Off topic: chat

cobham · 25-10-2022 3:23pm

Sadly there is no real equivalent for RIP in UK. Death notices are not always in newspapers. Funerals tend to be less 'public' and can be several weeks after the death with attendance at a service by invitation. The need for a public notice is less urgent given the delay in holding a service. I see that one I used use "iannounce" is no longer around and one posted by Hermy is best.

Hermy · 16-11-2022 4:15pm

I received my adoption file yesterday.

Although it's mostly information I have seen before the file is now unredacted and in full colour - a vast improvement on anything I had received before.

Also, I now know the name and address of the putative father which is intriguing as I don't know if he is real or made up.

Mick Tator · 16-11-2022 7:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119881963#Comment_119881963

Congrats. Nice to hear that all your determination and hard work has finally paid off! Chapeau!

Jellybaby_1 · 16-11-2022 9:47pm

Happy for your good news at last Hermy. With your expertise you may be able to confirm if the name is real or not.

Hermy · 17-11-2022 5:15pm

Mick, in fairness the person to doff the cap to in this case is Roderick O'Gorman who implemented the legislation necessary to make our files available to us, though the question still remains as to why he was able to do what no previous minister was able to do. Though I have to add I am thankful that I managed to trace my birth parents before the legislation was changed. That mattered to me.

Yes Jelly, if the person mentioned is real I fully expect to be able to trace them but what I really hope to establish is why their name was put down at all and given what I know already of my backstory it's hard to speculate as to the reason.

Another person I'd like to make contact with whose name has now been unredacted is that of the medical registrar at Temple Street Hospital whose letters to Temple Hill refer to me as this little chap or this young chap, sentiments that belie the notion that it was an exclusively cruel environment us adoptees existed in back then. It's a small thing but it's always resonated with me.

pinkypinky · 06-12-2022 3:35pm

If you want a laugh, I'm on a podcast this week. I give the boards gang a mention!

https://familyhistoriespodcast.com/2022/12/06/s04ep06-the-politician-with-claire-bradley/

cobham · 08-12-2022 6:10pm

Lovely Claire, well done! I can say 'snap' to a few of your comments. For example my marriage cert was incorrect for 35 odd years until I thought to get a proper copy for myself having collected so many other ones. Up to that point, I seem to have coasted thru life on back of a church certificate. Then later when other half was applying for buspass... it turned out that the official birth record was incorrect and different from the handwritten copy we had used down the years! there is even a record of mother in law correcting it but the 'official' register had not been changed. I can see how you are a natural teacher with such an engaging style.

pinkypinky · 08-12-2022 9:16pm

You're very kind!

Lime Tree Farm · 13-12-2022 7:21am

Wonderful family research.

http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/Media%2C4050%2Cen.pdf

APMom · 19-12-2022 11:12am

I don’t know if this is the right place but I got all of my dad’s files from birthinfo recently. There’s 12 years of letters from his mother there, I know where she last lived in the 50’s but I’d love to find out where and when she died and is buried. I’ve tried various online places such as findmypast but can’t find her death anywhere. I also have the putative father’s name and would probably like his death info too. I’ve found their birth records but that’s all. Where could I look please, considering I have no idea of when she died. TIA

Hermy · 19-12-2022 12:09pm

Well done on getting your Dad's file APMom - I got mine recently too.

There is a dedicated adoption forum you can post in but we can provide some general info here about tracing deceased persons.

However, please be aware that it is forum policy not to discuss searches involving living individuals.

Irish civil death records up to 1971 are currently available for free at the irishgenealogy.ie website.

For records after this date you can visit the research room in Werburgh Street, Dublin City.

Also, do you know if the person married - a search for a marriage record might be another option.

Newspaper notices are another great source, not just deaths but obituaries and anniversary notices as well which sometimes give names of other family members. The Irish News Archive (subscription necessary) has the largest collection of Irish newspapers and is free to search in many public libraries.

If the person you're looking for was from a rural area you could try searching the local cemetery to see if you can find a headstone for them or other members of there family. There a numerous free sites online with burial and headstone details so you may not even have to visit in person.

We have a dedicated thread which lists many of the burials websites available.

One other website that may be of use is the probate search at the Irish Courts website.

cobham · 20-12-2022 3:12pm

Good overview there Hermy. I have made good use of the Electoral register for Dublin. There is database for Dublin in Pearse Library research room (still closed?). Also the Thoms Street directories and even old phonebooks that they have, can be useful. It can throw up when the person no longer was at that address so narrow down a death. Do County libraries around the country keep such records? I have also checked with neighbours to find out where someone might have moved to. I suppose 1950's are too far back to expect memories to survive. Would the father have gone to England? a lot of emigration there in the 1950's?

silliussoddius · 28-12-2022 6:29pm

Got my ancestry results last week, I have some very close know matches; my father's brother, first cousin via his sister and two second cousins via his mother's side. On my mother's side I have a first cousin and a couple second cousins.

My thinking was that having know matches would help identify how others are related via what close matches they also match, however I have matches that don't match to any of my close matches. Is this due to the randomness of the DNA you and others inherit as the generations go on or more likely down to false positives?

pinkypinky · 28-12-2022 8:28pm

You're absolutely right that being able to bucket your matches are really helpful, particularly those second cousins, who can only come from 2 of your great-grandparents' branches.

It depends on the strength of the match whether you will match the same person though.

For example, my brother and I are both tested, and we match all the same close relatives, but a varying levels. Once we get out to 3rd cousins, there's a 20% chance you won't match someone, and that drops to 50% for 4th cousins. So at that distance, my brother and I have some different matches.

I also notice that for some matches we have a wildly different amount, despite the same relationship. E.G. a 3c1r who matches me at 89cM (an identical amount to my mother) and that same person only shares 25cM with my brother. What's happened here is that my brother got more of that chromosome from our Dad, where I got our Mam's.

You only need to worry about false positives under about 20cM, when you might get a match which is identical by state (chance) rather than descent.

spurious · 30-12-2022 12:49am

A single address for a 'Mrs. Baldwin' in an old address book of my great aunt from her time in the US in the 1930s led me (once I had worked out what Mrs. Baldwin's original name was) to find a 2nd great granduncle and some 1st cousins 3 times removed who had upped and went to New Zealand after the death of the man's wife. No descendants from any of them, but great to be able to tie their loose ends off. Six children from that family and no grandchildren.

Mind you, I think our gang have more than balanced things out in that department.

cobham · 30-12-2022 4:04pm

I am guilty of throwing out some old address books, so many family items seemed to have distilled down to me, my father having been an only child/only grandchild/no cousins etc. It is hard to know now what to do with family heritage items. Many things are of value to me because I knew the person and family history research makes some random thing of interest. I try and keep detailed notes on people in my Ancestry family tree (not uploaded). I have a very cluttered 'china' cabinet with odds and sods of things. Perhaps time to write up an inventory and post around but for the moment few of the younger family members are much interested.

spurious · 30-12-2022 4:50pm

Honestly, even looking up Google Streetview for old addresses relatives lived in while in the US (and knowing the conditions some of them lived in in Ireland on their return) was really interesting.

cobham · 30-12-2022 5:46pm

Yes agree with Streetview being a great resource. Just be mindful of the way house numbers can change down the years. In my case it was South C Road and only when a 85 yr old photo turned taken outside that I realised I had ID'ed the wrong house. On another line, several London addresses are no longer there presumably result of bomb damage.

Hermy · 31-12-2022 10:22am

Sometimes genealogy is the most bizarre thing.

Over Christmas I began reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

This morning I logged onto Ancestry to check a new DNA match of my father-in-law's.

The home person in the unlinked tree is a first cousin of Ms. Didion!

Rmulvany · 19-01-2023 11:24pm

I had a huge and we'll overdue sigh of relief today.

Myself and a distant Ancestry match worked out our common ancestry and broke down a long standing brick wall! My family tree now has an additional set of great grandparents!

Hermy · 19-01-2023 11:38pm

Good work R!

Always so satisfying to break through another wall.

Rmulvany · 20-01-2023 11:52am

The brick wall stemmed from a missing civil marriage cert for my 3 x great-grandparent and therefore not knowing the father's names and other important info.

All I had to go on was memories from my grandmother and her brother of a great uncle of theirs who emigrated to Sheffield and had a granddaughter named Josie!

I couldn't believe it when the pieces of the puzzle started to fall in place and sure enough, I found the Sheffield family and was able to trace back to the brother who emigrated and from him I have been able to get the missing pair of grandparents!

Hermy · 20-01-2023 12:31pm

I like how that worked out - thanks for sharing!

Jellybaby_1 · 20-01-2023 9:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132072#Comment_120132072

Definitely a cause for celebration!! Congratulations! Maybe your missing relative knows where my missing relative ended up!!! 😀

Rmulvany · 27-01-2023 1:14pm

A nice serotonin boost this morning, managed to correctly assign about 7 matches from the Unassigned folder to their correct Maternal/Paternal tags on Ancestry.

Should be able to confirm a few more if they would kindly reply to my messages...

pinkypinky · 27-01-2023 11:58pm

I love that kind of win!

I figured out one connection to my late great aunt this week and have added over 100 people to my tree who are descended from her. Sister of my 2x great-grandmother previously identified. Married in Ireland but emigrated almost immediately. Americans. And their multiple marriages. Fantastic. Magnificently detailed obituaries. Along the way I confirmed a very uniquely named DNA matched I'd wondered about previously (she'd never replied to messages).

cobham · 28-01-2023 2:31pm

I agree about the great obits written in USA especially for more recent deaths. This is in contrast to UK deaths where little can be found of actual fact of death let alone any background detail on person and family. The FreeBMD site for UK is good but only up to 1996 I think.

Mick Tator · 11-02-2023 12:08pm

Following VirginiaB's post here I looked at DNA kit accounts managed by me.

Interesting info. Thanks. I regularly use the ‘unviewed’ tab as a filter on Ancestry, forgetting that a ‘no matches’ result will change as new ones come on. 🙄 duh!

I’ve had little increase from the Christmas kit ‘pandemic’, except for FTDNA autosomal. Since Christmas on my mother’s MyHeritage kit I’ve had just one match, distant, no tree. On my Ancestry kit I’ve had nothing close for an age – the last 50 or so matches were unassigned and all below 15, mostly 8-10 cM. I cannot recall when I last had a match from Ancestry above 25cM. On GED on my kit the last match was 97 days ago, three matches since 2022/1/1. On my mother’s GED a/c I’ve had 4 matches in the last month, all 40’s cMs and tested with 23Me and no trees. On my FTDNA nothing much on Y but I’ve had a couple of dozen since 1/1 on autosomal, mostly from 23andme which now seems to be leading the way.

MyHeritage is the only Co. that has sent ‘you have new matches’ emails, for some reason I don’t get them from the others.

In the last year I’ve sent a few contact messages to 40-30cM matches but have had only two response, one a very weird one.

During 2022 I joined a few geno-specific FB groups to see if I can break down a couple of brick walls but have had nothing useful. They seem to be full of people with high expectations and little knowledge.

hblock21 · 13-02-2023 9:11am

https://twitter.com/FearStairLmk/status/1624772714840948736

What a collection! It just goes to show, that something could always be out there yet to be discovered and archived. Pity about the other 80% they could not manage to save!

pinkypinky · 13-02-2023 7:44pm

Yes, I was chatting to him about it.

Hermy · 13-02-2023 8:50pm

Any indication of the nature of the collection?

Jellybaby_1 · 13-02-2023 9:01pm

Amazing collection. No mention of Kildare yet which is what I'd be interested in. Gosh, right up to 1960's! The elephant in the room, for me anyway is, who the heck skived them away like that?!!! And why??? The answer to that might lead to other archival treasures elsewhere!

pinkypinky · 13-02-2023 10:12pm

I'd guess it's all Limerick because that's where Paul is and his focus.

They look like solictor's deed boxes, so wills, probate and leases, etc.

Mick Tator · 15-02-2023 1:08am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120237905#Comment_120237905

Agreed on solicitors' deed boxes/estate records/rent rolls, etc.. Dr. P O'B mentioned Curraghchase and also said somewhere that there were a few from Tipp., The Hewsons were in Askeaton, O'Briens in Cratloe and Curraghchase was de Vere's not far from Askeaton. Hopefully funds will be made available for producing a catalogue - maybe The Ireland Funds?

pinkypinky · 21-03-2023 1:44pm

I had some fun this morning. I was on a community radio station talking about genealogy. Podcast below from about 10:40, if you're interested, but I know everyone here knows it all!

https://t.co/lVtIFvdfBT

Hermy · 30-05-2023 4:46pm

Did anyone watch the grand final of University Challenge, Paxman's last at the helm?

I am not expecting good things from his replacement but one never knows - it might not be so bad.

ath262 · 30-05-2023 7:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120658712#Comment_120658712

nice laid back way to say goodbye - his sucessor has some mighty shoes to fill!

Jellybaby_1 · 30-05-2023 7:42pm

Didn't see it, but saw the 'good night' on the news. Very dignified, and better than all those emotional farewells we've seen on other programmes that nobody cares about. Sad to see him leave, he and Bamber were great but Jeremy was very entertaining!

pinkypinky · 05-06-2023 12:45am

Yes, a quite subdued good bye.

Mick Tator · 06-06-2023 4:14pm

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a DNA match (now identified as third cousin once removed) and was able to provide / fill in lots of blanks over some pleasant email exchanges. It made up for the following message exchange, still open, which started about a year ago. Some strange people out there!

Copy (names edited out) of a message exchange on Ancestry. “X” is a match, is online every week and has a private tree of 700+ people. I have more, so we should be able to identify the link..

Me Hi, We match with 25cMs. Our shared matches indicate it’s on my maternal line.One of these- [List of eight maternal surnames supplied here.] I’d be glad to share info if you are interested. Thanks,

X Yes please

Me Hi, thanks for responding. Which of the names mentioned in my message above do you share?

X no idea until i see the actual names

Me Our cousin connection is 1850’s. Most of my mother’s ancestors came from [two locations named] Her ancestry names are [eight surnames again supplied]. Various marriages were with [seven surnames supplied] Any of these surnames match in your tree? Thanks.

X no. I can't make a connection. Maybe [Name A or Name B] , but don't know how they connect.

Me Thanks for the response. Of the two names you supplied I’d guess it’s not Name A as that line died out. What is your Name B’s Christian name? Some of surname B married Name Y and Name Z so I should be able to identify them if you send them on.

The last message was in March.

Hermy · 06-06-2023 5:13pm

Well at least you got a response Mick.

What really irks me is regulars on Ancestry who can't even bother to acknowledge receipt of my messages.

VirginiaB · 06-06-2023 6:17pm

These experiences are very frustrating and annoying after giving such hard-won information.

Jellybaby_1 · 06-06-2023 8:09pm

Gosh, I've been there too and I feel your pain. I think some people just copy so much stuff from other trees, and haven't bothered, or aren't interested in doing any serious research.

pinkypinky · 06-06-2023 10:11pm

I do think there are serious bugs with Ancestry's messaging system. It's happened a few times that someone said they messaged me - I received no message, had no unread messages, etc. Sometimes they try another way, which happened recently with a distant cousin. We've been sharing info since.

Mick Tator · 07-06-2023 11:48am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120683760#Comment_120683760

Yes, it is annoying, but in this case I think I'm being 'played' to provide access to my tree.

@Pinky - I've not had issues with Ancestry message delivery, several of the ones I've sent and are unresponded are marked 'read' with a time given.

pinkypinky · 18-06-2023 10:16am

I think all our regulars here have taken DNA tests, but if you haven't, I'm running a competition to get a free one and a consultation learning how to use it.

https://cbgenealogy.substack.com/p/celebrating-10-years-of-blogging

Hermy · 18-06-2023 10:48am

Well done on reaching the ten year milestone and here's to many more!

Jellybaby_1 · 18-06-2023 5:00pm

Congratulations Pinky! I've just been reading your blog, very informative, and enjoyable!

pinkypinky · 18-06-2023 9:17pm

Ah thanks, that's kind of you to say.

L1011 · 18-06-2023 9:56pm

Long Lost Family episode on ITV3 tonight - not sure how old it is - has a very interesting case on it. Two foundlings, six years apart, one in Dundalk and one in Belfast but are full siblings.

Time and jurisdictional gaps meant that I don't think there was any chance of the two being connected at the time.

Their parents were having an affair and the father had FOURTEEN other children in his marriage.

Off topic: chat

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