Christmas Gift Certificates

 

It may be too late to order research to be completed before Christmas (…I need to sleep and eat and all that stuff as well as do research, unfortunately,) but I still have gift solutions for those who need them.

I can arrange gift certificates for my packages (check out familyhistorybycerys.co.uk for details of those) - which is also handy if you wanted research for your loved one... but thought they were probably the ones to ask about the details!

I can arrange for a gift certificate with whatever wording you want, either by post or e-mail.

So if you're still struggling to get that special gift for someone, feel free to get in touch!

WDYTYA? Series 17 - Liz Carr

 

The last of this short 17th series of Who Do You Think You Are? featured Silent Witness actress Liz Carr, who clearly enjoyed her look into her family's past!

Fitting for a popular TV detective, Liz's Irish family were involved in crime, mystery, and intrigue! (Which she was more than happy about!)

The 19th Century saw turbulent times in Ireland's history - as many periods of Irish history sadly were. Liz's family were caught up in the tensions between harsh Protestant landlords, and their mostly Catholic tenants.

There's a fine line, historically speaking, between an insurgent and a freedom fighter - and it very much depends on which side you're standing. The newspaper reporting Liz read out certainly showed that bias was strong amongst the press against those who banded together to oppose unfair treatment by their landlords.

It's hard to talk too much about this episode without giving the game away - but it's worth a watch if you get the chance, and provided a good ending to the series.

Next Monday (9th Nov) sees Judge Robert Rinder's Holocaust series, 'My Family, The Holocaust, and Me,' take up WDYTYA?s slot on BBC One at 9pm (Rinder previously researched his family's experiences in the Holocaust on WDYTYA?) - which is sure to be an interesting watch.

My Christmas orders for 2020 are now closed, but I can arrange a gift certificate for a last-minute gift if you get in touch!

WDYTYA? Series 17 - Ruth Jones

 

Monday's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featured Ruth Jones, best known as the actor and writer behind the Welsh-based TV shows Gavin and Stacey, and Stella.

Probably unsurprisingly, Ruth's family was primarily Welsh - although most people from South Wales in particular have some English ancestry somewhere along the way.

The part of the family we followed with this episode, though, were Welsh through and through.

Encompassing both rural, and, more extensively, maritime Wales, Ruth's episode showed how much coal permeated through the Welsh economy in the 19th Century.

Moving on from there, the episode looked at Ruth's ancestor's connection to the Welsh medical societies that acted as a fore-runner to the NHS, and correspondence between him and Aneurin Bevan himself.

All in all, it was a sturdy little episode comprising the penultimate offering of this small series.

A brief reminder that Saturday (31st October) is the last day to get in touch with me for Christmas 2020 orders. 

Check out familyhistorybycerys.co.uk to see my range of services, and please don't hesitate to get in touch!

WDYTYA? Series 17 - David Walliams

 

Monday's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featured actor, comedian, writer, reality TV judge, etc. David Walliams.

Walliams' episode was one with interesting stories - war, travelling fairs, and a monkey playing an organ grinder... I can't help but think that some of this stuff will end up in one of his children's books!

More than the Dickensian or novelistic aspects though, Walliams' episode was about disability, and the way disabled people often fell through the cracks of 19th and 20th Century society.

One thing that I found typical of social welfare attitudes in the Victorian period was that one of Walliams' ancestors had got into trouble for getting his children to busk and beg in the street. The family was starving at the time, after the head of the house had lost his eyesight and was unable to find work. 

Victorian sensibilities saw this as an unacceptable exploitation of children - which there is merit in, of course, especially when you consider the groups of children who would beg or steal for a gang-master, a la Oliver Twist - but fails to deal with the fundamental issue of actually feeding the children, and the desperation that led their parents to this situation.

The episode also followed the story of Walliams' great-grandfather, and his experience of shell-shock due to WW1, leading to an eventual permanent residence at an asylum - though there are rays of hope in that his existence does not seem to have been an unhappy one, over all.

If you're interested in researching your own family, please don't hesitate to get in touch. And remember, my last date for Christmas 2020 orders is 31st October 2020. See familyhistorybycerys.co.uk for details of how to get in touch.

WDYTYA? Series 17 - Jodie Whittaker

 

The new series of WDYTYA? kicked off with Doctor Who herself, Jodie Whittaker.

While perhaps not the most compelling episode (but then, we've probably been spoiled by previous seasons!) Jodie's episode showed clearly two pitfalls of family history - family myths, and uncomfortable history.

Family myths usually have at least a grain of truth to them - i.e. Jodie's great-uncle was killed in the First World War - but someone, somewhere, has put two and two together to make five - i.e. her middle name was Verdun, at which there was a WW1 battle, and her brother died in the war, therefore...

You see where this is going? And it's a reasonable assumption, until you start to look into it, and you realise that things don't quite add up - for example, the lack of British forces at Verdun.

It can be quite difficult to extricate fact from myth, and both from possibility. 

Since none of us have time machines, we can posit theories based on the facts, but that doesn't mean that our interpretations are necessarily 100% accurate - they're options and scenarios based on the information available to us, here and now, in the present.

An additional story from Jodie's family's past - that of her mine-owning ancestors who made a fortune while other pits were suffering the affects of long-term striking in the 1920s - clearly made her uncomfortable.

As someone who'd grown up in a mining community, Jodie seemed to find it difficult to come to terms with her family's part in exploiting the financial opportunities such communities provided, to the detriment of the workers.

History doesn't change just because it makes us uncomfortable, however, and it's important to face the past as it is, as opposed to how we would like it to be.

Family History on TV - Wales' Black Miners and New Who Do You Think You Are? (WDYTYA?) Line-Up

 

There's some great TV shows for history fans coming up on the BBC!

Ex-Welsh footballer Nathan Blake explores the history of Wales' Black Miners tonight (5th October 2020) on BBC One Wales at 8pm.

It will be available on the iPlayer across the UK after airing.

I think it's important that we remember that Wales does have a multicultural heritage - and that BAME (Black and Minority Ethnic) people have contributed to our beautiful country, and worked alongside us, for generations.

The new series of Who Do You Think You Are? (season 17!) will start next Monday (12th October 2020) on BBC One at 9pm.

There are 4 episodes this series - I have to assume that Covid has halted their production a little - but they look like good ones!

This year's celebrities are Jodie Whittaker, the first female Doctor Who, David Walliams, actress Liz Carr and Welsh actress, writer, etc. Ruth Jones.

I'll be writing my summaries/general chats about the episodes starting next week, so look out for that!

A reminder, also, that my last date for Christmas orders is 31st October 2020.

This gives me time to actually do the research before Christmas!

Details of my packages can be on familyhistorybycerys.co.uk - please get in touch if you're interested!

Christmas Orders Are Open! (Yes, Already)

 

It's been a strange year, and if you're anything like me, you want Christmas to come sooner rather than later!

So, to give you all a chance for some hands-free shopping, I've decided to open Christmas orders a month early this year.

It's the perfect opportunity to purchase that special present without having to pick your way through concerningly claustrophobic crowds, or meander through throngs who don't seem to get the whole 'please wear a mask and stay 2 metres apart' thing.

The last day to place your orders for completion by Christmas will be 31st October 2020.

The sooner you place your order, the more time I have to make it that little bit more special!

All of my packages are researched and produced to order, meaning that every gift is unique.

Check out familyhistorybycerys.co.uk for package details, and order information, and feel free to drop me an e-mail if you have any questions.

I hope to hear from you soon!

A Voice From the Last Pandemic

I came across this article in The Aberdare Leader, 4th January 1919, reproducing part of a letter from a Welsh woman in San Francisco to her friends back home.

Some of the cultural attitudes, e.g. to the Turkish harem, are out-dated, but much of the day-to-day experience of life in a pandemic sounds extremely familiar...

WELSH LADY'S EXPERIENCE.

-

RAVAGES OF THE "FLU" IN SAN FRANCISCO.

-

   A lady resident in Wales until a 

few years ago, and who is now in

San Francisco, writes to friends here

giving details of the terrible rav-

ages of the influenza epidemic in that

far-away city. The following extract

from her letter will be of interest: -

   "Have you got the Spanish flu very

bad? It is terrible here, funerals

going by all day and the ambulance

rushing about at all hours. All pic-

ture shows, theatres, schools and

churches are closed. Our meeting

room is closed. Doctors and nurses

are dying, and we are so short of

them because so many of them have

gone to France. I do not know what

we should do if it was not for the

Red Cross. They have had to let the

women out of prison to help nurse

the sick. We have lost more soldiers

through death in the training camps

than in France fighting. Every man,

woman and child has to wear a mask

of four-fold white muslin, which cov-

ers the mouth and nose, leaving noth-

ing but the eyes to be seen. We all

look as if we had just come out of a 

Turkish harem. If a policeman

catches anyone without a mask, or

one not properly fixed, he runs them

in for 10 days, or 100 dollars fine

(£20.) All soldiers and sailors have

to wear them. They look so funny,

hundreds of them drilling with white

masks, and at night in the street cars

we look like a lot of ghosts, and do

not know our best friends. It is hard

on the girls and men in the stores:

they have to wear them all day. The

schools have been turned into hos-

pitals. All the bodies are cremated,

and the clothes which belonged to them

also.      I think that was has

saved me up to now is my being so

much in the fresh air. I have a nice

sleeping porch in my cottage with

windows all round, of which I always

have one or two open at night. Most

of the windows have been taken out

of the street cars to give us plenty

of air. It is an awful plague. I have

got my clothes all ready in case I

have to be rushed off to the hospital."

Coming To Terms With History

Most of us will have heard, by now, of the protests around statues of contentious historical figures - mostly those involved in slavery - here in the UK, and in countries such as the US.

History is not always comfortable. Much of it is brutal and bloody. Much of it involves people taking advantage of others. Sometimes it involves abhorrent institutional acts such as the slave trade, or the Holocaust.

History exists. To erase the record of the slave trade would be erasing the thousands upon thousands of people who suffered - who were bought and sold as property, despite the fact that they were people who had hopes and dreams and loves and lives. Their existence should not be denied - the record of that existence should be preserved.

How that record should be kept is something that we can, and should, discuss - though of course I suggest this through official channels, rather than through other acts of not-strictly-legal demolition.

People can and should be placed within their historical context - but that historical context needs to be full and honest. Because each of the slaves crammed onto those boats would also have had an opinion - and it wouldn't have been the same one as that discussed over tea in London drawing-rooms.

It's important to try to face, accept the horrors of, and come to terms with, even the most uncomfortable and terrible aspects of history, because what came before us has created the world in which we live.

The affects of American slavery and segregation led directly to an official system, and more than a handful of individuals within it, which often cares very little for the lives of Black people.

And, yes, Black Lives Matter.

Understanding these situations, through understanding the history, can help to change them - to start to unpick and change the flaws that 'what came before' created. And that's the most important thing today - changing things.

Because a system in which George Floyd's murder can take place with reckless and careless ease is one in need of change.

The most important thing about history is that it's about people. It's about all the lives and stories which came before us, yes, but also the lives and stories of those with us right now.

We're writing our own chapters of history right now - let's stop using blood as ink.

Some TV For History Fans

Hi everyone!

I hope everyone is doing well, enjoying their bank holiday, and keeping safe during the Lockdown.

Just thought I'd let you all know about an interesting TV series starting on BBC2 tomorrow (May 26th 2020) at 21.00 -

Each series of 'A House Through Time' focuses on a different house, and its inhabitants, throughout the history of the building.

This series' house is located in Bristol - a City with a colourful and often controversial history!

David Olusoga usually does an excellent job at presenting a careful and compassionate view of historic events - so hopefully it'll be another great series!