Overlapping centimorgans

 

DNAPainter. Chromosome 12 for KDJ.

Last October I dove down the rabbit hole on the story of Mary Frances O'Brien, who worked as a governess for the child of Alberto Yoacham, Minister of Chile to Mexico in 1918. At the time I wasn't sure how this ancestor of DNA match JJ O'Brien might connect, if at all, to our O'Brien line. After spending some time on chromosome mapping using the tools at DNAPainter, I decided to look again at the segments in common with other known O'Brien DNA matches. JJ's segment, the dark green piece at the bottom of my Dad's chromosome 12, overlaps with another dark green segment belonging to a verified O'Brien match.

JJ's segment is small, 10.3 cM, but the segment is entirely within a 20 cM segment from EM, who is a descendant of James O'Brien from the Pennsylvania O'Brien branch.

Another potential O'Brien DNA match to my Dad, DG, shares 38.8 cM. This match is on MyHeritage and comes from Canada. When I map the segments in common, she has a 12.2 cM segment (dark green, at bottom) that overlaps with a longer segment in common with Mike O'Brien on chromosome 11. Interestingly EM also has a segment overlapping with Mike on this same chromosome (dark green directly below Mike's lighter green). DG has a smaller 8 cM piece on chromosome 17.

DNAPainter. Chromosome 11 for KDJ.

Now I need to look closer at DG's Canadian ancestor and see if it's possible to directly link her to my O'Brien line.

Testing Gedminer

 

Gedminer. June 2026.

On Jarrett Ross' Friday YouTube livestream, he demonstrated a new tool called Gedminer. It is browser-based, and currently free to use (although you can donate to the developer to support the project). Gedminer works with a GEDCOM (a structured file for storing family tree data) and provides a detailed analysis with suggestions for further exploration. Some screenshots below capture what Gedminer can do.

You can download a copy of your GEDCOM from Ancestry or MyHeritage, and upload it to Gedminer. The process was fairly easy, although it did take me a little bit of time to find the right place to generate the GEDCOM file on Ancestry.

Under the heading "Discovery", Gedminer has tabs for deep dives into your GEDCOM data, including Migration Analysis, a Census Toolbox, Gap Detector, Incomplete Families, a DNA Planner, and Plan Generator. The Migration Analysis is very cool.

The Plan Generator analyzes the GEDCOM and suggests highest impact research tasks.

I am going to try some tree cleanup on Ancestry and fixing of suggested errors, and then reload the updated GEDCOM. Gedminer can show progress improvements and recalculate scores. This looks like a very powerful tool.

Beckoning Cat

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Madrid, 12 June 2026.

Walking around in the Mercado Anton Martín on Friday in Madrid, a square image of a beckoning cat next to the kitchen of Asian Army restaurant caught my eye. The swirling red script caused me to give the place a closer look. I thought it might be Khmer script, which I recognized from visiting Angkor Wat in 2016. I snapped a photo for later, and enjoyed some delicious dinner.

Upon my return home, I uploaded the image to Google Gemini and asked a simple prompt, "what language and script is in this image, and what does it say." According to Gemini, this is a modern yantra, "a type of sacred talisman in Thai spiritual culture...featuring a stylized beckoning cat wearing traditional Thai royal attire. Shopkeepers and business owners in Thailand place talisman papers like this at their storefronts or registers to magnetically attract customers, boost sales and invite good fortune into the establishment."

The text is written in a variant of the Khmer script (Khom Thai) historically used in Thailand for religious, magical or sacred texts. The language is Pali (Phasa Bali in Khom script), the traditional language of Theravada Buddhism. This is a Buddhist mantra for good luck, attracting loving kindness, customers, and popularity (paraphrasing).

The image got my attention, and I stuck around for Singapore-style chicken rice. Very tasty.

I also recommend Cutzamala, around the corner from Asian Army on the same level of the mercado. I ate there before the Mexico-South Africa game on Thursday night.

Return from Sevilla

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Sevilla. 4 June 2026.

I'm now back from the Spain trip, and will be catching up on the family history items I've missed while away. There are some cool new tools, and new matches to explore.

Resurfacing

Meetings in Sevilla have ended and I’m stopping in Madrid for the moment. Madrid is on my top cities list, and it’s been really great returning to a favorite neighborhood and seeing familiar places. This is definitely a place I could spend quality time in a future life chapter. Blogging and family history research have been on pause while I’ve focused on my primary duties for the event in Spain.

Things are shifting from here to our Asia Pacific region, and another familiar location or two returns to the travel itinerary. Spain will be back in January and will feature heavily in my travel plans for 2027.