A Very Occasional Blog
I’m a genealogist by profession, and a Fellow of the Accredited Genealogists Ireland,(AGI) I also dabble in local history and the history of Irish golfers, and I’m always writing something!
A Slideshow of Recent Posts
Derrynamuck and Cocoon: only four degrees of separation
On a cold February night in the Glen of Imaal, Co. Wicklow, in 1799 it would have seemed unimaginable luxurious to those trying to stay warm that people in the future would swim in heated man-made pools. Rebels on the run hardly thought about such things. Telling...
Family Portraits and Echoes of the Past
A week ago I attended a marathon of an event. It lasted from 10.30am to sometime about 9pm, long after I had left. It was absorbing. It was full of surprises, good and bad. It was a glimpse into the past, and it said a lot about the present Irish economy. For...
Catholic Qualification and Conversion ROLLED into one
In the last few weeks someone ‘Liked’ a Facebook post I published in September 2016. This made me read the post again and decide that it was worth repeating as a blogpost. Little has changed in the two and a half years since I first published the piece. ...
The Social Side of Genealogy
BackTo Our Past Belfast may not have been the biggest BTOP ever but there were plenty of people around and I enjoyed it greatly. Working with my AGI colleagues and the NAI [National Archives Ireland] staff was enjoyable. Meeting people (some for the first time;...
SHOCK and HORROR!
Shock and horror! Today is the fortieth anniversary of my first day of work in genealogy. Where has all that time gone? I should add that I was a mere teenager then, albeit months away from not being one. It was a dream-come-true. A few days earlier I had my...
How Automated ‘Hints’ Can Spread ‘Genealogical Virus’
Predictive text often has us using odd words, conveying a message we never intended. Technology doesn’t always know what we’re thinking! To an extent there is a similarity with the automated ‘helpful’ suggestions we get from the websites of data-providing...
Grandaunts and Granduncles: Why don’t Irish people have them anymore?
Katie McDermott, née Nolan (1873-1964) I had 13 grandaunts and 18 granduncles – 31 in all – but only four of them were still alive when I was born. It seems that grandaunts and granduncles have gone out of fashion with Irish people. They’ve been supplanted by...
Deceit and incompetence: a timely reminder of why I wrote my new book
Over the weekend my AGI colleagues and I were busy at the annual Back To Our Past (BTOP) event at the RDS in Dublin. We were running the AGI (Accredited Genealogists Ireland) stand, providing free 20-minute consultations, answering queries and promoting members’...
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