LACMA reopening

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)'s David Geffen Galleries officially reopen this weekend. I have a ticket for August when I'm back in LA, and I'm excited to see the reimagined galleries, timed for a sunset walk through the new spaces. I last visited the old LACMA twice ten years ago, when I did some night running in downtown LA, and again with the family in September 2016.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Urban Light at LACMA. 4 Jan 2016.

I feel like this is something as someone who has adopted LA as my home away from home, or home in my heart, I need to do, to see the new LACMA space in its opening months (NYTimes article, subscription may be required). As with my January trip overlapping with Indiana Basketball vs UCLA and USC, I'm taking in the sights on occasion when I come back to LA.

An update on the mitotree

 

FTDNA. Discover report on A2a5 match.

We now have an additional result descending from Maria Jesus Vasquez (see also here), as cousin Joe received his mtDNA results. As expected, the haplogroup, A2a5, is the same as cousin Catherine. We're waiting on the mitotree to update and this may provide a more refined branch point for both. Catherine's mitotree updated in February, but I think hers will update again once the analysis is complete on Joe's kit. I suspect the image above will change for him soon when this analysis is updated.

Looking at another pair of matches

As with yesterday's post, I'm exploring DNA matches with my Dad's results on MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA, trying to identify segments for chromosome mapping. When I look at a match named Steven, I see he has 68 cM in common with my Dad across five segments. That's pretty good. The longest segment is 43 cM. MyHeritage estimates Steven is a 3rd cousin with my Dad.

Even better, Steven has a sister who also tested at MyHeritage, and she shares that same 43 cM segment. I was able to build a floating tree on Ancestry using their father, and with a combination of sources on Ancestry and FamilySearch work backward until I found a common ancestor in my 6th-great-grandparents William Lee and Catherine Ross. Great! Unfortunately this is too far back to be the only relationship. It's possible this 43 cM segment is Lee/Ross, but the four other segments in common with Steven are pretty small. Multiple relationships mean there's more work to do.

Toward the end of the month, YourDNAGuide's Endogamy and DNA course begins. I'll keep this example in mind as I work through the online course.

Who was Ralph's father

I'm continuing to work on chromosome mapping using matches to my Dad's results on MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA. One match I'm struggling with is named Ralph. This match shares 64.7 cM across four segments with my Dad, so potentially this is a good match to see where he fits, and to see if the connection is on Dad's maternal or paternal side.

When I look a little closer, I can see this tester died in 2020. He left a small tree, only with names on his maternal side, and lots of unknowns on his paternal side. Because Ralph's mother was a daughter of German immigrants, I feel like the common ancestor is on Ralph's paternal side. Ralph was born in 1933. His mother married in September 1937 in Cleveland, and the marriage record states this was her first marriage. A profile for the mother on FamilySearch also states that Ralph was adopted by the man that the mother married in 1937. The adoptive father was a child of Hungarian immigrants. The common ancestor has to be on a branch of Ralph's mystery biological father.

Ralph does have a second cousin match with 271 cM in common, also matching my Dad at 26 cM across 1 segment. There's more to do digging into shared matches of matches. Right now I'm parking this to pick up later, and moving on to another match to my Dad in the same range.

Still...

Another week has flown by, and I'm still waiting on the things I posted about last Monday. While the month is off to a slow research start, we've been enjoying some beautiful spring weather before it feels like early summer this week with a stretch in the 90s expected.

Tonight is the end of the NBA regular season. Unlike last year's magical run, this season has been pretty forgettable for the Pacers. There are positive signs for next season. They've set themselves up for a potential high draft pick, and the team should return to full health for the start of the 2026-27 year.

Although it's been a quiet start to the month, there's a lot of potential for new stories in the remaining days.