Gosh - how long ago was that??? I do recall coming across a lot of Bradley's at the time and passing that information, and those photos from Ireland on. I haven't done anything on the family history side of things for some time. Partly because I had gotten back about as far as I could, but primarily because we got increasingly busy raising our family.
I have often though I should take another look, particularly with the advent of the internet and a lot of public records being placed on line now, but it has been the prospect of a trip to Ireland that has gotten me looking into this seriously again. I have been going back through the information I was able to gather at the time. I will have time when I am over there to go to Belfast - to do some research. I am not sure exactly what I might be able to find out that I don't already have - I was thinking perhaps land ownership records and a visit to look through the parish records, and I am wondering if there are old newspapers i could have a look through. Our Bradley's ran a cartage business apparently, as well as farming, and were relatively well off by the standards of the time, so you think they, or their business might have got a mention.
The death records for Dominic and Bridget perhaps, perhaps the birth records for any siblings of John and Neil etc, and passenger lists - I have not had any luck looking for the John and his brothers on line.
One of our distant relatives thought that Dominic gave up the lease on the Craigall property in 1871. It was in that year that a law was passed that the land had to be sold back to the locals. Not being able to afford such a large property, it was about 100 odd acres, he bought a smaller property in the adjacent townland of Erganagh instead.
It all gets a bit confusing after that - I have some letters from a sister Cecelia that she wrote in 1985 who was a descendant of a Dominic from Erganagh. From her hand drawn family tree, it would appear that one son - another Dominic might have stayed in the area - and was a sibling to John and James etc. Dominic's sons died before marrying and producing children, and his daughters married.
Quite aside from any research or anything else i would also just like to have a look around the area, and the wider areas as well. Also _ would like to catch up with the people who were so helpful when I was first doing the research, took those photos of the old farmhouse etc. The main person I would like to make contact with is a Margaret Bradley, who used to live at *. She doesn't any more and I can see from the phone book there are still a couple of Margeret Bradley's on the same road.(I am rather hoping aghadowey might be reading this and able to help me out here - as I think from previous posts she lives in the area).
Apart from anything else it would would be nice to take her out for a meal or a drink to thanks her for all the work she did all those years ago.
So remind me who your grand father is then - one of John's son's?? I live in Flagstaff now.
