The Killion, Quinn and Hand Families of Port Macquarie and Kempsey and their Feeney Family

💡Help unlock our shared family history with your DNA matches Have you tested at AncestryDNA? Your match list might contain the missing links I'm searching for. As an enthusiastic genetic genealogist, I'm working to reunite our ancestors with the families they were separated from—by time, distance, or circumstance. After 40 years of research, everything changed in 2017 thanks to DNA testing. We were finally able to reconnect—on paper—our many-times-great-grandmother  Jane Feeney  with her birth family. It was a breakthrough I’ll never forget.  (You can read the full story  HERE .) Now, I’m continuing that work—and your DNA matches could help solve the next chapter. 🧬 Why DNA matches matter Each of us inherits  50% of our DNA from each parent , but the specific segments we receive are randomly selected. That means you and your siblings—or cousins—can inherit  d ifferent parts of your shared ancestors’ DNA . Because of this,  you might match cousins tha...

My Ancestors Meet AI: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? My family history research is full of learning, discovery and, yes, frustration. Interpreting DNA results, chasing elusive ancestors or transcribing spidery old handwriting can be slow, fiddly work. And as another birthday rolled around, I found myself wondering how to keep up with my ever-growing list of research projects. Should Artificial Intelligence (AI) join my research toolkit? Image produced using ChatGPT Back in January, I was  “volunteered”  to give a short presentation on using AI in my DNA research. That unexpected nudge sent me down a fascinating rabbit hole—and the deep dive began!  The first thing I learned? There’s a  lot  of choice out there. Several AI platforms are popular in the family history community. ChatGPT  and  Claude  seem to lead the pack. I decided to start with the free version of ChatGPT. Before long, I’d upgraded to a paid subscription.  As I said in my talk,...