But What Is Genealogy?

 

Image: Tentes/Pixabay

A lot of people have never even heard of genealogy.

So I thought I'd take everything back to basics and explain a little of what it is that I do.

Genealogy is, simply, the study of family history - of lines of descent and 'pedigree.'

Your line of descent is your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, etc. going back in time until you reach a point when you can't find any more (accurate) information.

Centuries ago, nobility would hire genealogists to draw up family trees showing their lineage (and therefore how posh they were and whether they could use the family coat of arms!)

Over time it's become more than just a long list of ancestors and their perceived 'good breeding,' and more about the stories that family trees contain.

Family history creates a real and tangible connection between us and the history that we hear about at school or in documentaries.

It's one thing to hear about the industrial revolution, and another to learn about an ancestor who was killed in dangerous working conditions, or a relative who lost children to the extreme poverty and disease of the Victorian slums.

It makes a difference to know that we wouldn't be alive today if these series of events hadn't taken place in the ways that they did.

Family history - genealogy - makes history personal, because it is.

We are the result of all the historical events that came before us - products of chance and circumstance - without history, each of us, as individuals, would not be here, and would not be the people who we are today.

WDYTYA? series 18 - Ed Balls

 

The last episode of this series of Who Do You Think You Are? featured ex-politician and now-documentary-maker Ed Balls.

Ed was quick to find the potential political, moral, and social angles of his ancestor's stories - which in many places wasn't exactly difficult.

After discovering that stories of a Scottish ancestor seem founded only on her surname - a common pitfall in family history - Ed found that the family's story of a surgeon in the Royal Navy, at least, was accurate.

…Well, mostly.

Some of the finer details - like serving on HMS Victory some years after Trafalgar, not during - had clearly gotten mixed-up in the two centuries that followed.

Again, this is fairly common - two hundred years is a long time to keep any straight, after all!

Ed clearly struggled when it came to the other parts of his surgeon ancestor, William Dunbar's, life, though.

Back on dry land, William Dunbar worked as surgeon to a workhouse embroiled in abuse and cruelty scandals. 

It's not clear from the available information how much responsibility lay with Dunbar, and how much with the master of the workhouse, but both were ultimately cleared of the manslaughter of inmates of the workhouse.

Then came the scandal that brought Dunbar's time at the workhouse to an end - the married Dunbar tried to kiss the workhouse's school mistress.

The workhouse's school mistress also happened to be the 16-year-old daughter of the master of the workhouse.

Ed was understandably appalled, although in the 1840s her age would probably (in the opinion of most people,) have taken a backseat to the fact that he was married, and she was the boss' daughter.

The other main family story followed in this episode was that of Ed's agricultural labourer ancestor, who became involved in campaigns of unrest against local farmers in Norfolk.

Whether Ed's ancestor was a rioter or a protester probably depends on the perspective. The destruction of farm machinery gave way to arson, so there was a very definite escalation in the methods being used.

Still, it was also a fascinating look at the petty crimes - including sheep-stealing - which carried the death penalty in this country at the time.

And that's the last of this series! A decent one, all in all.

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 - Joe Sugg

 

Social media star and TV presenter Joe Sugg was the featured celebrity for Tuesday's episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, with his sister Zoe Sugg, aka Zoella, appearing in brief cameos.

Joe's episode spanned a range of stories from his family's history - telegram operators from Jersey and prominent goldsmiths being among them.

Much of Joe's episode, though, centred on his Huguenot (French Protestant) refugee ancestors.

Huguenots were persecuted by the Catholic majority and governance in France in waves of conflict and persecution from the late 1500s through to the late 1700s.

To avoid having their children forcibly taken from them in the night - as so many in their town had suffered - Joe's family made a desperate decision to send the children to Jersey, which was then and is now a dependency of Britain. Protestants trying to leave France was in itself illegal at this time.

Having smuggled all of the children out, their parents later came to join them, and started their new lives on Jersey.

Joe was surprised to find wealth and status in the family in the form of the Austen and Wapshare lines.

William Sandford Wapshare, a clergyman of Salisbury cathedral, married Cooth Anna Austen in 1813.

Though the episode didn't mention it, a quick search shows that William and Cooth's marriage was written about in one of Jane Austen's letters; whether there was any family connection is unclear, but Jane appeared to know the Wapshare family - probably through the clerical connection, as Jane's father was a member of the clergy - even if the Austen surname itself was coincidence.

Going further back in time, Joe learned about John Austen, a prominent London goldsmith.

John actually became a leading member of the Goldsmiths' Company - the livery company that served as a guild for the goldsmiths of London.

The description of John's estate - with diamonds and jewels which today would be worth millions - was a slightly dazzling snapshot into the level of wealth and precious materials he was dealing with day-in and day-out.

A good episode, with Ed Balls up next week to finish the series.

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 - 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 - Joe Lycett

 

Comedian and TV presenter Joe Lycett was the featured celebrity of last Tuesday's Who Do You Think You Are? episode.

Joe presents the Great British Sewing Bee - which might be part of the reason for the eclectic range of bright and cheerful clothing he wore throughout this episode; it was very on-brand!

Most of Joe's episode was focussed on one particular ancestor, Robert Wilkins.

Though there were brief forays into another ancestor's connection to 'the Buffs' - The Royal Antediluvian Order of the Buffaloes - which were fairly entertaining, if only to see Joe Lycett being entirely unsure how to react to any of this.

Robert Wilkins' life was akin to something out of a novel.

A child chimney-sweep, turned Royal Marine, turned officially labelled 'lunatic', who then went on to run a country pub.

If someone wrote his life as a novel, they would be criticised for the lack of believability - history really can be stranger than fiction!

Overall, this was a good episode.

As well as Joe Lycett's general unpredictability and entertainment value, we also got to hear a compelling story, complete with details of social history surrounding Britain's involvement with and aggression towards China in the 19th Century, and the willingness of some wealthy people to continue to use child labour up their chimneys past the point where it was made illegal.

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

Christmas Gift Certificates Available!

 

It may be too late to place Christmas orders, but you can still get that special gift of family history for your loved ones, with personalised gift certificates.

Just get in touch by 6pm GMT on 24th December 2021 for e-mailed, printable, certificates (or by 6pm GMT on 17th December 2021 for certificates by post (UK only.))

My Branch (£250 + £15 P&P) and Double-Branch (£450 + £15 P&P) packages make for beautiful gifts, printed in paperback-book format as standard.

The Branch package follows one surname (one family line) of your choosing, whereas the Double-Branch follows two.

Larger projects can be arranged - just drop me an e-mail at the e-mail address on my order information page, and we can discuss options.

So, that's 6pm on 24th December 2021 for gift certificates by e-mail, or 6pm on 17th December 2021 for certificates by post.

WDYTYA? Series 18 - Alex Scott

Last Tuesday's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featured Alex Scott - ex-footballer and TV presenter.

Alex is a biracial Black woman, with interesting and strong characters on all sides of her family.

Her episode focussed on both her maternal and paternal lines of ancestry - i.e. her mother's and her father's sides of her family.

Alex was surprised to learn that on her mother's side of the family, she had Russian (Lithuanian) Jewish ancestors, who lived in London's East End.

The exploration of the threat of fascism and police brutality against Jewish immigrants in the 1930s was, as she herself points out, something that should be more prominent in the nation's memory.

This is something that happened in living memory, and forgetting the amount of support Hitler and the Nazis had in this country is something that we cannot afford to do.

Alex also explored her Jamaican family from her father's side of the family, being especially interested in the family of her beloved grandmother.

Much of this part of the family was a story of hardships and survival.

But there was also some uncomfortable history to contend with.

One of Alex's ancestors was a person of colour - in these circumstances, a light-skinned Black person, possibly with white ancestry - who owned slaves.

This can be hard to fathom, but the embedding of slavery within societies was deep and complex, and free people of colour - especially those with some white ancestry, or of a certain social status - often owned slaves.

It can be difficult to reconcile the events of the past with our morality in the present. 

Alex was clearly struggling with the revelations, and it's something many British and Commonwealth Black people have to contend with - the complex feelings attached to being descended from both slaves and slave owners.

Still, Alex faced her family's history as it was - knowing the past can be a powerful thing, no matter the ups and downs.

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. 

Get in touch by 6pm GMT to avoid disappointment