Key Takeaways from the 2025 East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the virtual East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference, Sep 12-14, 2025.¹ Here’s my review.

You should know that while I’m an expert in my own little corners of Canadian genealogy, I’m an absolute beginner in genetic genealogy. Chinese folks tend not to spit in tubes and of the cases I’ve done, the ones that are full Asian (with no European/U.S. mix) are hardest. There’s a small pool to compare, folks won’t test, and they don’t share their results. It’s time I pulled up my socks in the genetic genealogy department. In the realm of British, European, and U.S., many genetic genealogists have been practising for decades and will be tossing terms around like snips (SNPs), segments, and units (often, centimorgans, or cMs) and I’ll be smiling and nodding. Or, at least I would be smiling and nodding if I was at this conference in person but as it was virtual, I was spared from pretending I knew more than I did.

As implied in the title, the East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference was on the east coast. I’m in Central Standard time and had to set my alarm two hours early for the morning sessions. I was luckier than my Pacific coast friends, who were getting up as early as 0500 hrs to attend the pre-conference meetings starting at 0800 local. But aside from actually getting out of bed, there’s something wonderful about being able to attend the first session – or all, to be frank – in your bathrobe while sipping coffee and munching breakfast. Any conference that allows me the luxury of avoiding airports is a big win.

I can’t imagine what it takes to organize a virtual conference. My friend Lianne Kruger of Alberta² did an outstanding job as Program Coordinator. The main web page was set up to look like a conference room foyer, with access to all the areas from the main page. Attendees were invited to test the setup two days ahead of time, to familiarize ourselves with the layout, and each day we’d get a welcome email.

I have to share that I am an unabashed student. Spending three full days immersed in learning is my idea of heaven. (Also in a bathrobe but I digress.) I’m a lifelong learner and as I pass my sixtieth year, I’m still in love with learning. Granted, I don’t absorb things as well as I once did, but that’s where this conference is genius. I don’t have to learn it all at once. I don’t have to attend every session, or sit all the way through, or take copious notes because It. Was. Virtual.

I’ll say that again, because this is important. The East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference is done for the live sessions but that doesn’t mean you have missed your chance. You can still see every session. Heck, I’ll be watching the sessions I missed, to get my full money’s worth, and then rewatching the sessions I saw because – spoiler alert – I didn’t absorb it all the first go ’round. I’ll talk more about that later. In the meantime, let’s talk about the sessions I did see.

Friday, Sep 12

• AI Tools and Tables, Steve Little
• Excel for Genetic Genealogy, Mark Thompson

Saturday, Sep 13

• The 7 words a genetic genealogist should never say, Mags Gaulden
• DNA Success: Understanding genetic networks, Kelli Bergheimer
• Summon your inner Sherlock Holmes, Paula Williams
• Banyan DNA: Cutting through complex genealogies, John Motzi and Margaret Press
• From paper trails to DNA: the evolution of genealogy in the age of genetic testing, Aimee Rose-Haynes
• Epigenetics: Health and haplogroups, Katherine Borges

Sunday, Sep 14

• Mommy’s baby, daddy’s maybe: Genetic genealogical construction of extra pair paternity behaviour, Prof. Dr. Maarten Larmuseau
• Raising the dead, Martin McDowell
• The DNA Matrix: a modified McGuide method, Mags Gaulden
• Finding Sarah’s family: Confirming connections through DNA, documents, and group projects, Katy Rowe-Schurwanz
• War babies: finding lost GI fathers through DNA, Kate Penney Howard

Phew, right? That’s a lot, and it was great and some of it was beyond me, and that’s what a conference should be. I still have roughly two-thirds of the sessions to see between now and when the site closes (31 Dec 2025). And I am boning up on genetic genealogical tools as fast as my poor brain can absorb them so you can bet I’ll be watching these sessions on repeat.

One of the great aspects about any conference is you get to meet the who’s who, the rock stars, the ones pushing the bounds of what’s knowable about the subject. For a newbie, I recognized a few Canadian names, and got to know many others. And as we in the genealogy world know, people are generous with their knowledge. You only have to ask. A conference helps you formulate a good question.

I’ll share some highlights.

Mark Thompson, of Victoria, BC, presented Excel for Genetic Genealogy. I enjoyed the way he surveyed the room to check the skills of everyone there, and then decided on the fly if he was going to explain something further or pivot to something harder. I was inspired to pull out a big spreadsheet to play with pivot tables right after his session.

In Mommy’s baby, daddy’s maybe: Genetic genealogical construction of extra pair paternity behaviour, Prof. Dr. Maarten Larmuseau shared insights from his groundbreaking work. His nickname is The Paternity Detective.³ He disproved the urban myth of Not Parent Expected estimates of 10-30% with population-based research, to show the likelihood is much closer to 1-2%, with some populations at well under 1%.

In DNA Success: Understanding genetic networks, Kelli Bergheimer described a simple way of organizing genetic networks that was so instantly understandable, it’s become my new goto.

In War babies: finding lost GI fathers through DNA, Kate Penney Howard shared stories from her work locating the U.S. fathers of babies born while being posted overseas. I didn’t think such work was even doable but Kate inspired me to reconsider some of the cases I’ve filed under “currently impossible.”

It’s not over yet

Until the end of September, you can still get in on the fun, and before you ask, no, I have no affiliation with the conference. As noted above, the recordings will be available until the end of the year, and these are worth the price of admission if you’re a beginner, intermediate, or advanced. This is a great opportunity to see what the rock stars in genetic genealogy are saying about new tools and techniques. I’ll provide the link for the full program lineup.⁴

Afterword

Every conference and institute I attend is memorable for different reasons. With the in person events, it’s about the networks, people, and travel. Going back to 2020, I had a wonderful time in Salt Lake City and wrote “Top 10 things I learned at SLIG (the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy).”⁵ That week changed my life, because that was when my friend and mentor Kelly Summers suggested I was ready to consider accrediting. It was a very different experience from the Association of Professional Genealogist Professional Management Conference in 2023, where I attended as a speaker. I’ll never forget speaking to that huge room, or the conversations in the halls between sessions. And now the East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference, where I’ll be madly applying new techniques and taking notes until they close the site and lock me out.

References

1. ECGGConference, 2025, website, East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference, https://ecggc.org/, accessed 14 Sep 2025. ↩︎
2. Lianne Kruger, 2025, profile, Association of Professional Genealogists, https://www.apgen.org/users/lianne-kruger, accessed 14 Sep 2025. ↩︎
3. Andrew Curry, “Paternity detective,” 6 Mar 2025, Science, article revised from Science, Vol 387, Issue 6738, Science.org, https://www.science.org/content/article/how-often-are-children-genetically-unrelated-their-presumed-fathers, accessed 14 Sep 2025. ↩︎
4. East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference, 2025, Program, website, ECGGC.org, https://ecggc.org/?page_id=4440, accessed 14 Sep 2025. ↩︎
5. Linda Yip, “Top 10 things I learned at SLIG (the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy) 2020,” 30 Jan 2020, Past-Presence.com, https://past-presence.com/2020/01/30/top-10-things-i-learned-at-slig-the-salt-lake-institute-of-genealogy-2020/, accessed 14 Sep 2025. ↩︎