This document summarizes updates on finding answers to questions and publishing research findings in genetic genealogy. It discusses how list servers, vendor forums, blogs, and social media can help answer questions. It also describes how the decline of print media, search engine optimization, and electronic publishing platforms like journals, Academia.edu, and the Surname DNA Journal can help researchers disseminate their work. It highlights benefits of journal publication like editorial review, stable URLs, and recruiting new participants.

1. Surname DNA Journal Update
State of Information Dissemination
by Brad Larkin
Prepared for the
Family Tree DNA
12th International Conference
on Genetic Genealogy
Houston, Texas
Nov 13, 2016
ISSN: 2334 3206‐ CrossRef DOI: 10.14487

2. Topics
• Finding Answers to Your Questions
• Publishing Your Research Findings
• Genetic Genealogist
of the Year Award

3. Questions and Answers
• Finding Answers to Your Questions
– List Servers
– Vendor Forums
– Crowd Sourcing
– Blogs
– Social Media
(e.g. Facebook)

4. Plenty of Questions
• In any field there are questions
• Genetic Genealogy is a particularly new
and complex field which drives a lot of
questions from participants
– Administrative
– Technical
– DNA Interpretation
– Historical contexts
– Genealogical contexts

5. Finding Answers
• List Servers / Email Lists
• ISOGG Wiki
• Vendor Forums
– FTDNA Learning Center
• https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/
• Blogs
– DNA Explained
– Your Genetic Genealogist
• Social Media
• Q&A Crowd sourcing
– In Technical and Academic fields
, StackExchange provides a forum
that rewards Answers and
helps you find & get answers.
• Volunteers
– Volunteer fatigue

6. Answers v1 - Rootsweb DNA List
• Original Internet method for distributing
information in a community with shared interest
were called List Servers (aka Email Lists)
Number of Messages on RootsWeb DNA-L List Server
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
Oct-00
Oct-01
Oct-02
Oct-03
Oct-04
Oct-05
Oct-06
Oct-07
Oct-08
Oct-09
Oct-10
Oct-11
Oct-12
Oct-13
Oct-14
Oct-15
Oct-16
Data from http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/GENEALOGY-DNA?m=r

7. Answers V2 - Vendor Forums
• Forums sponsored by
the DNA testing lab
• New Trend: DNA
testing labs partnering
with digital
genealogical record
companies
– e.g. FTDNA and
MyHeritage

8. Answers V3 – Crowd Sourcing
• Stack Exchange provides
communities for
Crowd Sourcing information
– Anyone can ask a question
– Anyone can answer the question
– The best answers are voted to the top
• http://genealogy.stackexchange.com

9. Genetic Genealogy Blogs
• Blogs have some of the most thoughtful
and experienced genetic genealogist
writers
– Cyndie’s List of DNA Blogs
– Great way to stay abreast of testing products
– Learn data analysis techniques
– Stay Inspired!

10. Social Media - Growth of Facebook
• Facebook Groups
– Over 1 billion Users accessing
Facebook Groups as of January
2016
– Count of Facebook groups
• Early estimates inflated by spammers
• Current Estimate by URL index:
56,800 groups of all kinds*
• Groups linked to the
term “genetic genealogy”: 36 groups
*
Based on Google search for inurl:facebook.com/group

11. Recruit Participants on Facebook
• Surname & family
heritage Facebook
Groups.
– Recruit DNA
project participants
from ‘lost’
branches
– Create a group if
one does not exist

12. Part II – Publishing Your
Research Findings
• Print Media Decline
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Project
Researchers
• Evolution of Journals
• Electronic Dissemination
of Individual Papers
• Publishing
Platform Comparison
Image from https://moz.com/blog/backlinks-google-study
used by permission

13. Decline of Print Media
• Average Daily Print
Circulation*
– USA Today
• 2013: 1,424,000
• 2015: 299,000
– 79% decline
– Houston Chronicle
• 2013: 231,000
• 2015: 169,000
– 31% decline
*
Richard Tofel https://medium.com/@dicktofel/the-sky-is-falling-on-print-newspapers-faster-than-you-
think-c84a2f9a9df4#.nis2qjnoe
Decline of Paid Circulation
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000
1200000
1400000
1600000
2013 2015
Year
AvgDailyCirculation
USA Today Houston Chronicle

14. SEO for DNA Project Researchers
• Search result ranking derives largely from:
– content matches and quality to search keywords
– number of EXTERNAL LINKS TO YOUR PAGE*
• To increase External Links, consolidate your publication to one site
URL
– 1 URL with 100 links => 1st
ranking
– Then PUBLICIZE that one URL
• Publishing ‘wherever you can’ is not necessarily helpful in the
search engine age.
– e.g. Spreading your content among multiple web sites can dilute your
search engine ranking
» The search engine doesn’t know which publication is truly
important
» Search engines tend to discard duplicated content as spam /
uninformative
– 100 URLs x 1 link => 100th
ranking
*
“The correlation between higher rankings and the number of linking websites (root domains) sits at .30”
https://moz.com/blog/backlinks-google-study

15. Publicize Your Work
• Recommendations:
– Write up your work as a journal article,
presentation, or whatever format you think is
best.
• Be sure to note the date of tests and publication
because technology changes all the time.
– Publish to one site (URL)
– Publicize that URL in as many places as you
can

16. Evolution of Journals
• Internet Favors the Author, Not the
Journal
– 1972 to 2012, the size of the ‘Elite’ journals
increased with more articles in each edition
– Yet the ‘top 5% most-cited articles’ are
appearing more often in non-Elite journals*
=> Publishers creating more niche journals
=> Author becoming more important than the journal
it is published in
• ELECTRONIC DISSIMINATION OF INDIVIDUAL
PAPERS*
Vincent Larivière https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1304/1304.6460.pdf

17. Internet Decentralization of
Most Cited Journal Articles
Data extrapolated from Larivière Figure 2 https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1304/1304.6460.pdf
Concentration of Most Cited Articles in Elite Journals
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
10.0
12.0
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Year
ProportionofTop5%MostCited

18. Frustration with Pay Walls
• Many journal articles are behind a pay-wall
today.
– “Dear List, does anyone have access to this article?”*
– e.g. $ 39.95 for one article in Human Genetics
*
http://toxicevolution.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/access-denied/

19. Electronic Dissemination of
Individual Papers
• Academia.edu
– $ 17 million in venture capital
– Is Not Open Access
• Builds complex user profile with information from other sites:
“What freaked me out was when It suggested a picture of my
three year old as an avatar for me. Clearly, it was pulling all
kinds of data together to build a profile of me.“*
• Medeley
– Purchased by Elsevier, captive software-based
– Citation plug-in for Microsoft Word
– 2 GB Free, then premium upgrades
* http://www.umsu.de/wo/2015/628

20. Academia.edu
• Loosely
structured but
highly searchable
repository for
papers.
– No Editor
– Often reposted
from true journals

21. Electronic Dissemination of
Individual Papers with Genetic
Genealogy Focus
• ISOGG Newsletter
– Last: Feb 2012
• Journal of One-Name Studies
– Last: Jun 2014
• JOGG
– 1 volume Fall 2016. Previous: Fall 2011
• Surname DNA Journal
– Awards and Surname Presentations 2016

22. Surname DNA Journal
www.surnamedna.com
Journal Comparison Nature Magazine PLoS ONE Surname DNA Journal
Author’s Fee $ 5,000 $ 1,350 Free
Reader’s Fee $ 199 per yr Free Free
Peer-Reviewed Genetic Genealogy Journal
• Free to Authors and Readers
• Responsive Layout for Mobile Viewing
• Registered with ISSN & CrossRef DOI

23. Publishing Platforms Comparison
JOGG Surname DNA
Journal
Academia.edu
Login Required to
read
No No Yes
Free to Publish Yes Yes Yes
ISSN Yes Yes No
DOI – Digital
Registration
No Yes No
Genealogy
Focused
Yes Yes No

24. Publishing Platforms Comparison 2
JOGG Surname DNA
Journal
Academia.edu
Search Engine
Optimization SEO
Good Good Good
Responsive –
Mobile Design
No Yes Yes
Page View
Analytics for
Author
No Some Good
True Long Term
Digital Repository
No No Probably

25. Example of Search Engine Results
• Breise DNA Project Page on Surname
DNA Journal
– Ranked #1 on Google search*
* For search of “Briese DNA Paper” Nov 8, 2016 11:30am U.S.

26. Benefits of Journal Publication
• Editorial Review makes the end-product
better.
• URLs stable and SEO-optimized to help
the community find your work now and in
the future
– Surname DNA Journal also has
DOI registration,
another kind of SEO
• Recruit New Participants
• ‘Rock Star’ Status
Author’s photo of Slash, 2016

27. Surname DNA Journal
2016 Genetic Genealogist
of the Year Award
• Prize and plaque
• And the winner is ...........