DNA in the news: Revolutionary War soldier identified

A story on NPR about DNA links identifying a previously unknown Revolutionary War soldier (23 June 2026)

Fathers Day

 

Dad. Mothers Beach, LA. 30 Aug 2008.

A Return to the Real Alcazar

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Sevilla. 5 June 2026.

Earlier in the month I had the opportunity to revisit the amazing grounds of the Real Alcazar in Sevilla. We visited this place in August 2019 during our Spain & Portugal trip. I was able to grab a ticket for the last hour of the day at the palace, which contributed to great lighting for photos.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Domed ceiling.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Alcazar cat in motion.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tile work.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Inscriptions.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tapestry showing Spain, with North Africa on top. 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tiles.

Llegadas/Salidas

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Sevilla. 11 June 2026.

The shot above from Sevilla Santa Justa station reminds me of other photos from departures boards I've taken over the years (see this black and white shot from LAX in 2020). Another example is this shot from the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport in 2024.

I took a similar photo from Atocha Station in Madrid back in 2017 (sized for Instagram below).

Photo by Patrick Jones. Madrid. 13 May 2017.

More observations on Gedminer

 

Gedminer. 17 June 2026.

Earlier in the week I wrote about testing out the new tool Gedminer. When I first ran the tool using the GEDCOM I downloaded from Ancestry, I had 11,462 people in my tree (this includes groups of people from floating trees that I have built off my main tree to identify DNA matches). I followed some of the suggestions to fix errors, and am now down to 10,826 people after pruning some additional branches.

My tree consistency score has improved from 99.4 to 99.58% and the sourcing score has improved from 74.24 to 75.29%. 

I began building out my tree on Ancestry in 2005, and over the years a lot of questionable additions to the tree have stacked up. Gedminer is really useful to identify these errors, people without data, or branches that don't belong.