Off topic: chat

It was just a suggestion.

Leading to what happened the person around the time of death. How long they were ill, suicide, drowning, misadventure, gunshot, etc - who reported the death

Family sensitivities may be the reason they were forgotten about, or maybe if no death cert to be found - they may not have died at that date but abandoned the family.

Went to message a distant cousin in the US to let them know that the family member they were named after had passed away, just so they didn't find out from an Ancestry update. Email bounced back. Dropped them a message on Ancestry but noticed they had the "over one year ago" sign in date.

Decided to do a very quick search to see if they were on Facebook and found an obit for them from 2016. Oops. I was probably the only person on the Irish side of the family in contact with them (that branch of the family mostly emigrated to New Jersey, but some came back) so nobody knew to let me know.

Like L1011 I find it upsetting to find people have passed away and we did not know. I find England difficult to get info on unless the person gets a mention of their passing perhaps thru their employment or in a church newsletter. We are lucky that RIP.ie is so well used. Although only undertakers can put notices there. My brother died in Australia and I put a notice in Irish newspaper but first they needed confirmation from Australian undertaker. But Irish death notice in paper was not enough for it to be included on RIP.

This has probably been mentioned before, but for those with family members who emigrated, the 1950's american census is expected to be coming available in April. Some districts are available now, for viewing anyway (indexing may take more time).

Some very sneaky goings on. I'd love to know more about this. Wonder if there were more official documents skived away somewhere.

Didn't hear anything about it either. Probably won't go as I doubt I'd find anything of interest to me at this stage. Might be a good place for new researchers to go though.

I thought it used to be in the Autumn? dont feel happy to mingle in crowds for the moment.

I would have thought the norm was for babies to be born at home back then.

I know that nowadays complicated deliveries are sent up to Dublin hospitals so records for each day are from all over country. Or is it because people attend consultants in Dublin? My daughter was born on a Jan First and there were 60 babies delivered that day in Dublin, a statistic that amazed me.

The recent census had a question to tease out this detail by asking where the mother normally resided when a person was born. My brother supposedly was the heaviest baby born that year in Holles Street. I enquired later and I was told they did not keep such records. He was reputed to be 13 lbs. I wonder what data will be disposed of when the the big move to new premises is made for National Maternity Hospital.

The author mentions having got permission from the Master of the Rotunda. He replicated two full pages of the registers, so they were willing to allow full data - albeit not very much full data - out at that time.

Would think that someone like DC Thompson/Eneclann would look to make a request and image the lot. That may already have been tried!

I'm not really a genealogy Twitter person, it's mostly pubs and Dublin history. Well, this is Dublin history...

There's deaths recorded as well as births - shocking maternal death rates back then - and again possibly the only record of their death if poor and died pre 1864

I'm having the same lack of close matches on Ancestry for months now. Lots of useless 8 or 9 cM matches--I check every one--and of course no trees. Periodically, I check 'unviewed' and '16 to 19' cM and occasionally find a few I can identify but not with any further help in my own tree. Maybe this quote from an Ancestry press release helps to explain why--I wonder what the results in Ireland would be, a lot better I suspect.

"LEHI, Utah -- March 30, 2022 – Today, a new survey from Ancestry®, the leader in family history, found more than half (53%) of Americans can’t name all four grandparents – demonstrating a knowledge gap in key information about more recent family history."

Over the last two years Ancestry have been sending me emails trying to entice me to return and I've ignored them until recently when they offered 4 months for £20Stg so I caved and bought it. So far I have found a few unexciting very distant relatives but that's all. Nothing on my very elusive grandmother, nor any further information on my grand uncle and great-grand uncle who are doing great impressions of the invisible man.

Did the DNA matches start waning after Ancestry was bought out by Blackstone Investments, I wonder?

If so, perhaps the company is experiencing a shift in the paradigm - from promoting family research to a primarily focusing of selling existing DNA data to corporations ? (I dunno)

My new matches on MyHeritage are probably more infrequent than with Ancestry; on both, I’ve had almost none >20cMs in recent months. Without inside knowledge of Ancestry’s numbers, it’s impossible to answer your question.  Is Ancestry, with 20+ million DNA kits reaching saturation point on DNA kit sales? About a decade ago it was calculated that there were 108 million visits a year to genealogy websites, so at a unique visit per week that means 108/52 = 2 million active genealogists in the major English-speaking countries. Is there room for DNA sales growth outside those with a big interest in geno?  Perhaps the 2 million regulars versus 20+ million kits sold explains the contraction in sales (and the lack of response on email contacts with ‘cousins’!)?

The first rule of investing is ‘Never fall in love with a stock’. Blackstone would offload Ancestry in a shot if it thought it could make a faster or easier buck elsewhere. Use of DNA data for medical purposes is fraught with difficulty and could be a trigger to dispose as easily as a reason to retain/grow its investment.

Blackstone is just an investment vehicle like any of its kind. None care whether the investment is in property, pharma, I.C.T. or genealogy, they simply look at the figures – bottom line and forecasts. All want to get maximum return. That means they will ‘sweat’ the asset, driving efficiencies, cutting costs and boosting sales. Occasionally that means taking a ‘long view’ and investing for further growth before an eventual disposal. AFAIK there has been no announcement on the future of Ancestry by either company since the 2020 acquisition. However, Ancestry is investing in its future as it continues to develop & refine its ‘Ethnicity’ data and it also recently launched ‘Sideview’ detailing ethnicity by parent.

Interesting recent article in the New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/09/our-obsession-with-ancestry-has-some-twisted-roots-maud-newton-ancestor-trouble

I thought that might wake you up!😁 There are elements of truth in it, though, particularly for a few sectors of an American audience. The APG response was very reasoned.

I’m going through a busy work period so waaaay behind on Geno stuff – Pinky, catching up with my LinkedIn account just now I see you had an interesting letter in the Irish Times – please share!

Great letter. I was blessed to know all four of my grandparents until young adulthood--three of them danced at my wedding--but none of my great-grandparents. I'd think that would be unusual.