New York: DNA -The Player's Guide, January 16

Jewish geography and DNA, with Judy Simon, is the program at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York, on Sunday, January 16.

The meeting begins at 2pm at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York City, New York. Members, free; others, $5.

Understand more about genetic genealogy with Judy's presentation, "Jewish Geography and DNA: A Player's Guide."

Judy and I co-administer the IberianAshkenaz DNA Project at FamilyTreeDNA.com, just one of Judy's DNA projects, and we've done dual presentations at conferences. She really knows what she's talking about, and I've learned much from her. If you've avoided doing testing because you're not sure what genetic genealogy is, what it does, what the results mean - this is the program for you.

You receive an e-mail saying your DNA results came in.  You open the message with great expectations that this is the answer to all your unsolved genealogical mysteries, and within a few minutes you are drowning in alphabet soup: DYS#, HVR1,Hg, E-M35, Y-DNA, R1b12a1b, mtDNA, K1a1b1a, TMRCA, RAO.

Help!

If you can relate to the above, or if you haven't had your DNA tested yet for fear of the above, this presentation is for you. Using questions that have been posed to her by DNA beginners during the six years that she has been administering DNA projects, Dr. Simon will demonstrate how DNA testing can help with your family history research, what you can and cannot expect to learn from it, and how to make sense out of your results.

She will draw on examples from the Iberian Ashkenaz Y-DNA and mtDNA projects, the Jewish Ukraine West and Glassmaking Families projects and the Brosgol, Lefkowitz, and Olstein surname projects.

Judy Simon is a social worker in Suffolk County, N.Y. With a background in biostatistics and epidemiology, and a doctorate in epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health. She's been researching her family history for as long as she can remember, and has been doing genetic genealogy for seven years. She administers several projects at FamilyTree DNA.

For more information, click JGSNY.org.