Enrollment options
Optional Print Course Material: Genetics and Medical Family History
*Course materials will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.
This course (formerly titled Genetics and Genealogy) is designed to introduce the genealogist to a different way of seeing family tree research — as a source of genetic information. It can be fun to track that characteristic chin through the family, or even lifesaving to document ancestors and cousins with diabetes or cancer. The course will cover a bit on traits (i.e. genes), pedigree drawing and describing relationships, recognizing simple hereditary patterns and the reason they occur, basic rules for ethically assembling a medical pedigree, and common sources used to uncover physical traits. Upon completing the course, the student should be able to gather and evaluate basic genealogical sources, have some knowledge of what traits are and how they are inherited, and draw a simple medical pedigree to show a physician.
Course Content
MODULE 1: INTRODUCTION
Introduction to Genetics/Medical History
DNA
Genes
Chromosomes
MODULE 2
SIMPLE PATTERNS IN PEDIGREES
Dominant Inheritance
Recessive Inheritance
X-Linked Inheritance
MODULE 3
OVERVIEW OF GENETIC GENEALOGY TESTING
What is DNA
atDNA Testing
yDNA Testing
mtDNA Testing
X-Chromosome Results
MODULE 4
THE ETHICAL PEDIGREE
Basic Rules of the Ethical Pedigree
The Pedigree as Medical Record
MODULE 5
BEGINNING THE MEDICAL PEDIGREE
Basic Genealogy Principles; also Help with Pedigrees
Specific Diseases
Behaviours & Mental Abilities
MODULE 6
SIFTING THE RECORDS
Census Returns
Newspapers
Burial Records, Tombstone Inscriptions & Funeral Home Records
MODULE 7
PUTTING YOUR RESEARCH TOGETHER
Medical Reference
Looking More Closely at the Records
Patterns in Your Pedigree
Genealogy: Out of the Archives & Into the Lab