Who Do You Think You Are? - Kevin Clifton

Last week's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featured celebrity dancer Kevin Clifton, known to everyone as 'Kevin from Grimsby.'

And while Kevin is, indeed, from Grimsby, his family history takes him much further away.

This episode featured one side of Kevin's family - his paternal line, whose history is mostly based in Canada.

And it's here that things get very interesting.

But also difficult - history is often uncomfortable, and this was something an emotional Kevin found out.

He lamented that it was 'always the men' in this ancestral line who inflicted the most pain and suffering on the women of his family, and had to grapple with being the descendant of both the men who caused the pain and the women who suffered from it.

A case of divorce in his family's past was covered in the newspapers - divorce being something highly unusual both at the time and in that particular area.

The press coverage was... revealing - with the husband taking a pre-emptive strategy, including denying - prior to any allegations being made - that he chased his wife with an axe and threatened to kill her. It's a very telling thing to try to get out in front of.

The abuse that was admitted to in court was bad enough, but considered acceptable at the time - it hopefully stands as a testament to social progress that admitting, in a court of law, that you had given your wife black eyes is no longer seen as a reasonable thing, and would now affect the divorce proceedings.

The main 'thread' of the episode, though, was the story - passed down through generations - of an Indigenous woman named Matooskie.

While it's not uncommon for families - especially in the US and Canada - to acquire a myth of Native heritage somewhere along the way, a specific name is much less so.

Matooskie, it turns out, was a First Nations (Canadian Indigenous) woman, who Kevin-from-Grimsby is directly descended from. 

A well-documented and somewhat iconic individual amongst First Nations historians, her story is even more interesting than my brief description of this episode (hopefully) makes it sound.

To me, though, what is truly important is not only that the story was passed down through the family, but that her Native name - Matooskie - is the one that was remembered by her descendants, rather than her Christian/European name of Nancy. 

It shows that regardless of her descriptions in church records as 'a half-breed woman' or her callous treatment by her Scottish husband, she retained her culture and her identity - enough to pass it down through the centuries.

Ready to start your own family history journey? I offer a range of professional genealogy services, check out my website for more details.

Who Do You Think You Are? - Bear Grylls

 

TV personality, and head UK Scout, Bear Grylls' episode of Who Do You Think You Are? aired last Thursday. 

The episode started by looking at his grandfather's work with the military, which during World War 2 saw him become an expert in tanks.

After the war, his grandfather remained in the Army, ending up in a joint American-British taskforce known as T-Force.

This was something of a murky group, ethically, being formed primarily to obtain German scientific, technological, and sometimes commercial, assets. These assets included experts who were often given little choice about working with the Allies, and also those sometimes forcefully recruited by British and American businesses.

It's a tricky thing to consider from a modern perspective, especially when there were clearly ethical questions raised at the time, and Bear Grylls did quite well to navigate the thorniness of it.

As the episode moved on, he seemed quite surprised at how posh his mother's family turned out to be.

It was quite surprising just how surprised he was, to be honest: I think that if your grandfather was the son of the headteacher at Harrow - one of Britain's poshest private schools - you're going to be at least a little bit posh, Bear.

It was this Harrow headteacher who also provided a link with the Scouts, having been involved with them in the early days - something which Grylls had no inkling of prior to making this programme.

The family on his maternal line proved to be even more auspicious in prior generations, with Bear Grylls discovering ancestors amongst the nobility and clans of Scotland.

This was a truly impressive lineage, leading back to Robert the Bruce himself.

But, more importantly for Bear Grylls, apparently, was the justification of him wearing kilts. He really likes kilts.

...Which is one benefit of researching your family history which I had not previously considered, but to each their own, I guess.

Ready to start your own family history journey? I offer a range of professional genealogy services, check out my website for more details.

Who Do You Think You Are? - Claire Foy

Actress Claire Foy is perhaps, appropriately, best known for playing historical figures in period dramas.

And while none of the family members who featured in her episode of WDYTYA? on Thursday were of the ranks of nobility - unlike Andrew Lloyd Webber last week - their stories were definitely drama-worthy.

There was tragedy in her maternal line - beginning with her charming Irish grandfather having lost his father at a young age in a motorbike accident.

That great-grandfather had, himself, lost his own father to a tragic accident.

It was this great-great-grandfather's accident that Claire turned to first - in England, rather than Ireland, to the site of a military training exercise which went terribly wrong, leading to the drowning of several men in a treacherous stretch of river.

Perhaps most heart-breaking was how close rescue could have been - the bank where their bodies came to rest being only a short distance downstream from the point where they went into the water.

On her paternal line, Claire turned to her father's biological family - the Foy family being his adopted line.

Moving further back in this line, Claire discovered an Irish veteran of the British army, who settled in Manchester.

She learned that he and his brother were arrested in Manchester in 1867 following an attack on a police van carrying prominent Fenian prisoners, during which a policeman guarding the prisoner transport, a Sergeant Charles Brett, was killed.

The Fenians, also known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood, were a movement fighting - often via violent means - for home rule in Ireland.

Over 40 men were arrested in the days following the murder of Sergeant Brett.

28 men were charged with joint enterprise murder - which did not require the accused individual to have actually shot Sergeant Brett, but only that they were involved in the violent disorder that resulted in Brett's death; at the time this carried the death penalty.

To begin with, the case against Claire's relatives seemed suspicious, but as she learned more and more about the circumstances, the question became whether they were guilty... or simply Irish.

The addition of a police sketch artist to this episode was really quite entertaining, and added more realness to the story of these two men, on trial for their lives.

It's definitely something that the shows producers should consider incorporating in future episodes, where appropriate.

Ready to start your own family history journey? I offer a range of professional genealogy services, check out my website for more details.

Who Do You Think You Are? - Andrew Lloyd Webber

 

Andrew Lloyd Webber kicked off series 20 of Who Do You Think You Are? last Thursday with a strong episode.

Though it may have come as a surprise to him, many people would probably have assumed Andrew Lloyd Webber - a Lord who composed music for the recent coronation - had nobility in his family's background. He is, after all, very much an establishment figure - though his own personal background is far more humble.

His mother's side of the family, though, revealed a knighted hero from the Battle of Waterloo - commemorated in the official paintings of that event, no less - and, further back still, a woman whose wardship (essentially a form of custody for nobles,) was sold by Henry VIII to a man who would marry her in her teenage years. 

This was a state of affairs even the Spanish ambassador felt worth mentioning, since her 'guardian' and husband was in what we would now consider middle-age at the time of the union.

Her second marriage, after being widowed, appears to have been for love (and more power to her,) and it's from this second marriage that Andrew Lloyd Webber's family is descended. Things were not all plain-sailing however, with the family having to flee the country during the reign of Queen Mary I due to their staunch Protestant faith.

Further back, in Andrew Lloyd Webber's working-class paternal line, is where the most interesting stories come in, though 

- tales of show-men and musicians from the Magito family, making their names in the world of 18th Century European entertainment.

There were odd parallels between Andrew Lloyd Webber's distant ancestors and the lives of himself and his brother, Julian, Britain's most well-known cellist. 

Not least the existence of Alexis Magito - a Dutch cellist, often known as 'Mr Alexis,' who composed and performed in England.

While the other parts of the episode were entertaining enough, it is this last focal point of the Magito family that truly makes this episode fascinating, and well worth the watch.

Ready to start your own family history journey? I offer a range of professional genealogy services, check out my website for more details.

Who Do You Think You Are? - Series 20

 

Who Do You Think You Are? is back tonight at 9pm.

As has become relatively common with WDYTYA? as of late, the advertising has been almost non-existent, but here's our new round of celebs:

• Claire Foy
• Bear Grylls
• Chris Ramsey
• Kevin Clifton
• Dev Griffin
• Chris & Xand van Tulleken
• Lesley Manville
• Andrew Lloyd Webber

- That's actually quite a sizeable series of 8 episodes; a lot of the recent series have been 4 or 5 episodes only.

Lot's to enjoy here, then!

I will be writing my usual write-ups after each episode, so look out for that.

I offer professional family history research services in the UK, check out my website for more information.