Beyond The Paper Trail: Adding DNA to Traditional Family History Research

This presentation will use a real research case to demonstrate how DNA evidence can be combined with traditional records and large family tree databases.

Mark will be joined by Dennis O’Brien, a distant but DNA-proven cousin, in presenting this session.

Mark Kennedy is a semi-retired medical practitioner who now works primarily in graduate and postgraduate medical education. He has completed a Master of Arts in the History of Family at the University of Limerick and has a longstanding interest in genealogy, local history and the use of DNA in family-history research.

He manages more than 150 DNA kits across several testing platforms and has developed a research family tree containing more than 63,000 people. He also administers a GEDmatch ancestry project with almost 1,000 members. His research focuses particularly on the Kennedy surname and associated families in Ireland, but extends to descendants and DNA matches in Australia, New Zealand, USA, United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Mark spends two to three months in Ireland each year conducting archival, local history and genealogical research. He regularly writes and presents on Irish local and family history and is particularly interested in combining documentary evidence, family trees, shared matches, genetic networks and geographical patterns to solve difficult research problems.

He is also currently working with the FBI to help identify skeletal remains found in California in 2022 whose DNA links back to an Irish family in the early 1800s.

Dennis O'Brien has been the Vice President of VicGUM for the past two years. He has previously presented DNA topics and has in more recent years been working on linking through DNA the many descendants of Mary Wade, a well-known matriarch of the New South Wales convict community.

How to register and Zoom link will be sent to members via GUMnet a few days prior to the event.
Bookings limited to 100 attendees.