Here is a variant on DNA testing by adoptees trying to locate their biological relatives – for example, see DNAAdoption.com, which is packed with useful genetic genealogy information that many of us who aren't adopted find very useful. DonorChildren.com is a new social networking site and registry aimed at Donor Conceived People (DCP), Sperm and Egg Donors, and Parents of DCP's launched a few days ago.

Social Media? – NO, I'm more of the "antisocial media" type myself, so it's surprising I even came across it. Instead of Tweeting my inane goings-on to cyberspace, or spending hours each week on Facebook or the like, I spend an inordinate amount of time working on DNA matches for genetic genealogy! I came across DonorChildren.com via a posting by their Admin on Family Tree DNA Forums and he indicated "We refer our members to FTDNA" – I incorrectly assumed that this was some sort of exclusive recommendation for Family Tree DNA until I read an identical posting except for "We refer our members to 23andme"!! I'm happy to recommend both Family Tree DNA and 23andMe as well. I've been tested at both companies and my parents are in the process of being tested at both of them too (only because I bought their kits and they know how much I'm dying to get my hands on their DNA results). But see below for the new webpage I've added with my recommendations for which company to use if you don't live in the USA.

I've seen Name Clouds before, but have just come across the free website Wordle, where these can easily be created. So I've created name clouds of my Ancestor Surnames (Figure 1) and Geographical Locations (Figure 2) – taken from Ancestor Names and Locations. All you have to do is have a list of words, and you paste these into a window and click Create. You have options for various fonts, whether the words are approximately alphabetical or not, rounder/straighter edges (I much prefer the rounder "cloud"-like edges), word orientation (various mixtures of horizontal/vertical or any which way), and color. I used the Wordle Advanced page, in order to set some of the words to be larger than the rest: the surnames of my 8 great-grandparents in Figure 1 and the Countries and Counties in the UK in Figure 2.

The day after my Blog Posting of 4 December 2013 offering some advice of measures to take following FDA's 15-day "cease and desist" letter, 23andMe provided an update on their blog (5 December 2013) and sent a letter via e-mail to 23andMe customers (I received mine on 6 December 2013) outlining the steps they are taking. Copies of these are provided near the end of this posting.

Gordon Sproat was my father's best friend at school – they attended the Birkenhead Institute from the age of 11 years. He was the second child of Henry Sproat (1896-1976) and Druscilla Peel Middleton (1896-1972) and was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 17 Dec 1922, which coincidentally was also Dad's date of birth. In about 1925, the family moved to Birkenhead on the Wirral in Cheshire. He had two sisters: Audrey Isabella Sproat (1918-1999), who married George E. Eastaugh in 1940, and Mavis Sproat (1926-2001), who married Colin Boston (another Birkenhead Institute pupil) in 1948. A younger brother, Henry, died within a few weeks of birth ~1925.

This posting is slightly late for Halloween. I'm plagiarizing Nathan Murphy's idea posted on the FamilySearch Blog with his Death Chart. Basically it's a pedigree chart, with the names replaced by your ancestors' causes of death. The cause of death of my ancestors has always been of particular interest to me, especially the antiquated terms used — for example, dropsy, phthisis, consumption. Although I've had these summarized in lists, seeing them in pedigree chart format is much more revealing. 

My paternal and maternal charts through to my 3rd great grandparents are shown in Figures 1 and 2. I created these in Family Tree Maker, but instead of inserting the name, I inserted the cause of death (with my own interpretation in square brackets) and the age of death in parentheses, and formatted the chart to include Ahnentafel Numbers (with me, #1, as the root person).

All my known ancestors (some back to the 1500's) were from the United Kingdom, so making a pie chart illustrating just this is pretty uninteresting: a single whole pie of 100% UK. Many other people have much more variable and exotic ancestral origins. However, on coming across an Excel spreadsheet with Ancestry Pie Charts created by John Tierny (under a Creative Commons license), I had another idea: to split up my ancestry into countries within the UK where my ancestors originated: England, Wales, Scotland, and the Isle of Man (the Isle of Man is strictly a Dependancy of the UK) – or to subdivide further by county. I originate from 10 counties/areas + one Unknown (see My Brick Walls and last blog posting on Frederick Woolfall and the Diamond Ring "Hush Money"): 18.75% from Lancashire; 12.5% each from Anglesey, Caernarvonshire, Cumberland, and Shropshire; 9.375% from Devon; 6.25% each from the Isle of Man and Unknown (probably Lancashire or somewhere else in the UK); and 3.125% each from Cornwall, Selkirkshire, and Dumfries-shire. But all of these 11 counties with similar-sized "slices" seemed like too much granularity for pie charts, so I opted to use countries within the UK. 

With John Tierny's spreadsheet, you fill in the ancestry of all 16 of your 2nd great-grandparents, and everything forwards is calculated automatically from there. There are columns for up to 10 "regions", and these can be customized (don't miss the note in the Info. on the 1st worksheet for how to unprotect the worksheets, which allows for customization). My pie charts are shown below. I tweaked a few things on the original spreadsheets to have colours and formatting to my liking, and added some drop shadows to the pie charts.

Frederick Woolfall (1865-1949) was my great grandfather. He was born and brought up in the Huyton area of Liverpool, Lancashire and was raised by 2 "aunts", Elizabeth and Alice Woolfall, while all were living in his grandparents' house (William Woolfall and Alice Hulme). He was born "out of wedlock" and one of his supposed aunts, Elizabeth Woolfall (1834-1911), was actually his mother. Elizabeth was 30 years old when Frederick was born. She never married and didn't have any other children. Her occupation on the various censuses (1861-1901) is shown as a charwoman or a laundress.

Fred was born on 11 Mar 1865 in Tarbock, a sub-district of Huyton, Liverpool, and his birth certificate shows his mother was Elizabeth Woolfall and his father is left blank. Ancestry.com has as a tentative baptism record (the British Isles Vital Records Index, taken from the Bishop's Transcripts) in Huyton on 23 Apr 1865 for a "Frederich Woolfall" (link only available with an Ancestry subscription), with his father shown as "James Woolfall" and mother as Elizabeth, but the Parish records don't seem to exist for me to check for any other information (e.g., an address or godparents). Since there were no other individuals named anything similar to Frederick Woolfall in the Liverpool area at that time, and based on the timing (6 weeks after his birth), it seems likely that this was Fred's baptism record. Was "James Woolfall" a euphemism, or was someone named "James" the supposed father? At that time, effective contraception was not available and it was shameful to have an illegitimate child, so I can easily see why Elizabeth and her father, William Woolfall (1814-1893), may have "invented" a supposed father for Fred (maybe based on a hint of truth).

Alice Woolfall ("Lal", 1891-1960), my grand-aunt, was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, the 4th child (of 8) of my great-grandparents, Frederick Woolfall (1865-1949), born in Liverpool, and Emily Boulton (1861-1918), born in Newport, Monmouthshire. She never married and after her parents died, she lived in Birkenhead with her 2 spinster sisters, Elizabeth Woolfall ("Beth", 1888-1993) and Emily Woolfall (1907-1999). She died of a brain tumour, aged 68 years.

Lal used to write poetry to celebrate various occasions in the family. She wrote the poem below 57 years ago, in celebration of her God-daughter Mavis' 21st birthday, based on the name Mavis being used for the song thrush. A transcription is beneath the handwritten poem.