Christmas Order Time! (I Know, Where Did The Year Go?)

Hi everyone!

I still have some capacity for Christmas orders, but if you want the package by Christmas, then orders absolutely have to be made by 31st October 2019!

So if you want an extra-special Christmas present, it's time to get in touch!

Need more info? Check out my website.

Don't have the info needed to start your research right now? Can't think about it until after Halloween?



Why not consider a gift certificate?

I make up gift certificates to order - since they're highly personalised - and can e-mail them or post them to you, depending on your preference.




If you want the research finished for Christmas, then time really is of the essence if you want to snag a spot - drop me an e-mail and we can get things started!

WDYTYA? - Mark Wright

Apologies for this write-up being a little late - I've been hard at work tracking down people's family histories!

The last episode of this series of Who Do You Think You Are? featured The Only Way Is Essex star Mark Wright.

The story of Wright's ancestors was largely one of hardship - albeit in a variety of forms.

From one interesting character - an ancestor with a Del Boy streak and a stint in the Veterinary Corps in World War One - Wright's episode moved on to another.


The lives of Sephardic Jewish ancestors were rarely easy.

Persecution of Jewish people sadly began long before the 20th Century, and Spain has an unpleasant history in this regard.

The infamous Spanish Inquisition had no ethical qualms with torturing and executing people simply because they followed another religion - in fact, they saw this is the only way to save their souls.


This meant that many Sephardic Jews or 'New Christians' as they were termed after their forcible conversion, felt they had little choice but to flee from their homes.

Mark's ancestor, a sword-master (real Zorro-style action!), left Spain for Amsterdam, and from there to London.

He himself had been tortured, and faced execution if there were a re-occurrence of the 'offence' of following his own religion. His nephew did not escape with his life.


A dramatic episode, then, to end this series of Who Do You Think You Are? And in my opinion, they did indeed save the best for last.

WDYTYA? - Paul Merton + Sharon Osbourne

Paul Merton's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? was in many places veritably Dickensian.

A singer, busker, and possible pickpocket, who falls foul of the law in her teenage years, and ends up in prison.

After completing her sentence, and still a young woman, she walks into a workhouse - one if the workhouses, in fact, that Dickens uses as his inspiration for Oliver Twist. She's in labour with her baby by the time she arrives on their doorstep.

(Told you it was Dickensian.)

Image by skeeze from Pixabay

A feature of this ancestor's story was that her profession as a musician ensured she was viewed untrustworthy by the police and the courts.

Entertainers and performers enjoyed a slightly dubious social status before the mid-to-late 20th Century - on the one hand, many performers were admired and supported.

On the other, they were also often - especially women - seen as having 'loose' morals. Being a pub singer would have been seen as seedy even among performers, and people would have made assumptions about a woman or girl's character if she were employed as such.


Sharon Osbourne's family were also performers - albeit when the profession was starting to become more accepted socially.

Music halls did, however, still keep a risqué edge - as shown by dances such as the 'pony-trot' which were featured on the show.


Sharon's family story also threw up an unknown link to America.

The interesting part about this was the way it showed the downside of the 'American dream,' and the poor conditions and heartache that many 19th Century immigrants faced.


This Wednesday's episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, featuring Mark Wright, will be the last of the series.

WDYTYA? - Kate Winslet + Catherine Ryan

I have two episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? to write about this week, to play catch-up!

Hollywood actress Kate Winslet's episode featured a lot of tears but, luckily, no ships hitting icebergs.

Kate's maternal family were from Sweden, and it was interesting to hear about the history of a country we don't hear much about here in the UK.

The stories of desperation and poverty, however, will be familiar to many families.

Interesting to see also was the 'son/sen' and 'dottir' system in Sweden, not dissimilar to the 'ap' system in Wales, and other 'son of' names going further back in history.


Catherine Ryan's Who Do You Think You Are? episode, on the other hand, featured a lot of laughter!

Comedian Catherine was hoping to find that her family were English, because she lives in England... and Canada is cold!

Mostly, and much to her annoyance, her family were Canadian. And before that Canadian. And before that... Canadian.

Much like with Jack and Michael Whitehall, what made this episode a joy to watch was the humour she brought to every situation - along with her charming unpredictability!

I particularly enjoyed when she was mocking her Victorian teenage ancestor's 'poetic tantrum!'

WDYTYA? - Jack and Michael Whitehall

Jack Whitehall is a lot of fun - and his Who Do You Think You Are? episode with dad Michael made me laugh.

While their family's history was a lot less posh than I was expecting, there was also some serious money involved in latter generations!

Jack & Michael's episode was another that examined uncomfortable truths about the past - uncomfortable for Jack anyway, Michael was less bothered!

We started off with a tale of syphilis and early death, before moving to look at another side of the family.


Jack & Michael's ancestor, Thomas Jones Phillips, was on the wrong side of history, and generally came across as... an unpleasant sort of person.

When the Chartists in Newport* - those beloved Welsh heroes and martyrs - were attacked, and in some cases killed, by the military, Phillips was very much on the side of the establishment.


*The Wikipedia 'Newport Rising' link is useful, but its description of the WDYTYA? episode, at time of writing, confuses Sir Thomas Phillips with Thomas Jones Phillips - two different individuals.

Welsh research is full of completely different people with the same name!


It's strange to think, now, that the idea that people (or, at the time, men, as this was long before the Suffragettes,) should be allowed to vote regardless of whether they owned property was a radical one.

Many saw it as a highly dangerous idea - in the 19th Century many thought that the place in which you were born in society was pre-determined by God. Therefore, God had placed the upper classes in a position to decide what was best for the lower classes; the lower classes were too stupid to make decisions for themselves, and should not be educated as this would be too much for their brains to handle (the same arguments that were used against women for centuries.)

Thomas Jones Phillips was what Jack described as a 'massive Tory' and it was quite refreshing to see how irritated Jack was with what Phillips had done.


My favourite part of the episode, though, was Jack and Michael trying to decide whether the word 'mandrills' meant that the Chartists were trying to take ducks to the Uprising!

WDYTYA? - Naomie Harris

Actress Naomie Harris' episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featured a common dilemma with family history - how to deal with the uncomfortable truths of the past.

Naomie's Carribbean heritage showed she had both slaves and slave owners in her family's history.

While finding an ancestor was a slave can, of course, be distressing, finding that an ancestor was a slave owner is troubling in a different way.


We all like to think that our ancestors were good people (or at least, that their indiscretions were more roguish than just plain bad,) but when presented with the reality, that isn't always the case.

People are people, and facts are facts. People do things that later generations are horrified by - and we have to accept that, much as Naomie did, by understanding that history is what it is, but the present and the future are ours.


A small issue I had with this episode was the DNA references. I'm by no means an expert in this as it's not my area, but I do know a little more than the general public.

Many, many, people get confused when using DNA for the purposes of family history.

Yes, Naomie's DNA showed Nigerian ancestry of 48%. Yes, she found an ancestor who is likely to have come from Nigeria.


No, this isn't 'the Nigerian link' in her family tree. It is a Nigerian link.

The DNA inherited directly from a 5x great-grandparent would likely be under 10% (possibly even less than this - as I mentioned, I'm not an expert!)

A 48% Nigerian result therefore would mean that there are several different hereditary lines of Nigerian DNA that go into making up Naomie Harris.


Several different individuals have contributed DNA to her make-up which is common to the area now known as Nigeria.

That's far less simple, I know, than proclaiming 'THIS is where your DNA comes from' - but it's also far more accurate.

(And I personally think DNA testing companies need to do more to help people understand the science and meaning of their results - but that's a pet peeve of mine!)

WDYTYA? - Daniel Radcliffe

Daniel Radcliffe's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? aired on Monday, starting the series off with high levels of drama.

Having made their fortune in the jewellery trade, Daniel Radcliffe's ancestors were doing well in Hatton Garden. Until the robberies started.

Heists at Hatton Garden are nothing new - a high level of gold and jewels concentrated in a fairly small area are always going to be a target.

After about the third robbery, however, the police began to suspect Daniel's ancestor of insurance fraud, and became convinced that this was the case on circumstantial grounds, highly coloured by their prejudice.

Daniel's ancestors were Jewish. And the anti-Semitic sentiments of the 1930s meant that the fact that the family were Jewish was taken to be evidence against them.

Hopefully, in modern Britain, any informant's letter that says someone must be committing fraud because they are Jewish would be entirely written off as bigoted. Sad to say, in the 1930s, the police didn't much care if the Jewish jeweller had legitimately lost his diamonds and gold, and the fraud explanation seemed to be an easy one for them to fall back on.

That's not to say that financial desperation hadn't driven Daniel's ancestors to fraud, as he himself admits. But the justice system was very clearly stacked against them.

The story ends even more sadly, with the distressing suicide note of Daniel's ancestor. (Viewer discretion is definitely advised with this episode.)

I've come across suicide more than once when researching customers' family histories. It's never an easy thing to explain, and deciding how to present the information and the circumstances surrounding the events takes a level of metaphorical tightrope-walking that can be very tricky to get right. (Hopefully I manage it.)

Daniel Radcliffe's episode also includes stories of the First World War, and plenty of people who have a particular look on their face - a look that says, 'Oh my God, I just met Harry Potter!'

Where Did the Time Go? + WDYTYA? New Series

I have to apologise, apparently I haven't posted here since last December! Oops!

Still, I've been busy researching and compiling packages so I think you'll excuse me!

So, why am I back now? Because there's a new Who Do You Think You Are series starting tonight, and I had to tell you all about it!

(It may seem like all I do is watch history TV shows, but that just happens to be what reminds me to blog! Most of my time is spent researching, completing family trees, presenting research, etc.)

The line-up for series 16 (16!) of WDYTYA? looks excellent - as usual:

• Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter)
• Sharon Osbourne (please, can we have Ozzy in series 17?!)
• Kate Winslet (going v. Hollywood this series!)
• Paul Merton (comedian)
• Katherine Ryan (comedian)
• Naomie Harris (Bond actress)
• Mark Wright (The Only Way Is Essex... apparently)
• Jack and Michael Whitehall (comedian(s?))

The series kicks off with Daniel Radcliffe tonight at 9pm on BBC1.

I'll be doing my little write-ups/summaries again, after each episode!