Claire Bradley is a Dublin-based genetic genealogist specialising in ancestry from Ireland
Sometimes it’s a risk to watch a show that features a topic you know a lot about. You might find yourself nodding along but you also can be quickly shouting at the screen “that would never happen”. Police procedurals sometimes commit the crime of saying things like “we checked the 1991 census and here are…
I am a big fan of Turkish Delight and was gifted a box of Hadji Bey at Christmas by my aunt. This brand has a long association with Cork city although the present company is no longer controlled by the original family. The box comes complete with a reproduced article from the Guardian in 1964,…
As a European, the concept of a lineage society was only vaguely familiar to me, so I was surprised when Genealogical sent me a free copy of The Complete Guide to Lineage Societies by Kimberly Ormsby Nagy for review purposes. I remember an episode of the Golden Girls where Blanche has to hide a Jewish…
It was a great professional year. I solved a number of unknown parentage cases – some of which took more than a year of work. I also wrote full family histories for multiple clients and worked on many projects helping people gain Irish citizenship and solve smaller mysteries. Here’s some highlights in numbers. 61 classes/lectures…
I’ve talked before about the pros and cons of different kinds of hints on the various commercial genealogy sites. Today I want to write about Ancestry’s ThruLines, which are a DNA hint. When you get your results, if you attach your DNA to your tree, it will look for matches who could be related through…
It may not even be Christmas yet but enrolment is open for the spring term at Malahide Community School’s Adult Education department. My next beginner’s course on Irish genealogy starts on Monday 27th January 2025. Full details & booking available on the school’s site. Buy yourself an early present or get one for the genealogy-obsessed…
I’ve been looking at Christmas traditions in Ireland, both old and new. One of my favourite places to look at old stories is the Schools Collection hosted by Duchas. Did you know that animals have the power of speech on Christmas night? It was news to me but is mentioned in several stories in the…
A second season of the BBC radio programme/podcast The Gift has just come out. Presented and researched by journalist Jenny Kleeman, it’s a show about at home DNA testing and the stories it uncovers. I hoovered up the first season last year and no doubt will do the same with the second. It was well-researched,…
This November I’m talking about the Valuations Office, which is a working arm of Taillte Eireann, which is the national property authority. But first, I want to mention two offers time-limited offers. The Irish News Archive is Irish-owned and has a large collection of newspapers. Over the last decade, there has been a huge growth…
Within the Roman Catholic Church, couples needed a dispensation to marry if they were related to each within a certain degree. The rules were laid down by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. If a couple shared great-great grandparents or closer, then they needed a dispensation. Depending on how close, this might be granted at…