A Learning Filled Friday

I spent Friday watching a number of webinars hosted by the Board for Certification of Genealogists which were broadcasted live. They were excellent! If you can, I recommend you visit Legacy Family Tree Webinars and watch. They are free—but only, I believe, for a limited time.

Elizabeth Shown Mills’ presentation was inspiring. She took a really, really, really tough brick wall—can you tell it was a really tough nut to crack?—and used a combination of the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS), the FAN principle (researching friends, associates and neighbors), and DNA to take it from a logical, but unproven hypothesis to proven fact.1

I’m a big fan, ahem… of the FAN principle. I recently used it to identify the maiden name of one of the Hocker wives. This presentation showed me how to use DNA to prove the results FAN research provides. As in this case, it may be all you have when there is no other evidence. But it could also be used to make or bolster a case where limited evidence does exist or is contradictory.

All in all, a great way to spend a Friday afternoon and evening.

Footnotes

  1. You can also read this case study on her website.

Cite This Page:

, "A Learning Filled Friday," A Pennsylvania Dutch Genealogy, the genealogy & family research site of Kris Hocker, modified 9 Oct 2016 (https://www.krishocker.com/a-learning-filled-friday/ : accessed 29 Mar 2024).

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