Closer to the end of summer than the beginning

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Ai Weiwei at LACMA. 9 Aug 2026.

While the calendar says mid-August, kids in the neighborhood are beginning their journeys off to college. Our senior's last year of high school kicks off in a week. This is probably the earliest it has felt like the end of summer is approaching. Soon I'll be driving Sophia north for Year 3. It's going to be an exciting period over the next six months. 

We have a few more weeks before calendar summer comes to a close, but we're entering the part of the year that seems to speed up.

Filter by region now on AncestryDNA

AncestryDNA Filters.

Ancestry has added the ability to filter DNA matches by ancestral region. Using my Mom's results as an example, when I click into regions as shown above, I get a drop down menu for all of her ancestral regions. Then I can click further to filter by matches in common from those regions. This is a significant improvement to the filter by journeys feature that Ancestry launched last year.

When I run this on my Dad's results and filter by Central Ireland, I can now see several bubble groups with ties to Roscommon, Ireland. This is really promising for finding potential connections to the family of my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget.

Return from the West Coast

I'm back after spending the week in Los Angeles. The new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA are amazing. I could have spent more time there, but will have to make another visit on a return trip to the city.

A big focus of the research time during the month so far has been looking closely at the O'Brien DNA matches. I am currently working with 210 matches in common on MyHeritage between a first cousin once removed of my Dad's O'Brien side. I am attempting to separate the network of Lamon and Lambert matches, leaving me hopefully a group of O'Brien-Bridget matches who I can use to identify the families of my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget.

DNA in the news: Adventures in the Animal Archive

A new article describes the use of DNA testing techniques on the pages of ancient manuscripts in the Duke University Library, and how this analysis is opening up methods for tracing the movement of parchments. Adventures in the Animal Archive: New Techniques for the Genetic Analysis of Parchment Manuscripts. Manuscript Studies, Vol 11, Number 1, Spring 2026.

Santa Monica

 

Made in Ideogram.