Online services an affordable way to look into your heritage

By Lethbridge Herald on March 21, 2025.

LEAVE IT TO BEEBER – Al Beeber

Herald readers will occasionally see on our pages the byline of a writer named George Lee, who is doing a Local Journalism Initiative contract for the Fort Macleod Gazette.

George, I and Gazette owner Frank McTighe have a long history together, meeting for the first time way back in 1978 as we started journalism school at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary.

Calgary native Frank and I were both 19, George a tad older.

Being a shy kid, I didn’t socialize much during that first year but thanks to Brent Lannan – who worked here for a few years in the early 1980s – I quickly came out of my shell when I was approached a couple of days before second-year classes started to help crank out some stories for the SAIT newspaper the Emery Weel, of which Brent was editor with a classmate named Terry Gilbert.

It was through Brent’s recruitment of me as I and fellow Raymonder Greg Baker visited the campus rec centre that I became better acquainted with George and Frank, who played junior football for the Calgary Colts.

I became fast friends with George and Frank who I’ve written in previous columns ventured to Ontario a couple of times for fishing trips, once with Brent, who now like my old high school chum Greg, is sadly long deceased.

While Frank and I kept in contact over the years, George and I just occasionally chatted but now that he’s doing LJI work and his stories appear in the Herald, we’ve connected more regularly. When I served as editor, George – who is covering the Alberta legislature for Frank from his home base in Edmonton – always let me know when he had a story or two coming that our audience might be interested in reading.

And being the fantastic writer that George is, his stories are always compelling reading.

Recently, he asked my advice about picking a DNA test. He was interested in learning more about his family roots and knowing that I’ve ventured into the road of ancestor investigation, he thought I might have some insights.

Well, George, do I ever.

About seven years ago, I ordered my first test from Ancestry, which has a massive database. I also had my dad and son do one as well because the more family members do one, the more information a person can glean. Through Ancestry, I’ve connected with a few family members I never knew who are now truly family, people I chat with almost daily such as Lorraine Whitelaw Speers who, along with husband Roy, visited us last summer from Vancouver. Lorraine connected me with others whose family surnames Dad recognized and remembered from his summers spent on the Left Coast visiting his grandparents and cousins.

I’ve also connected and reconnected with family on my mom’s side, such as members of the Hovan family, including Tom and wife Sharon who people will know from her smiling demeanour serving customers at London Road Market. Not that I ever disconnected from Tom and Sharon because, of course, we all live here and occasionally come across each other.

I also spent money – a lot of it – on a MyHeritage test and while I keep my Ancestry subscription renewed, I haven’t done that with MyHeritage. It’s too pricey for my tastes and the results – particularly its updated algorythm ones – almost mirror those of Ancestry. Lorraine, who also did a MyHeritage test, interestingly had different results even though she submitted her results twice but under slightly different names.

She recently did 23andMe so being curious about what a third company’s results would show, I ordered one from CRIGenetics. Its lineage results were close to the other two tests but to see if you’re related to other users, CRIGenetics expects customers to pay more. And my email is regularly bombarded with offers to purchase more information. No thanks.

For me, as I told George, Ancestry seems to be the best bang for the buck. Its database is absolutely gargantuan and with a reasonably priced subscription a customer can do extensive research. Not that I do anymore, because I seem to find too many other things to do. One aspect I really like about Ancestry is, at a reasonable subscription cost, it will come up with potential ancestors when a person builds a tree. How accurate those suggestions are I’m not sure but thanks to Lorraine sharing with me the Whitelaw family tree, and sleuthing a bit on some of the suggestions, I’m reasonably certain many are accurate.

When I subscribed to MyHeritage, I managed to build up an extensive tree there as well because it has great resources, too. And its results again mirrored Ancestry’s except for more money.

For me, the fun of a DNA kit is seeing the weekly new potential relatives that show up. Ancestry and MyHeritage both let a person know how closely connected a person is with the amount of matching DNA. The less amount of matching DNA the less likelihood of a match, of course.

So far over the years, except for a few cousins, I haven’t connected with anyone I actually personally knew already. But there’s always that possibility and I’m still hoping for a breakthrough to figure out how grandpa Harry Bieber happened to be listed as Icelandic on a census from the early 1900s, the number of DNA matches I have from Iceland being substantial. And being 19 per cent Icelandic, according to Ancestry, that’s no surprise.

But since Harry never knew his father, who allegedly died when he was a toddler – something I am highly suspicious about – I’ve reached a dead end. Thanks to Lorraine and cousin Ed Allen in Pincher Creek, I’ve deduced Harry’s mom was a Bieber but interestingly I’ve got Bieber relatives in the Wolseley, Sask. area from two completely different family lines. I don’t get it to be honest.

I also wasn’t surprised to learn from MyHeritage’s latest analysis that I’m 2.6 per cent Breton because when we were on a high school trip to France in 1976, I felt this overwhelming sense of belonging when we visited the Brittany region of that country. It happened the first night in Tours, a sensation I never felt again until I stepped foot on Scott Street in Fort Frances, where I realized just a couple of years ago through DNA matches on Ancestry I actually had in the 1980s distant relatives there from the Bieber side.

Guess it was in the DNA.

Good luck, George, and all others on your quests to discover your heritage through a DNA test. It’s a fun journey which can be full of intrigue and insight.

SPECIAL THANKS: I have to give a huge shout-out and thanks to the anonymous reader who dropped off two knitted sweaters at the office last week for Lady Diana. Your kindness is so appreciated. And yes, they fit her. Thanks so much for your thoughtfulness.