In April 1768, one Michel (Miguel) Deville wed Marguerite "Kasteberg" or "Kastzeberg" in St Louis Cathedral, New Orleans, Spanish Louisiana.  The sacramental record from the cathedral is heavily damaged, but suggests Michel was from "Port Royal."  His bride was of German and French extraction. A few months later, Deville was awarded a large land grant—more than 300 acres—in what is now Alexandria, Louisiana. 

AncestryDNA has just updated some of their DNA-based relationship predictions! Previously, the most likely relationship(s) for a DNA match was determined mainly by how much DNA (in centimorgans) that person shared with you.  The graph offers a visual synopsis of which relationship groups (represented by colored lines) are most likely (have the highest probability on the horizontal axis) for different centimorgan amounts (vertical axis).

This post is not about an individual.  It's about business.  But before we talk business, I need to talk about one individual.  For that, I am sorry. Yesterday, a colleague alerted me to an announcement on LinkedIn, the professional networking site.  Misty Gillis, an experienced forensic genetic genealogist with more than 50 investigative leads to her credit, is leaving her part-time job at Parabon after little more than two years.

Do you have even a passing interest in the power of genetic genealogy to solve crimes?  Are you concerned about the ethical and privacy implications?  Then you should read Barbara Rae-Venter’…

On Jun 18, 2026 - get a ticket now!

Emily’s is a true story, but some given names and surnames have been changed to protect privacy. When Emily’s DNA results first came back, the suspicions began to churn.  Her birth in 1…

When Daddy was from Smithville, where half the town are Smiths, they’re all related, and the local pastime appears to be extramarital sex.

Have you ever wondered what DNA does when it’s not helping you with your family history? Understanding its day job can give us insights into how DNA behaves in our genetic genealogy studies. …

Do you inherit exactly half of your DNA from each parent?  As with so many questions in genealogy and in life, the answer is: it depends.  It depends on your genetic sex and whether you consider mi…

A biology lesson wrapped up in a history lesson wrapped up in a nerdy experiment.

Unlock your past with the MyHeritage DNA Bundle. Get your DNA kit plus a 30-day free trial to explore billions of historical records and build your tree. Start your journey today!

New research pushes the first genetic evidence of dogs back by 5,000 years and suggests that hunter-gatherer groups may have acquired dogs from one another.

BanyanDNA gives us more power to validate our biological trees.

23andMe revolutionized the fields of personal genomics and genetic genealogy when they introduced the first direct-to-consumer autosomal DNA test in 2007.  Back then, a kit would set you back $1000.  Economies of scale and improvements in technology brought prices down to a tenth that amount, and the companies have updated their tests along the way, but the microarray has been a staple of genetic genealogy for nearly 20 years.

People arrested while protesting ICE say federal agents took samples of their DNA. It's legal, but experts say the practice raises questions about what the government is doing with that genetic data.

At age 16, Jerry’s mother was working in a canning factory, where she met a young man. As things happen, things happened. When the season ended, she returned to her home state a little bit pr…

Last month, scientists from AncestryDNA published a research paper in the journal Nature Communications that describes the science underlying the forthcoming Genetic Communities. The title is ̶…

More than 54 million DNA kits are available for genealogical matching!

DNA outliers are more likely to be paternal than maternal. Here’s why.

Are ethnicity estimates all made equal? Here’s a simple way to compare and some thoughts on why they might differ.

As of late February 2026, I estimate that there are more than 55 million autosomal DNA (atDNA) kits across the four main testing companies:  AncestryDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage, and FamilyTreeDNA.  Not all of these are unique individuals, to be sure, because most hard-core genetic genealogists are in multiple databases.  Even so, that's a lot of tests! Critical mass is key for genetic genealogy.