Who Do You Think You Are? - Diane Morgan

 

Last week's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? wrapped up the current series with actress and comedian Diane Morgan.

Diane is possibly most well-known for mocking TV history programmes by playing hapless historian Philomena Cunk - which is somewhat ironically fitting for this programme.

Diane's personality is what carries this episode forward - there was a genuine element of wondering what she would say next, with a gladness that we were coming along for the ride.

Her family's stories, though, are equally compelling. 

And it turned out that her father's ancestor, German Charlie was, (spoiler alert!) actually a German man known as Charlie - which Diane seemed more genuinely surprised at than I would have guessed.

There are also poignant moments relating to a lost love, killed on the battlefields of World War One.

The stand-out feature of the episode though, is Diane's Scottish ancestor Isabella - who had something of a reputation in her community.

It took a large amount of strength and obstinance, though, for a 19th Century woman to take a man to court over child support payments - often known as maintenance or affiliation

.

It's often surprising to people that there was a mechanism in place to provide child support for unmarried mothers - it somehow doesn't chime with our modern view of Victorian society. 

Making the father pay for the child, though, made it less likely that these children would become a 'burden' on the parish or poor law union (i.e. the state and the taxpayer) - which many saw as a win.

A lot of women were reluctant, however, to come forward and stand before a court - and often to have the details of their love lives cross-examined and then reported in the local press - due to the stigma attached to being an unmarried mother or 'ruined' woman.

To take several different men to court, then, as Isabella did, would have taken some serious gumption on her part!

All in all, this was a highly-entertaining episode to end the series with; let's hope we won't have to wait too long for the next one!

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? - Chris Ramsey

Last week's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featured comedian Chris Ramsey, who describes himself as pretty lucky.

Was his family as lucky as him? Well, they survived some pretty horrible situations - and that's pretty lucky, at the end of the day.

The luck angle is nice - but it feels a little bit forced in the editing. 

I think it's trying just a touch too hard instead of playing it cool - but that's just my opinion, of course.

Much of the episode was based around military careers - an ancestor who served in the Royal Naval Division during the First World War, and another who served in the Navy during the Second World War.

The Royal Naval Division was essentially the Navy's land-army - and it was this division that Chris' paternal great-grandfather served in.

Miraculously, he survived the action at Gallipoli in 1915, and missed the Battle of the Somme due to a case of scabies (...which probably didn't feel that lucky at the time, since scabies is pretty gruesome, but probably was grateful for in the end.)

Chris also looked into his grandfather's war service in the Second World War.

As well as being part of the gruelling Arctic convoys - and receiving a Russian medal for his service - Alf Ramsey was one of the first people to visit Nagasaki after the detonation of the second atomic bomb.

Slightly lighter fare came in the form of a lottery one of Chris' ancestors entered - and won - in order to give birth in a charity hospital.

Medical care for pregnant women is now, thankfully, pretty standard, but it wasn't always so, and Chris' ancestor had to go through both morality-based interviews, and the lottery process, in order to have the chance of giving birth in an environment which had much better survival outcomes for both mother and child than most families could dream of.

Yet another reason to appreciate the NHS.

When you think of it, we're all pretty lucky to be here at all - given what our ancestors had to go through to get us here.

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

WDYTYA? Series 18 - Pixie Lott

 

Tuesday's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featured singer Pixie Lott.

Pixie seemed to approach the whole thing with a level of eager naivety that was quite refreshing!

Originally believing her family came from Italy, the exploration of that particular part of her family soon revealed the truth.

Pixie's family had, indeed, been part of an Italian church in London. But they were Irish. They worshipped at that church because it was their nearest Catholic church. 

Which shows how things can become muddled, years later, in the telling. 

It's also entirely possible, if not likely, that Pixie's relatives had picked up some words of Italian during their time worshipping with their Italian congregation - which may have further muddied the details passed down in the family.

The reality of the lives of Pixie's ancestors, as it was for so many Irish immigrants in the 19th Century, was extreme poverty.

Pixie learned that they ended up in and out of the workhouse, and was understandably upset to learn the policies regarding families in most workhouses - children separated from parents, boys separated from girls, and sometimes younger children separated from older children.

Children could also be sent to different workhouses, or to foster homes, without their parents being consulted, and sometimes not even notified.

Workhouses may have been the start of our welfare system, but the Victorian view of poverty and the poor often lacked humanity.

We jumped around quite a bit with this episode, also touching on the World War One POW status of one of Pixie's ancestors on the Lott side of her family.

Many people forget that there were POWs in the First World War, as well as the Second, and what many of these, mostly men, suffered was deeply traumatic and incredibly horrible.

We ended on a much brighter note though, with Pixie finding several of her military forebears also had musical ability, being members of the military band.

A reminder that while it may be too late for Christmas orders, Christmas gift certificates are still available! You can find more details here.

WDYTYA? series 18 - Dame Judi Dench

 

Last Tuesday's episode of Who Do You Think Are? (WDYTYA?) series 18 featured actress Dame Judi Dench.

Judi Dench's episode moved from talking about her father's First World War experiences to discussing her mother's illustrious ancestors, both of which were interesting stories, and the movement from one to the other not feeling as awkward as these things often do.

The affecting story of her father's service in World War One is a reminder that, despite ending over a hundred years ago, it has only very recently passed from living memory.

Finding out what her father had been through was clearly very emotional for Judi, which is totally understandable.

Sometimes the most hard-hitting things we find when researching family history are about the people we personally knew and loved.

When the episode moved on to Dench's maternal family, it became clear that not only was she the descendant of Irish nobility, but also of Danish nobility.

What made me laugh was that she seemed quite annoyed no-one had known this before - how dare nobody remember back several centuries?!

It all got a bit Hamlet there for a while - Denmark and Elsinore and lords and ladies of the court.

The coincidence of Hamlet being Judi Dench's debut (as Ophelia) just goes to show that history can be a funny thing sometimes - and repeat itself in the strangest of ways!

A reminder that the very last date to get in touch for Christmas orders from Family History By Cerys is 1st November 2021. More details here. 

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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.

1918-2018 11.11

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

- Anthem For Doomed Youth, Wilfred Owen

One hundred years on from the moment when the guns finally fell silent, it's too easy to forget just how young the boys were who died in the First World War - many of the fallen were teenagers, or in their early twenties.

Of all the beautiful and touching memorials we've seen this year, I think one of the most haunting and the most poignant is the 'ghost sculptures' in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, standing guard at the graves of the young men buried there.

WDYTYA? - Lee Mack

Lee Mack's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? aired on Monday, starting us off with Lee finding out about his fellow comedian, ancestor Billy Mac.

Billy's story encompassed both variety/music hall performances, and the Western Front in World War One.

Billy performed with a gallows-humour style comedy troupe called 'The Optimists' on the front lines.




Also part of Lee's episode was a look at his maternal family in Ireland.

Life wasn't that easy for his ancestors, and Lee was perhaps a little quick to judge an unmarried mother who emigrated to Canada while leaving her son in her parents' care.

Often, family members who emigrated would send money home to their relatives - additionally, not having her as another mouth to feed would also have benefitted the family financially.

Of course, not knowing the exact circumstances, it may have been just as Lee suspected at first - or something else entirely.

That's the thing about trying to understand the actions of people in the past - without more context, it can be very difficult to understand how acceptable something was.

Lee did begin to wonder whether he was being too harsh, and judging his ancestor too much by modern standards, when the conditions and economic difficulties his family were in became clearer - it can be worthwhile to understand that survival is often the top motivating factor behind the actions of our forebears!

WDYTYA? - Fearne Cotton

Fearne Cotton's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featured two ancestors involved in the medical profession.

From both her maternal and paternal families, these were men who struggled through poverty to follow their desire to help those in need.

In the case of her paternal great-grandfather, this was something that led not only to work in medicine - but also to a prison cell.

Conscientious Objectors in WW1 were imprisoned and punished severely for their beliefs. For many, the stigma never left them.

Still, the coal miner from Abertillery stuck to his principles.

And he made it through. He trained as a chemist, and lived out his life in that profession.





On her mother's side, Fearne traced the life of another chemist, an Irishman who later became a doctor.

Although, 'became' indicates that he trained as a doctor... in his case, it was more like, 'decided he was a doctor, so now he was a doctor, ok?'

Still, he was apparently a skilled one!

WDYTYA? Catch-Up Post - Cheryl, Ricky Tomlinson, Sir Ian McKellan, and Greg Davies

Looks like I got a little behind on these - ironically, I'm a genealogist with very little time at the moment!

Anyway, let's just give you a short round-up of the episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? that've aired since my last post, and then we can get back on track for the last two!

Cheryl (Tweedy, Cole, Fernandez-Versini,) found that she truly is Geordie through-and-through, with family based around the docks of the North-East, and a tragedy related to their seafaring profession.



Ricky Tomlinson discovered his connections to his working-class Liverpudlian ancestors, and the beginnings of worker's rights - something which he himself has been a passionate advocate for.



Sir Ian McKellen's was another tale of the apple not falling far from the tree, as he discovered that his family had an acting past that he had never known about.

Oddly enough, the various experts in theatre history seemed just slightly thrilled to meet him!



Greg Davies' family story was one I recognised - I've been researching similar stories of Welsh ancestry for over a decade now. Granted, I've never come across medieval royalty in any of the trees I've researched! (Yet! I live in hope.)

There's also plenty of family skeletons in Greg's tree (metaphorical ones,) including illegitimacy (which wasn't as uncommon in the 19th Century as you might think,) and running to the Rhondda to avoid scandal (as you do.)






The next (and last) three episodes of WDYTYA? will feature Warwick Davis (I love him!), Sunetra Sarker and Sophie Raworth.

The Somme

Today is the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme.

I know I haven't blogged much lately (I've been very busy - sorry!) but I really wanted to take the chance to commemorate this date.

The Battle lasted from 1st July 1916 to 18th November 1916, and it was truly terrible.

This is something that we shouldn't forget - perhaps not out of a sense of national pride, but instead out of a sense of sorrow for so many lives cut needlessly short.

The memory of those events should not fade - not because the Battle should be emulated, or glorified, but because we should never forget the terrible cost of war, and what happens when games are played with men's lives.

We have a duty to these men and boys to remember them. And I hope we will.

If you want to learn more about the Somme, the CWGC have a dedicated website you can visit, and the BBC has an excellent iWonder page to explore.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly

 

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

 

John McCrae

 

 

 

There is an excellent webpage about John McCrae, the author of 'In Flanders Fields' and a Canadian military doctor, on the greatwar.co.uk website. John McCrae was killed in 1918, and is buried in Wimereux Communal Cemetery.

The WW1 Christmas Ad

I assume you've seen this year's Sainsbury's ad - most people have. It reminds everyone of the Christmas truce of course - that time in 1914 where they were no longer Germans or British (or whatever other nationality - there were, after all, many other countries providing soldiers) but just men. Or, more accurately, boys. So many were under 30, and even under 20.

I'm a little torn about this event being used to publicise a supermarket - millions died, so buy your sparkling wine here, seems a little odd to be honest; on the other hand, many will see it as a lovely tribute - the advert itself was fairly good, after all. What do you think? Do you feel that it's appropriate? Inappropriate? Somewhere in the middle?

WW1 Commemorations

There's a lot of resources now available to learn about and commemorate the First World War.

If you want to learn more there's a couple of sites that it might be worth you looking at. For some striking images, I recommend the Google Cultural Institute page. Whereas, for a look at all sorts of aspects of the First World War, including remembrance, artwork, interactive guides, and resources for schools and pupils, you need not look further than the BBC History World War One homepage.

I hope you find in an interest in WW1 - and perhaps your family's part in it - that lasts beyond this week.

A Quick Note of Remembrance

Just a note of remembrance on the centenary of Britain's entrance to the First World War for those millions of souls who would lose their lives in the years to come. 'In Flanders fields the poppies grow.'

image courtesy of njaj/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A Beautiful Tribute

Hey,

I came across this beautiful act of remembrance to commemorate world war one at the Tower of London while surfing online and decided I had to show you all. I think it's a fantastic and beautiful idea, what do you think?

Computer Says No

I read about Wales Online's research tool in today's Western Mail and decided to see how good it was by typing in the name of a relative I already know was a Welsh WW1 soldier. Nothing happened. There was no search, no results, no sign that it was even doing anything.

For now, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that so many people have been trying to use it that it's crashed or something. I'll try it again soon and let you know what happens.

Looks Like A Job For A Woman

Image courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The British Red Cross' Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) were an integral part of the medical system for wounded soldiers of the first world war. Many VADs were women, ready to help the wounded. 11,000 women of the general service section of the VADs took over the jobs of men who went abroad to fight - this included cooks, clerks, and storekeepers. VADs also undertook air raid duties in London (there were air raids in the First World War as well as the Second.)

So the women kept the country moving, and when the men returned, they were expected to go back to being wives and mothers (much as like the Second World War.) There was a step forward for women's rights however, women would soon by granted the vote. Their voices would soon be heard.

If you want to know more about VADs, you can take a look at the Red Cross website.

War Snippets - Our Four-legged and Feathered Friends

My great-grandfather's regiment (likely to be his main regiment, the mounted military police,) with a puppy in the front row

The animals of world war one also deserve a little recognition. Of course, the success of War Horse has raised the profile of these deserving animal friends, but there's still very little the public knows about the animal contribution to the war. There's an interesting overview of the Blue Cross' involvement with war horses here. Many officers used horses as a means of transport around the trenches, with some regiments - such as the Mounted Military Police - generally riding horses, regardless of rank.

Pigeons also served as messengers in both wars, risking their lives to deliver messages and keep the lines of communication going. Thousands served and died in the first world war alone.

Dogs also worked as messengers, as well as carrying aid, sniffing out soldiers, and acting as watchdogs. Several also helped carry equipment such as machine guns. As well as, of course, the odd regimental mascot. Thousands of dogs served in the trenches in one capacity or another, as many as 7000 had previously been pets.

War Snippets

Another one of my interesting newspaper finds folks, and hopefully one which will show yet another view of the first world war.

I came across an ad in the Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard on 15th June 1917, which reads:

You are tired of reading about the War and

THE KAISER

Read this and Learn how you can SAVE MONEY

 

The Executors of the late MR. J THOMAS

are offering for Sale the whole of the Stock

of Jewellery, Silver Goods, and Electro-Plate

at a REDUCTION OF 3s. IN THE £.

If you would like to secure some Real Bargains

It will pay you

 

TO VISIT

 

Us, and see our Fine Selection of Goods.

Watches and Clocks of every description.

Many Special Bargains at LESS THAN COST.

Any Purchaser bringing this Advertisement

will be allowed a Special Discount of

4s. IN THE £.

 

NOTE THE ADDRESS-                                                          

18, GREAT DARKGATE STREET

 

ABERYSTWYTH

 

Turns out that people will never miss the chance for some unique marketing!