Claire Bradley is a Dublin-based genetic genealogist specialising in ancestry from Ireland
Researchers for 20th century Ireland may be familiar with the Schools’ Collection, which can be viewed on Duchas.ie. This project was run by the Irish Folklore Commission in primary schools between 1937-1939. It had a much higher uptake in rural and suburban areas than in the cities. Children were asked to collect a story from…
Friday 20th September is Culture Night! Culture Night started in 2006 in Dublin but has since grown to a nationwide and international event. The idea is that museums, galleries and other buildings open for the evening and let people visit, often for free. There’s always a great buzz in the city on the evening. Check…
Delighted to see that MyHeritage is increasing its Irish record databases. They’ve uploaded the civil birth registers (1864-1921 for the whole island, and up to 1958 for what is now the Republic of Ireland). Yes, these indexes are already on Ancestry, Findmypast & Irishgenealogy.ie but it’s good to see MH adding to the Irish collection,…
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…