I posted this message in 2016 around September time. I want to inform RootsChat that I have found my grandmother it's September again and 2 years later, that's how long I have spent searching!
I started off in the wrong County - I thought she came from Waterford but switched County when Ancestry DNA matches came in indicating Wexford.
Rootschatter Calcinare picked out the correct 'Roche' family as far back as 2016, at the time I couldn't believe this was my family as the names seemed so unlikely ie Anty and jane.
I had 2 DNA matches on Ancestry that had ROCHE relatives and one of these matches had Roches from Ferns. As I became better at searching I found that my 'supposed' Roche family lived next door to the Roche family from this DNA match - which was an interesting coincidence.
Two weeks ago I went to Ireland and in the days leading up to my visit I found a lot of records relating to Thomas Roche (1869-1952), he was the only one of my 3 'supposed' Roche relatives I could find records for. I went to Ferns and was introduced to 93 year old Mary who lived in Thomas' former cottage (address found on his civil death record and Irish Volunteer pension record). Mary's amazing memory gave me the names of some of Thomas' relatives. When I got back to England I searched Ancestry and Irishgeneology for a week but couldn't trace the names until I was looking through the family tree of my DNA match whose relatives (3 generations back) came from Ferns. On her tree I spotted the person Mary had spoken of - 2 years of searching was over, here was the confirmation that our families shared the same DNA (Thomas Roche, his sister Jane and Jane's daughter, Bridget) Bridget, daughter of Jane Roche born 1885 Enniscorthy Workhouse was in fact my grandmother. Thanks Rootschat and Calcinare!!
