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Guinness is Good for You

For St. Patrick’s Day 2024, I’m taking a look at a new collection on Ancestry of Guinness records. Guinness, in case you didn’t know, is one of Ireland’s most famous exports. The Guinness Store House is a top tourist attraction in Dublin. I actually don’t much like the black stuff, but I do recognise the…

Rootstech 2024 review

As I write this, I’m still in a snowy Salt Lake City. It’s the day after Rootstech 2024. This was my first visit to the world’s largest genealogy conference, but definitely not the last. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, Rootstech is part trade show (a full Expo Hall of stands…

Illegal adoptions

If you’ve lived in Ireland in the past 25 years, you can hardly be unaware of various historical scandals that rocked the country. These included, but were not limited to, industrial school abuse, Magdalene laundries, Mother and Baby homes and illegal adoptions. A couple of years ago, I helped a man called Denis O Sullivan,…

Christmas 2023

And so we reach the end of another great year in genealogy. Prompted by a recent discussion, I’ve been looking at the Old Age Pension search forms. This collection is held by the National Archives of Ireland. If you’re not familiar with this small record set, let me enlighten you. In 1908, Ireland was still…

Thoughts on dependence

As many people will be aware, a lot of genealogy happens on the internet these days. As professionals, we depend on certain websites being available to do our work. Irishgenealogy.ie is one of those sites. It’s a state-run free website which hosts civil and religious records. When it launched in 2016, I called it a…