26 | DECEMBER 2 • 2021 

JEWS IN THE DIGITAL AGE

S

everal years ago, I was 
contacted by a repre-
sentative at ancestry.
com who offered me the 
opportunity to submit my 
DNA using a saliva collec-
tion kit. I figured I would 
be able to get the results and 
then complete 
my family tree 
going back 
many genera-
tions. I set up 
an ancestry.
com account 
and started to 
add relatives 
to my family 
tree. When I received the 
DNA test results back, they 
did not yield any surprises 
(99% Ashkenazi Jewish), and, 
unfortunately, there were 
not any matches of my close 
relatives or ancestors. This 
is because there were not 
enough people paying for and 
submitting the saliva DNA to 
the website. 
Fast forward to this past 
summer when I received an 
email alert from ancestry.
com. I had actually forgot-
ten I ever set this account 
up. The alert told me that 
my first cousin was a DNA 
match and was likely my first 
or second cousin. This was 
not earth-shattering news to 
me since I already knew my 
first cousin was related to me, 
and I also knew how she was 
related. However, this piqued 
my interest yet again in my 
genealogy. 
I returned to the web-

site, and sure enough, more 
DNA matches showed up for 
potential cousins. I began 
looking through other family 
trees that distant cousins had 
set up as well as 100-year-old 
documents that gave me hints 
about my long-lost relatives.
I immediately got lost in 
the genealogy black hole, 
spending hours researching 
my family tree and sharing 
my findings with my fami-
ly members. I was amazed 
to see photographs of my 
great-great-grandparents. I 
located photographs of my 
ancestors’ grave monuments, 
which provided details 
including their Hebrew 
names, when they were born 
and when they died. 
I discovered an ancestry.
com account belonging to 
my mother’s first cousin, 

who had already spent a lot 
of time adding relatives’ vital 
information and photographs 
to his family tree. In his col-
lection, I was amazed to see 
photos of my grandparents 
(his aunt and uncle) I had 
never seen before. I started 
connecting the genealogy 
dots that led me to extend my 
family tree back several gen-
erations, and I was able to do 
this for my wife’s family tree 
as well.
While monthly or annual 
membership to ancestry.
com (or to other genealo-
gy websites) can be quite 
costly, I learned that many 
local libraries offer compli-
mentary access to ancestry.
com and other online gene-
alogy resources. I was able to 
take advantage of the access 
provided by the Farmington 

Hills Library, which gives 
library members full access 
to the ancestry.com website 
by logging into the library 
website. 
In addition to the Ancestry 
website, I also have used 
both familysearch.com and 
myheritage.com to look up 
birth and death records and 
other helpful documents, 
like immigration records 
and high school yearbooks. 
The only time I spent money 
on this hobby was when 
I ordered a copy of my 
great-grandparents’ New York 
City marriage license.
One resource very helpful 
to me in doing this genealog-
ical research is the website 
findagrave.com. In a few 
instances, I was able to iden-
tify a cemetery in which a 
relative was buried, but no 
other information about that 
relative or a photograph of 
the monument was available. 
I simply clicked a button 
on the website that reads 
“Request a Photograph” and 
within one day I was notified 
by email that photographs of 
my ancestors’ grave monu-
ments had been updated to 
the website.
Being able to use genetic 
ancestry testing together with 
historical documentation 
has been an exciting and 
very interesting way for me 
to delve into my genealogy. 
Had I not submitted that 
saliva DNA sample several 
years ago and created an 
online account at ancestry.

Genetic Genealogy for 
the Digital Age

Rabbi Jason 
Miller
Contributing 
Writer

The grave of Sarah Wiener.

