A woman conducting a family ancestry search has discovered that she is the half-sister to television talk show host Oprah Winfrey. The woman, whose surname has been kept secret to protect her privacy, had been searching for her birth mother who had given her up for adoption in 1963. The trail began in Mississippi and ended up in Chicago, where she finally met with her long lost sibling on Thanksgiving Day last year. Recently she appeared on Oprah’s show, where the two held hands throughout and demonstrated the true rewards of conducting a family ancestry search.

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It’s true, we all have two family trees. – a genetic family tree and a genealogical family tree!  Let me explain.

I recently spoke with a friend who attended a genealogical convention in Dublin, Ireland. This person had undergone DNA testing which compared his DNA with that of another person who he suspected might be related to him. It turned out that their DNA’s matched on 99% of Y-DNA markers; yet even though they suspected that they were third cousins, neither of them could find evidence of the other in their family histories. Even though their DNA was almost identical, it appeared they may not be related at all. My friend approached a well known genealogist and asked him about a possible explanation. I was, and you may well be, surprised at the answer he was given.

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As promised, here is the next step to making your very own custom family tree chart for framing.  My last post went into detail about the type of paper you should choose.  It’s absolutely crucial that you get the paper right!  If you haven’t read that post, do it now.  You have to be able speak “shop” to your printer or the art supplier to make sure you get the right paper that will last for decades.  Today, this post will outline the important components of the right ink and protectant.

Getting back to my analogy of building a house.  Now that you’ve got a good foundation by choosing the best paper for the job, you need to start building the part of the house that defines the space and protects the contents.  The walls.  The walls of your house protect you just like the ink for your family tree protects your research and family history from fading.  And just like the walls of your house, you need the ink to stand up to the elements. The ink is the part of your family tree that people will be looking at all the time.  You don’t want the ink to run or fade.    Pick the right ink and your family tree will last for generations.

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Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday season and I want to wish you all of the best in 2011.

Like some of you, I have made a New Year’s Resolution to do more genealogy research and to go even further back in my ancestors search.  So I just wanted to remind you about the free family tree templates you can download.

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