Claire Bradley is a Dublin-based genetic genealogist specialising in ancestry from Ireland
The moment I saw that Robert Estes had written a new book on Family Tree DNA, I knew I wanted to read it. So I was particularly delighted that Genealogical gave me a review copy for free. Roberta Estes is a well-known DNA blogger. I’ve actually met her briefly a couple of times but I’ve…
I’ve a nice quick read for you. The Last Close Call by Laura Griffin is a crime thriller involving investigative genetic genealogy to find the bad guy. This one has a romance angle so if that’s not your thing, fair warning! It also features sexual assault but not in any great detail. It doesn’t go…
James Joyce is one of Ireland’s most famous authors. On 16th June each year, we celebrate Bloomsday with a festival of Joycean events. It commemorates the date he met his later wife, Nora Barnacle in 1904 in the fictional Dublin of Ulysses. Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882 and died in Zurich in 1941,…
I’ve posted a new video on my YouTube channel explaining how to add and remove site members to your MyHeritage tree.
I often review serious history and genealogy books on my blog but this is a little bit different. Did you know there’s a whole fiction genre that involves genealogy? This post features 3 different writers & I’ve read most of their books. The pattern with most of these books is a two-stranded narrative. One part…
It’s Mental Health Awareness week in Ireland. Prompted by my recent review of a book about Grangegorman Mental Hospital, I’ve been re-reading my great-grandmother’s medical file. Mary Bradley, née Lawless, spent the last 10 years of her life at the hospital following suicidal thoughts. She had been widowed young in her 50s with 4 children.…
Inside Grangegorman is a history of Grangegorman Mental Hospital in Dublin, which was also known as the Richmond Lunatic Asylum and St Brendan’s over the time it existed. It’s written by a mental health care professional, Professor Brendan Kelly. While telling the history of the institution, he weaves through case studies of patients, anonymising their…
This month I’m giving a number of talks both in-person and online. This is on top of my regular teaching commitments for the International Institute of Genealogical Studies and Malahide Community School! If your organisation is interested in booking me for a lecture, I have some space in the second half of this year. Please…
It might be still Spring, but Malahide Community School’s Autumn Adult Ed program is already out. I’ll be running my popular Irish Genealogy course in person for 10 weeks starting 16th Sept. This is the thirteenth year of running the class in my alma mater. It’s always good fun and I’m always refining the topics…
If you’d like to consume your hobby in a new format, have you considered documentaries? I’ve got two to recommend. First up, Found is a feature-length documentary about three Chinese-American adoptees (Sadie, Chloe & Lily) who discover they are related to each other through 23andMe DNA tests and then, supported by their families, decide to…