Claire Bradley is a Dublin-based genetic genealogist specialising in ancestry from Ireland
Living DNA has been around for a decade now. They are based in the UK and heavily market on having better ethnicity breakdowns for the UK and Ireland. At a now defunct trade fair called Back to Our Past in 2017, they had a stand and were accepting uploads of tests from other sites, so…
When you work in a rapidly developing field like genetic genealogy, books go out of date. This book was originally published in 2019 and I read & reviewed it then. A new edition has been published this year and it is substantially meatier than its progenitor. The same group of authors worked on the revised…
A second season of the BBC radio programme/podcast The Gift has just come out. Presented and researched by journalist Jenny Kleeman, it’s a show about at home DNA testing and the stories it uncovers. I hoovered up the first season last year and no doubt will do the same with the second. It was well-researched,…
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…
The second part of my report from Rootstech 2024 highlights an interesting panel session, which you can watch online, featuring some of the movers and shakers of the genetic genealogy world. They discussed the origins of the field and how it has progressed in the first quarter century. It’s a lovely summary of “so far”.…
A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk during Heritage Week at Fingal Local Studies and Archives. An Irish Times journalist came along and I did a small interview with him beforehand. He stayed to hear all the questions and spoke to some people in the audience about their use of genetic genealogy to…
One of the great things about genetic genealogy is how fast the field is growing. It’s changing and improving all the time. We can do all kinds of things now that 5 years ago were impossible. There’s so much to learn. I’ve written previously about clusters on my blog and I’m still periodically reviewing my…
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…