AUBURN — The Maine Franco-American Genealogy Society will hold its fall membership meeting on Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Auburn Public Library. The business meeting will begin at 10 a.m., followed by election of officers and the announcement of raffle prize winners.

A speaker is lined up for after the meeting at 11:15 a.m. Nancy Milliken Mason, a genetic genealogist, will take as her topic, “Genetic Genealogy – How, When, Where and Why?”

Attendees will learn about the three major test types: Y-DNA, mtDNA and atDNA.

Genetic DNA testing can help discover the origins of paternal and maternal lines. It can prove or disprove a genealogical problem. The testing can help find unknown family lines in cases of adoption or other separations from biological lines. It does this by comparing one’s results with other individuals’ test results.

It can help find relatives with whom a person shares a common ancestor. These new relatives might help break through a genealogical “brick wall” and they may have pictures and stories to share.

Milliken Mason has been doing traditional genealogy research for over 30 years. She travels when and wherever she can to attend workshops and conferences and to give presentations about genetic genealogy.

She was born in Portland and grew up in Cumberland. She has many stories to share about using DNA to assist with traditional research.

The presentation is free and open to the public.