Thank you, Barry Clarke Brit living in Florida Researching: Szklarkiewicz/Clarke from Jedwabne/Lomza/Warsaw/Dublin/Liverpool/London, South Africa. I will acknowledge and answer all advice or questions I receive. They will be getting tested but have no desire to do any of the work!! I have some additional urgency, as a couple of weeks ago, after some months of persuasion on my part, two descendants of SZKLARKIEWICZ families from Jedwabne, where my Szklarkiewicz family also came from, took DNA tests, so I can find out if/how we are related.
But wthout a knowledge of the basics, most of this is difficult to follow, so I am looking for guidance as to how to simplify the process in easy learning steps taking me from the beginning to where I will be able to figure out my true matches and manage my relatives' matches. I have a number of articles that deal with DNA and with endogamy, I have attended some webinars, and I am well aware there are several YouTube talks. have not dared even look there yet! The advice I am seeking is what "practical" book/course I should read first to know how to go about this whole process, avoiding unnecessary study of what I don't need to learn because of the endogamy factor. I intend to dedicate the month of October to learn precisely how to work with my Ancestry DNA, which I have also uploaded to Gedmatch.
My DNA purpose is to discover family at the generation of my great-grandparents and earlier (and - as a by-product - hopefully get to know some of their living descendants). I have taken the paper trail pretty much as far as I can go. For the most part, I don't have their Hebrew or Polish names. I know nothing about their siblings, cousins or parents or if/when they may too have emigrated. Per Ancestry, I'm 100% Eastern European Jewish (recently downgraded to 99%)! I know with certainty that in the 1800s and early 1900s all four of my grandparents' families came from towns in modern-day Poland and emigrated to the UK, and later some to South Africa and the US.