November 7, 2025 Birth and death certificates are important genealogical records. Most genealogists strive to find them for everyone in their family tree and use them to solve genealogical puzzles. However, there are some difficulties with birth and death certificates. In many parts of the United States neither record type was kept until the …
Concepts: What is a Half-Relationship, Like Half First Cousins, Anyway?
Pretty much everyone knows what a half sibling is – someone who shares one, but not both parents with each other. If you and your sibling share the same mother, but not the same father (or vice versa), you’re half-siblings. Only one parent is shared between half-siblings. If you share both parents, you’re full siblings. …
Cheat Sheet: Mitochondrial Matches, Haplotype Clusters, and Haplogroups
One of the questions I often receive about mitochondrial DNA matching at FamilyTreeDNA is which mutations are included, which are excluded, from what type of matching, and why. There are three types of matching for full sequence (mtFull) testers. Match page matching Haplotype matching Haplogroup-only matching Each match type is different and provides something unique …