke into groups to analyze NGSQ articles that involved DNA in the GPS. I have a hard time analyzing articles alone and being able to bounce ideas off classmates was a great learning experience, too.

Thanks to Paul Woodbury, Melissa Johnson and Kimberly Powell for assisting us during our labs. My classmates were friendly, awesome, and willing to share expertise, too. The class was large with a variety of technical skills so having all those people in the room was just awesome!

Outside of the class sessions, it was great to be able to network with others who have that same driving passion for genealogy. I was even able to meet up at have dinner with the Minnesota group again this year. Lots of fun!

While I am sad that the class is ending Friday, I more than a little excited to spend some time at the Family History Library over the next few days. And I am looking forward to seeing what's ahead for SLIG 2019!

Day 3 - A Song, Balloons and Laughter #SLIGExperience

Endogamy lesson

The first two days of "GPS & DNA" were very noisy and full of learning. If it was quieter today, it's not because we were learning less. It was because we were all engrossed in the presentations by Michael Lacopo, Paul Woodbury and our fearless instructor, Karen Stanbary. I never expected such a complex topic as endogamy to be infused with so much humor. But Paul Woodbury did just that. Not only did he infuse humor but we were treated to a song and balloons a well. You've probably seen the pictures already but I was able to grab one early on.


Michael Lacopo shared a couple of case studies: one involving Y-DNA and the other involving autosomal DNA. I have followed his blog, Hoosier Daddy, for a couple of years and so was somewhat familiar with the Y-DNA story but nevertheless, it was very engrossing and entertaining.

My poor boggled mind!

And Karen Stanbary has been very patient and encouraging as we all work to get our software loaded, data extracts completed and then loaded into new software for chromosome mapping with so many features it is mind-boggling.

Day 4 promises to bring more lab time to get our new software loaded with all that DNA data and then time to explore chromosome mapping. More fun to come!