Claire Bradley is a Dublin-based genetic genealogist specialising in ancestry from Ireland
It sometimes surprises those whose Irish ancestors left the Emerald Isle a long time ago that more records are not in the Irish language. The main reason for this is that most of the extant records date from a time when Ireland was ruled by Britain. Administrative records are all in English. We do have…
Ever since the Virtual Treasury of Ireland project launched, genealogists around Ireland and the disapora have been hoping that secret caches of 19th century census material would come to light. Initially, they said “don’t be ridiculous” but slowly, the tune started to change. At present, the Virtual Treasury has recovered over 157,000 names from these…
I spent the last few days in lovely Kilrush, Co. Clare for their first genealogy conference. The theme was from the Great Famine to the 1926 census. Friday night featured a talk from Zoe Reid, Keeper of Manuscripts in the National Archives, followed by a talk from Catriona Crowe, who led the project to put…
Today is World Quaker Day. I’ve spent a lot of time studying the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland. Their records are phenomenal. So much so that I chose to write my Masters dissertation on them. The woman below is Dinah Wilson Goff (1783-1858), youngest member of a family who had 18 children. There are…
The latest edition of Fingal Studies is now out. This is the offical journal of Fingal Local Studies and Archives, published annually. The launch will take place on Saturday as part of the Fingal Festival of History, at which I’m also speaking. It’s my first time publishing an article in this journal and it’s a…
At this time of year, I often find myself in discussion about the relative merits and flaws for different genealogy websites. By chance today, I came across some negative reviews on Trust Pilot for one such site, and it struck me, reading the largely poor reviews, that most people were misunderstanding the whole point. Ireland…
I’ve been a member of the Irish Genealogical Research Society for 14 years and spent a large subset of that time on the Ireland Branch committee and the Council which runs the organisation, only stepping back when I began my Masters. As a then young genealogist, who still had another full time job, I benefitted…
School records are an under-used resource in genealogy, largely because they are so dispersed, with very few online. Some are in county archives, some are in the National Archives, some are still housed in the original school and I suspect a great many more are in random places like some old principal’s attic. I’ve begun…
Now in its 10th year, Fingal Festival of History is part of the wider Dublin Festival of History and takes place over 26th September to 11th October next. There’s a fascinating array of talks, many of which are themed around the European Union to tie in with Ireland’s current presidency. I have two free talks…
Enrollment has opened for the next term of my beginner’s Irish genealogy class which starts on Monday 14th September for 6 weeks. Topics covered include the census, civil records, church records, an intro to land records and DNA. Places are limited. If you’d like to book, head over to Malahide Adult Education and pay online.