Off topic: chat

Hermy

Good work R!

Always so satisfying to break through another wall.

Rmulvany

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

I like how that worked out - thanks for sharing!

Jellybaby_1

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, I was chatting to him about it.

Hermy

Any indication of the nature of the collection?

Jellybaby_1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, a quite subdued good bye.

Mick Tator

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

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

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

Jellybaby_1

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

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

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

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

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

Jellybaby_1

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

pinkypinky

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

L1011

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.