Maurice Gleeson

There are many examples of Unknown Parentage cases in Ireland - illegal adoptees, a foundling grandparent, or simply an Irish Brick Wall. This talk explores the approach to solving these cases, the challenges faced with Irish records, and some hints & tips to overcome them.

Maurice Gleeson has been experimenting with Multiple WATO (What Are The Odds) Analyses as a technique to break through Brick Walls in family trees at the 1750-1800 timepoint. With Multiple WATO Analyses, all possible scenarios for an ancestral relationship are explored (hence the "multiple" in the title). So if there are 3 individuals born about the same time, the various scenarios to explore are: 1. are they all brothers? 2. are they all half-brothers? 3. are two brothers and the third a 1st cousin to the other two? 4. are two half-brothers and the third a 1st cousin? 5. are they all 1st cousins? etc. etc. etc. And each scenario above is assessed from the perspective of all descendants involved in the analysis ... so if there are 10 Scenarios and 8 descendants there will be 28 pair-wise comparisons in each scenario so 280 comparisons in total. Maurice will present several examples of how this technique has been used in practice to break thru Irish Brick Walls.