Claire Bradley is a Dublin-based genetic genealogist specialising in ancestry from Ireland
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…
On my recent trip to PRONI in Belfast, I took some time to do some personal family genealogy. I knew my grandmother’s family had lived in Belfast and possibly also Ballymena for a time in her childhood. They came originally from Limerick city and moved north because my great-grandfather, Thomas Henry Guerins, worked for Woolworths…
I’ve been using newspapers a lot recently to look for death notices and obituaries. There are two main types of notice to look for: This is an example of the former. It’s my 3x great-grandmother, Mary Lawless, née Swan, who died on the leap day in 1936. I wrote about her previously here. This is typical…
This year for Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d take a look at how often Irish people were called Valentine in February. St Valentine was a 3rd century CE Roman martyred clergyman who is also the patron saint of beekeepers and asthma. I didn’t know illnesses could have saints, but there you go! He has an…
Despite climate change’s best efforts, the evenings are beginning to draw in.Many people will not be aware that Hallowe’en has its origins in Ireland. It’s changed quite a bit since I was a child in the 1980s but some facets still remain the same. Back then, we dressed up and went to our neighbours’ doors…
If you’re a user of Ancestry, and you have a tree attached to your account or DNA results, then you’re familiar with this little leaf which appears to give you hints. These suggestions come in 2 forms. This blog discusses how to know when to accept or ignore them. It can be very exciting when…