Get DNA Answers: Your DNA Guide—the Book

With our ultimate DNA manual, you’ll learn how to to discover who you are and where you’re from using your DNA test results.

Find relatives. Figure out who your DNA matches are. Identify unknown ancestors. Your DNA Guide—the Book takes you step-by-step through the various ways of using DNA to answer questions about your origins. And it’s all in plain English!

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DNA has the power to help us discover who we are and where we come from. But using DNA to explore these questions can be tricky, frustrating and even confusing.

Your DNA Guide–the Book is your solution for learning to make confident DNA discoveries! It delivers powerful, plain-English, step-by-step paths for your specific DNA questions. Curious about how you are related to your DNA matches? Go to page 40. Learn how to discover who your 2X great grandmother is on page 36.

Throughout the Book, you can check your progress and get new guidance. Are your matches unresponsive? We’ve got ideas. Did you just realize your great-grandparents are first cousins? We’ll help you figure out how that affects your research. (It does.) Along the way, you’ll learn new terminology, strategies and tools as you need them.

With the self-guided, step-by-step Book in hand, you can start making DNA discoveries more quickly and efficiently. You’ll build confidence that you are doing things accurately. And you can return to the Book whenever you have a new question: just follow a new path.

Your DNA Guide–the Book empowers you to make discoveries about your family history. Knowing your family history can help build more resilience, self-confidence and a stronger sense of place and security–for yourself and your relatives. And everyone could use some of that!

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About the author

Diahan Southard is a globally-renowned genetic genealogy educator who has helped thousands of people use DNA. She has poured 20 years of experience into creating this self-guiding resource that can help everyone–but still customizes each person’s discovery path to meet their needs.

**Expert praise for Your DNA Guide—the Book:**

[Diahan’s] friendly, familiar tone could convince anyone that they can figure out this whole “DNA thing,” and with Southard’s clear, step-by-step instructions, they can. – -Mary Kircher Roddy, FGS Magazine

“It’s definitely not a ‘big overview of DNA testing’ book, but instead a ‘let’s get down and dirty and solve a brickwall problem’ book. And we definitely need a book like this.” – Drew Smith, The Genealogy Guys Podcast and Genealogy Connection Podcast

“Diahan Southard is…funny and down to earth. Her presentations are always filled with color and graphics and explain the sometimes overwhelming topic in a simple and easy way to understand. She’s put her style into her first book on DNA.”

This book is unique. My first thought was this is just like the choose your own adventure books I used to read as a kid. It’s almost like having Diahan there to hold your hand while you work your way through your matches and find your family!” – Cheri Hudson Passey, Carolina Girl Genealogy

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Print edition $39.99 USD

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Your DNA Guide - the book

I have only had time to thumb through it and read a couple of sections. I believe it will be very helpful in working through my list of ancestors and their matches

Excited to use this book

So far I have glanced through the book. It looks like it’ll be very helpful for us to use.

Your DNA Guide -- the Book

A Guide that’s Kin to a Rand McNally Atlas

When traveling across country using roadways it’s helpful to have a reliable guide by one’s side. This DNA guide book with its ‘step by step’ plans is the one to have at arms reach on that journey. Although I have only begun to follow the route laid out by the author, if my path is carefully plotted in accord with steps provided, it would seem to be a given that I’ll attain my desired goal. This straitforward guide is written in a crisp stepwise fashion that provides both the needed background and insights to attain the desired goal. I am not a newbie to the research required to build a family tree or to using DNA connections in that regard. What I have not done to date is to use a systematic approach in determining how my DNA relatives relate to me and to one another. This guidebook, even for a grizzled Ancestry.com user of some twenty-plus years, should prove very helpful in arriving at that ultimate destination. Better late than never!!

We're so glad you're enjoying the book - thanks for a great review!