NextGen Genealogy: The DNA Connection

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been blogging much in the last several months. But now, finally, the manuscript is almost ready to go out the door and into the publishing process. The writing process was not at all what I had envisioned even a few months ago.

Amid the euphoria that engulfed me at the publication of my last book in June 2011, I announced on this blog that CeCe Moore and I "were talking about collaborating on a book. If all goes well you should see it in 2013." 

Then life intervened for both CeCe and me. As with most segments of life this one contained both good and not so good. My father-in-law died at age 93 and my wife Denise and I decided to sell our ocean view in Morro Bay and move to Nashville to be over 2,000 miles closer to each of our four kids and now soon to be eight grandsons. It has turned out to be a great decision for both of us but the relocation put some other parts of our lives on hold for a while. Finally last year CeCe and I signed a contract to deliver a manuscript to our publisher by December 31, 2013. The publisher came up with a cover. It is a cover you won't see later -- at least in this form:

Then life intervened for CeCe in a way that was good for her professional career as a genetic genealogist but not so good for our book project. In October, 2013 CeCe became involved in solving a two decade old genetic mystery about a substituted sperm sample during an in vitro fertilization. This case reached the national media spotlight in January. By then she was immersed in work to keep up with the production schedule for "Finding Your Roots with Henry Lewis Gates, Jr." scheduled to air on public television on Tuesdays starting in September. In February CeCe withdrew from our book project.

I decided to write the autosomal part which would have been CeCe's major contribution. Angie Bush was enlisted to critique what I wrote and of other parts of book as well. Angie was a great help because she is a molecular geneticist with a background in genetics as well as genealogy. So the writing part is now a day or two from being ready to transition into the publisher's production process. The book should be out this fall.

Now I can feel free to act more like I'm really retired. I can blog, teach and research my own genealogy! :-)