Considering DNA Testing for Genealogy?

 

Considering DNA Testing for Genealogy?

With the holidays, most of the leading genealogy DNA testing companies have their kits on sale.

Before you splurge for the cost of one, for yourself or as a gift, make sure you are aware of possible consequences.

On December 1st, the Library is offering a one-hour class on the basics of genealogical DNA testing, the types of tests, and a comparison of the five major testing companies: 

• 23 and Me
• Ancestry DNA
• FamilyTree DNA
• Living DNA
• MyHeritage DNA.

See examples of ethnic origin and relative finder reports from each of the companies.

Most people don't put much thought into testing before they swab their cheeks. This class urges you to think before you buy.

The class is from 6:30-7:30 p.m. 

Sign up HERE.

Beginner's Kit & Basic Genealogy DNA Class

 by Kathy Petras

New incarnation of the Family History Guide

Introduction to Family History: a guide for beginners

The Beginner's Genealogy Kit provided to novice family historians by the Library has undergone a transformation. Restyled as an Introduction to Family History: a guide for beginners, it has a more polished look and is now a booklet. The previous kit was a collection of handouts inserted into a folder.  

Previous Beginner's Kit

The new Guide covers the six major steps of beginning family history research:

1. Getting Started - with whom do you start?
2. Searching Your Home - what you already know.
3. Write Down What You Find - forms, formats and documenting what you find.
4. Interview Your Relatives - getting the most from their knowledge.
5. U.S. Census Records - documents where your ancestors lived and when they were there. Contains clues as to where to look for other documents.
6. Search for Vital Records - official documentation of the most important or "vital" events in everyone's life.

The Guide also contains many tips for organizing your records and covers special topics such as DNA Testing. 

Stop by the service desk in the Virginia Wheeler Martin Family History & Learning Center on the second floor of the Medina Library to pick up a copy or access it online at: Introduction to Family History: a guide for beginners

Considering DNA Testing for Genealogy?

With the holidays, most of the leading genealogy DNA testing companies have their kits on sale. Before you splurge for the cost of one, for yourself or as a gift, make sure you are aware of possible consequences.

On December 1st, the Library is offering a one-hour class on the basics of genealogical DNA testing, the types of tests, and a comparison of the five major testing companies: 23 and Me, Ancestry DNA, FamilyTree DNA, Living DNA and MyHeritage DNA.

Most people don't put much thought into testing before they swab their cheeks. This class urges you to think before you buy.

The class is from 6:30-7:30 p.m. 

Sign up HERE.

THE BLOG IS TAKING A SABBATICAL NEXT WEEK FOR THANKSGIVING DAY

IT WILL RETURN ON DECEMBER 1ST.

Medina County, Ohio's Earliest Inhabitants

by Lauren Kuntzman

November is National American Indian Heritage Month.  In honor of that, this week's blog post is about the first inhabitants of Medina County, Ohio.  

Before the first European came to Ohio in the late 1600s, at least three different cultures had previously lived in or near Medina County. These cultures did not live here at the same time, but were separated by thousands of years. These cultures are not specific American Indian tribes; rather they are people who shared unique and distinct artifacts and ways of life. These cultures included: 

Clovis Culture

Time Period: 10000 to 8000 B.C. (Paleoindian Period) (Late Ice Age) 

Characteristics: 

Presently, the Clovis culture is the earliest Paleoindian culture discovered in Ohio. The people of this culture were hunters and gatherers. They hunted now-extinct animals (like mammoths and mastodons), as well as smaller animals. They used distinctive spear points called “Clovis points” to kill their game and moved frequently, following their game and the seasons.  

Named for: An archeological site near Clovis, New Mexico, where points were first identified. 

Locally: Paleo Crossing Site (a.k.a. the Old Dague Farm Site), Sharon Center, Medina County, Ohio. An archeological site in the early-1990s, excavations by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History identified this location as a significant base camp for bands of Paleoindians.  

A Brief History of the First Daylight Saving Time in Medina, Ohio

 By Lauren Kuntzman

As we prepare to set our clocks back at 2:00 AM on November 7, historic newspapers help us learn how the residents of Medina fared with the first attempt at daylight saving time.  

After other countries implemented daylight saving time, the United States enacted the “Standard Time Act of 1918” (also called the Calder Act).  The act included two key elements:

1. Standardizing time zones across the country.

2. Enacting daylight saving time.

The two issues were entangled and led to much confusion.  

Prior to the passage of the act, Medina was in the central time zone.  The boundary was around the border of Ohio and Pennsylvania, as you can see on this map from 1913.  

1913 Map of U.S. "Standard Time Belts"

When daylight saving time was enacted on March 31, 1918, local news coverage didn’t described the change as adding or falling back an hour.  Instead it was described as changing Medina’s time zone, whether the town was following their normal central time or advancing to eastern time.  (Eastern time was also referred to as “government time.”)  

From start to finish, Medina County’s first attempt at daylight saving time seems to have been chaotic.  A Medina County Gazette headline gives us a clear indication as how the experience went, stating “Not Smoothly.”  

Medina County Gazette, 5 April 1918, p. 12.

The article from April 5, 1918, goes on to describe how much confusion the change created in Medina. 

George High's Clock, Medina, Ohio

George High’s clock (which was used to regulate the time around town) was advanced, as was the courthouse clock, the B. & O. railroad, and the electric line.  Churches, however, had not changed.  Also adding to the confusion, as the fact that many factories in the area – including A. I. Root Company, Medina Bending Works, the Henry Miller Foundry Company, and the Medina Machine Company – all changed their workers’ schedules.  This change was further complicated as the Gazette misunderstood the A. I. Root Company’s plans and published that their schedule began at 6:30 central time when, in fact, the company intended a shift to begin at 7:30 eastern time – effectively not changing the start time at all.  

Under the Standard Time Act of 1918, daylight saving time was scheduled to end October 27, 1918.  Medina’s response was, again, one of confusion.  Town clocks, post offices, and railroads reverted back to central time, but local factories and residents wanted to stay with eastern time.  A Medina Sentinel article from November 1, 1918 describes it as an every-man-for-himself situation, and states “The result is that there is one fine mix-up, with betting odds that eastern time will finally win out.”  

Complicating matters was a discussion about the location of the line dividing Eastern and Central Time Zones. It had been suggested that, rather than the following the Ohio and Pennsylvania border, the time zone should follow the New York Central railroad line, beginning around Toledo, catching Mansfield, then Columbus, and ending in Gallipolis.  The end result was that Ohio was split into two time zones.  

A few weeks after the end of the first daylight saving time, the Sentinel announced that Medina County would become part of the eastern standard time zone on January 1, 1919.  Despite the change in time zones, at the end of March 1919, clocks were again supposed to be changed.  The Gazette reported that the second go-round of daylight saving time for Medina was not any less chaotic than the first. 

A few months later, in August 1919, daylight saving time was repealed.  It would be several years, before the experiment would be tried again.

Want to learn more about daylight saving time in Medina County?

• Browse The Medina Sentinel at https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84028262.
• Search the Medina County Gazette and other historic Medina County newspapers at https://mcdl.info/newspapers.  
• Explore more images of Medina County on Cleveland Memory at https://clevelandmemory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/medina.