The Shamrock Genealogist

Pixabay Image The Shamrock Genealogist has been conducting her lectures this past year, with the most recent one done at the Salina Library in Syracuse, NY this past Monday. I covered how to use NextGen tools to get the younger generation interested in research (such as social media, blogging, mobile applications). I will be giving a variation of this lecture (which will focus more on how to use NextGen tools to further your research ) as well as a new lecture on Prince Edward Island repositories and records at the upcoming Ontario Genealogical Society conference, 6/1 - 6/3  at the University of Guelph. I'm very excited to be presenting at an international conference. Before this conference starts there will be all sorts of tours and events going on starting on that Thursday, May 31st. Do you have ancestors that travelled by train? You may be interested in the Palmerston Railway Heritage Museum Tour . Want to sneak away to do some research? You may want to check out the ...

Pixabay Image I started using GEDMatch a few years ago after I started testing my DNA and wanting to find more cousins and learn how to better analyze my results. Genetic genealogy is an important part of the genealogy tool kit to verify your paper trails. And sometimes you uncover a surprise like an NPE, a non-paternity event (ex. a parent isn't a match to a child). In my case, you find out about a child that you never knew was in the family. Check out  my blog post about Thomas Corcoran.  The process to add your DNA profile is fairly simple. You can register for a free account (or pay $10/month to be a Tier 1 subscriber for some tools). You download your DNA file from the site (usually a commercial one like Ancestry, 23andme, FamilyTree DNA, MyHeritage, etc.) and upload it. Note: GEDMatch has created a generic upload that will work for other kits as well. Then you usually wait a couple of days before you can run the one to many matches to see the DNA cousins you have...

Wikimedia Commons Genealogy is like a long version of a scavenger hunt. You get some clues and you have to figure out what they mean to get to the treasure. Maybe you have an oral history passed down, a document you found at an archive, perhaps a photo without your ancestors labelled. And your next goal is to find out more about your ancestor and then you hit a brick wall. No records found in the location you expect. If your ancestors are like mine, they pick up and can move quite far away. Let's look at my great grandfather, Thomas James Corcoran. He grew up in Dillonstown, County Louth and was then sent off to America at the age of 26 to meet a cousin. The rest of his family stayed behind in Ireland.  You can read up more about why he left here . He never came back to Ireland so the record trail would run cold if I only continued to research him in Ireland. My 3rd great uncle Peter Dougherty also left for America. He was born in Ireland but went with his family as a you...