The Summer Talks at lunchtime will take place every Tuesday and Thursday 1-2pm in the National Library of Ireland. Here are the speakers for our last week of the talks:

Joe Buggy

Ten free websites for U.S. genealogy research.

Tuesday Sept 6th

Time: 1pm

Venue: National Library of Ireland 

Every genealogist loves free access to records and genealogy information. Most people begin with Familysearch and Cyndi's List when doing research in the Unites States. But where can you turn to after using those sites? This talk will outline ten free websites that professional genealogist Joe Buggy regularly uses. These websites will help you locate digitised newspapers, death and burial information, useful maps and a wide variety of other records and sources.

Joe Buggy is a genealogist with AncestryProGenealogists, the in-house research team of Ancestry.com. Based in Dublin, he conducts research on behalf of clients from around the world. From 2010-2015, he lived in New York City and Washington, D.C., where he worked as a self-employed genealogy researcher and writer. Joe is the author of Finding Your Irish Ancestors in New York City,the first book on the topic. He has previously written about researching Irish immigrants in the U.S. in a series of articles for Irish Lives Remembered genealogy magazine. Outside of his day job, Joe runs the Townland of Origin website and blog, which focuses on Irish genealogical research in the United States and Canada.

Professor Dan Bradley

Ancient DNA and Irish Origins

Thursday Sept 8th

Time: 1pm

Venue: National Library of Ireland 

Instead of extrapolating the past from modern genetic variation, it is now possible to directly analyse whole genomes from the past using ancient DNA analysis of archaeological bones.  Work on ancient Irish genomes in Trinity College is giving new information on from where and when our ancestors came to this island thousands of years ago and also tells us something about their genetic character and how it compares to that of our modern peoples.

Dan Bradley spent his early years on an Irish farm  After a degree in genetics from Cambridge University and PhD in medical genetics from Trinity College Dublin he subsequently started to work on the genetics of each species present on that farm, including Irish humans, and has done for over 20 years. He holds a Personal Chair in the Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, is a member of the RIA and is the holder of an ERC Advanced Grant.