Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2020 10:16:19 -0330 (NST)
From: David Pike 
To: pike-dna-l@rootsweb.com
Subject: transition from mailing list to blog 



Hi everybody.

This email bulletin won't actually discuss any DNA results.  Instead it 
focusses on a few announcements that need to be made.

First and foremost, Rootsweb.com has recently announced that all mailing 
lists that it hosts (including ours) will cease to be supported as of 
March 2nd.  Their decision to discontinue all mailing lists means that the 
Pike DNA email list will no longer function after March 2nd, although the 
mailing list archive should remain online.

To fill the void created by the pending loss of our mailing list, I have 
established a blog where I will begin to post news and updates regarding 
the Pike DNA Project.  The web address for this blog is: 
https://pikedna.blogspot.com/

THIS IS IMPORTANT:  if you wish to receive email notifications when new 
blog posts are made, then you will need to enter your email address into 
the subscription field shown on the right-hand side of the blog's website.

Right now the blog only has one post.  There are several new DNA results 
that have been reported in the past several months, including several BigY 
test results that warrant discussion and which I plan to write about in 
due course.  Please forgive me if I don't do so in the near future though. 
In addition to the various demands of my career, I am currently in the 
midst of settling the estate of my father, who died unexpectedly in 
September.  Spare time is going to be preciously rare for the foreseeable 
future.

To add to these burdens, here in Newfoundland we are having an unusually 
severe winter.  In January a powerful blizzard dropped a record-breaking 
93 cm of snow and also subjected us to an extended period of winds 
exceeding 100 km/hr (peak winds at the airport were measured at 157 
km/hr).  The aftermath of the blizzard was bad enough that it resulted in 
the city declaring a State of Emergency that lasted for over a week.  My 
reason for mentioning this storm is that it also resulted in the web 
server for our project suffering a failure.  Our project's website was 
offline for a few weeks until a new web server was able to be put in place 
and configured.  The good news is that nothing on the website was lost and 
the website is now back online.

There is also some good news from FamilyTreeDNA.  In December they reduced 
their prices for a holiday sale.  When the holiday sale came to an end 
FamilyTreeDNA's prices did not return to their pre-sale levels.  Instead, 
what had been the sale prices for several DNA tests have now become the 
new regular prices.  This is excellent news, as it makes it less costly 
for people to join our project and/or to upgrade from previous testing 
that they may have done.  As one example, the cost of the BigY-700 test is 
now about $200 less expensive than it was before the holiday sale began. 
This is a powerful test that I would like to encourage more members of our 
project to have done.

That's all for now.

Thanks and take care,

- David (dapike@mun.ca)