Claire Bradley is a Dublin-based genetic genealogist specialising in ancestry from Ireland
The Secrets of our DNA – how genetics has changed the world is a new book by Professor Turi King. She is best known for leading the identification of Richard III’s skeleton in Leicester. She also presented the show DNA Family Secrets on BBC with Stacey Dooley. I also know Turi a little and we’ve…
In an effort to declutter, I’m tackling one area or job every week. This morning it was the turn of clearing out old magazines. I’m not much of a magazine buyer but do like a subscription here or there. Getting something in the post is always exciting. They generally fall into the categories of yoga,…
Clients frequently ask me to collaborate with them on their family history. People have usually done a little bit themselves and then get stuck. I come in to help untangle and correct their homework! The proliferation of hint systems in online commercial genealogy sites means that it’s very easy for an error to be replicated,…
When you work in a rapidly developing field like genetic genealogy, books go out of date.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 couple of years ago, I struck genealogical gold. We all have touchstones: things we would ideally like in our family history. Some people want royalty, but I’m a bit weird. I wanted bigamy. My great-grandfather’s first cousin, Richard Kent, was a bigamist. I wrote about it for Family Tree Magazine, in my first published…
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…