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…
Many of us have taken a DNA test to advance our family history research. Some people have been able to go further and test parents too. But have you considered testing your parents’ cousins? This was something I did right from the start, as my budget allowed. My mother’s lovely cousin, sadly no longer with…
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…
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…
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…
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,…