Upcoming presentation:
To be announced.
Recent presentations:
Ancestor Roundup
January 21, 2017 Monterey, California
1. How to Get the Most Out of Your AncestryDNA Results; and
2. Using DNA to Learn About Your Ethnicity
Cold Case Solved: Autosomal DNA Analysis Reveals Lisa Jensen’s Real Identity
FamilyTreeDNA Annual Administrators’ Meeting November 12-13, 2016 Houston, Texas
Presentation available on video:
Cold Case Solved: Autosomal DNA Analysis Reveals Lisa Jensen’s Real Identity
i4GG Conference October 22-23, 2016 San Diego, California
Education and Training:
Barbara Rae-Venter, J.D., Ph.D., is a retired intellectual property attorney who specialized in the patenting of biotechnology inventions. She earned a J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin Law School and a B.A. double major in Psychology and Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Biology (Biochemistry) at the University of California at San Diego. She is licensed to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office and the State Bar of California (inactive). Examples of patents Barbara drafted and/or prosecuted.
In 2011-2012 Barbara completed the four course Family History series offered by well known genealogist Karen Clifford through Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey, California
Genetic Genealogy Experience:
Originally from New Zealand, Barbara has worked for about ten years on her own family history. Of special interest is researching her paternal grandmother’s ancestors who were subject to the Highland Clearances. This ancestry is difficult to research using traditional methodology, so Barbara set up the Normanites DNA Project at Family Tree DNA for people whose ancestors or their relatives were followers of the Reverend Norman McLeod. The Reverend led his flock, which included Barbara’s ancestors, from Sutherlandshire in the North of Scotland to Pictou and later St. Ann’s in Nova Scotia, Canada and three decades later to Waipu, New Zealand.
Barbara is a Search Angel with DNAAdoption.com helping adoptees find their birth parents and also helps teach the autosomal DNA classes DNAadoption.com offers to help adoptees use their DNA to find birth relatives.
As a volunteer with DNAadoption.com, Barbara volunteered her time to work on a project for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Crimes Against Children Detail to identify, successfully, the immediate family of “Lisa Jensen”, a woman now in her 30s, who was abducted as a toddler. Lisa did not know either who she is or where she was from.
Barbara is a volunteer with the Family History Center in Monterey, California and a frequent presenter to Family History Societies in Northern California on the use of DNA in Family History research. She facilitates the Monterey County Genealogy Society DNA SIG.
She also offers fee based genetic genealogy consulting.