Is it worth paying one of those family tree companies? We’ve turned up a blank?

bouicca21

I suspect the ‘old bloke’ simply used the most obvious sources.  Irish family history needs a certain amount of lateral thinking.  I suggest that if OP really does want to hire someone to search, then he first gets the ‘old ‘bloke’ to detail exactly what he has done already, and secondly finds an agent experienced in searching Irish records, gives them what information they have and asks at the outset for an outline of their research plan.

RAS

Another one to advise DNA testing. You can get the price down to £59 at times, use Ancestry as they have the biggest database and you can download their results and transfer to most other providers. Do attach it to the most accurate tree that you can.

There are circumstance when you won't get useful matches, if for example grandma as an only child of only children and their siblings didn't have children etc. But it proved great grandpa's lost brother changed his name, found another's father and confirmed another relative had an illegitimate child.

Closer to home, siblings popped up. One of their grandfathers isn't as documented, based their ethnicity and can only be one of my deceased uncles. They were living in the right area at the time.

You group your results into four, and will rapidly find three batches related to known relatives. Grandma will be related to the unknown batch. Unless you've got an NPE event on another branch. You'll also be able to see the ethnic origins of the "unknown" group.

FrankFalcon

Some interesting stuff here. Thank you all.