Excitement ripples through every word when our special guest, Dr Nick Barratt, an esteemed genealogist and medieval historian, known for TV shows such as Who Do You Think You Are?, weaves tales of his intriguing journey into the world of genealogy. Unravelling family mysteries, Nick's fascinating discoveries about his own lineage are a testament not only to the power of DNA in genealogical research but also to our shared human curiosity about our roots. From unearthing his great-uncle's pre-Cold War Soviet connections to revealing his grandmother's hidden past, Nick's personal journey towards understanding his family history is a story you surely wouldn't want to miss.
The conversation takes a profound turn as Michala and Nick delve into the emotional and transformative power of genealogy. Beyond data and DNA, they explore the human element in the quest for ancestral knowledge. They reflect on the emotional challenges that can arise when researching family history, the importance of understanding why we delve into our past, and how these insights can shape our present. As they navigate through this thought-provoking discussion, Nick shares how genealogy can bridge communities, give a voice to the forgotten, and offer us the opportunity to make a difference.
As we approach the final chapter of this episode, the intricacies of TV research and personal family history come to light. Offering a fun twist to the conversation, Nick reveals his dream dinner guests from his family tree and his chosen menu for the occasion. Prepare to be enthralled by this captivating blend of history, genealogy, and personal narratives as we embark on this unforgettable journey into the past.
Excitement ripples through every word when our special guest, Dr Nick Barratt, an esteemed genealogist and medieval historian, known for TV shows such as Who Do You Think You Are?, weaves tales of his intriguing journey into the world of genealogy. Unravelling family mysteries, Nick's fascinating discoveries about his own lineage are a testament not only to the power of DNA in genealogical research but also to our shared human curiosity about our roots. From unearthing his great-uncle's pre-Cold War Soviet connections to revealing his grandmother's hidden past, Nick's personal journey towards understanding his family history is a story you surely wouldn't want to miss.
The conversation takes a profound turn as Michala and Nick delve into the emotional and transformative power of genealogy. Beyond data and DNA, they explore the human element in the quest for ancestral knowledge. They reflect on the emotional challenges that can arise when researching family history, the importance of understanding why we delve into our past, and how these insights can shape our present. As they navigate through this thought-provoking discussion, Nick shares how genealogy can bridge communities, give a voice to the forgotten, and offer us the opportunity to make a difference.
As we approach the final chapter of this episode, the intricacies of TV research and personal family history come to light. Offering a fun twist to the conversation, Nick reveals his dream dinner guests from his family tree and his chosen menu for the occasion. Prepare to be enthralled by this captivating blend of history, genealogy, and personal narratives as we embark on this unforgettable journey into the past.
Hello and welcome back to an Earth the Past, a brand new family history and genealogy podcast presented by me, dr M'kaya Hume. We are actually about 15 episodes in an hour, so I don't know how long I can keep saying. A brand new genealogy and family history podcast, for I think you guys are probably thinking it's not that new. But anyway, thank you so much for tuning in every week. I really really appreciate it. When I started this, I just thought it would be me talking to myself about genealogy, so I really appreciate all your interaction and your messages. Please keep them coming. If you want to contact me, you do so via my website, which is wwwm'kayacom.
Speaker 1:Now have we got a special guest in the studio, ladies and gentlemen, this week. Here's the reason, or part of the reason, I do genealogy, because when I first started there was no sort of TV genealogist and this guy for me broke them all. Can I just say a massive, massive welcome to the podcast to Dr Nick Barrett. Nick, thank you so, so much. You are an inspiration to me. Let me tell you back in the day the who do you think you are? You didn't get genealogists on TV, just didn't, did you. You got historians, you know, like Michael Woodson, whoever, but you very rarely got TV genealogists, and for me you were the first, so I am so grateful that you've decided to come on the podcast and chat to me today about all things genealogy and family history.
Speaker 2:That is so kind of you I don't know what to say because I would probably disagree with all of that. I'm just do my stuff. You're nice, it's too nice, too nice, too nice. Look, I'm a medieval historian as well and I think that's where some of this imposter syndrome has stayed with me for many years, because I may have been presented as this genealogist, but I think most people have been doing genealogy for 30, 40 years but have looked at me back then in 2004.
Speaker 2:I said who's this upstart coming on with his Nairs and Graces without a single genealogy credential to his name? So I think you know it's an interesting story about how you might see me as that now or maybe even back then, where for me, working on that series for the first time, we did the first bits of research 2002, 2003,. It was a learning curve. I mean, I've done a lot of house history on TV before and research methodology I guess doesn't change too much. But it's really interesting that I'm now being badger as a genealogist, whereas back then I said you've got to be kidding me. I'm a medieval historian, so if the cat fits I'll wear it. But it's very kind, thanks.
Speaker 1:So let's start then, right back at the beginning. So when did you so? I obviously know you're a historian Most people that listen to this podcast will know that I'm a 19th century historian but what led me down that path was actually genealogy, family history. I'm really nosy, nick. I just wanted to know more about my ancestors in the Victorian period. I wanted to know what they had for lunch, what the house was like, who potentially they may have voted for. My path down the 19th century history route is purely because I'm a nosy parker. What got you then interested in history? I suppose before the genealogy.
Speaker 2:Oh well, look, that goes back to when I was at school and they were just. This really dates me, by the way. They were just bringing in this new hybrid sort of qualification which would become GCSE. So back then there was a GCEO level and a CSE, and they decided to put a little bit more hands on practice as they started to merge the two things together. So I got to do a house history module at school, which got me out of the classroom. How cool is that? That was just great fun.
Speaker 2:No more messing around and listening to people talk to me about old, dead people. I can actually go into the local area and research who lived and who built these houses. Now, the house or the street they chose was great because it was right next to where I lived. So I actually saw half the houses being built anyway, which gave me a bit of a head start, and I knew some of the people. So that got me talking to them. So I went to people's doors, knocked on. How long have you been living there? What can you remember? Real oral history, social history. So at the time I didn't know it, but I was building those skills that would serve me in really good stead later on.
Speaker 2:So I got this fascination for not so much the big picture stuff but the nitty gritty of how things fitted together. You know why, would you think? Building houses right next to a railway line? Well, of course the population's expanded. Who would live there? Well, it was much cheaper, so people would go there to retire. They also didn't hear the trains as much. You know all sorts of stuff they're telling me these anecdotes about oh were there trains? You know fantastic. And then they tell me about their lives and where they'd been from before. So you know, absolutely great. That really got me curious. Like you, I was nosy too, wanted to find stuff out what was behind that front door. So it was as much about the bricks and mortar and the houses and streets as it was about the people. The people, I guess, came later. And that curiosity and wanting to be a bit different stood me all the way through university.
Speaker 2:Who chooses to do 13th century state finance and fiscal history as a PhD? For goodness sake, you know, you've got to have a perverse sense of interest to immerse yourself in those records. They're in Latin as well, which doesn't help, but yeah, you just find yourself exploring things because you can, and sort of meandered from my PhD which left me very unemployable, it must be said into the National Archives or public record office, as it was back in the day, initially in the medieval team, and then a researcher came up and wanted to find out how to trace the history of this house and I thought, oh great, I can remember all this stuff from school and showed them how to do it. And then they revealed they were working on a TV series called House Detective so this is late 90s and asked me if I could go along and help out the production. And that's how I started out in TV doing houses, and the people came much later.
Speaker 1:So on that then, I think, have you progressed to do in your own family tree.
Speaker 2:Yes, but the but is that it was a consequence of? Who do you think you are not as a precursor? And you know, I must admit there was a bit of me, when I was working at the National Archives, thinking, wow, these people coming in spending time looking at their relatives, you know, is this proper history? You know, I'll put it out that I thought that back in the day, but actually the more I helped them, the more I realized there was something really profound about what they were doing. You know, it was unwritten history. This was stuff that no one would find in a history textbook. You know that, going back to my school days, that unearthing the past on your doorstep, so there was something really quite authentic about that.
Speaker 2:Secondly, the sophistication. I mean you know the audience knows just how many research techniques you use, how far back you go, all the various sources. Yes, there's a lot digitized. Of course, there's so much more that isn't online. And then the layers and the nuances. Not just tracing people, you trace where they live, their house, their street, the social history, the way they work, their employment history, the big local and national events that swept through their communities, those changes that so upset people's lives. You know, that was really fantastic, really detailed.
Speaker 2:You could make a case that anyone who's done an extended piece of genealogical research over many years would be eligible for a PhD. After all. It's a unique contribution to history, isn't it? I mean, that's the criteria, also the criteria. So my interest was always there. But it's one of those bussments holidays. Once I got started on who Do you Think you Are and spent goodness knows how many years researching celebrities, I never found the time for my own. So it's only over the last five, six years, seven years, that I've really got into great detail, mainly because DNA has come along and changed the way we can investigate and find things out. So yeah, a latecomer, but I still feel I've had my who Do you Think you Are moments, finding a Soviet spy on my father's side and eventually unlocking the story of my mysterious, illegitimate grandmother, born in Belgium in 1911. So yeah, it's been great fun.
Speaker 1:Can I just pick you up on that? So I read an article that you wrote in the Guardian about how you were shocked to discover that you had a spy in your family history. Can you tell us about that, nick, and what a discovery that was? How did you find that out?
Speaker 2:Well, it's one of those moments of both serendipity and other people in the family being the recognised family historian, so you don't have to do the work yourself. So it's often the case that the answers were there in plain sight. No one knew what had happened to this mysterious brother. He had two sisters, which is where our families had descended from, but no one thought to look into him. He didn't have any kids of his own died. No one thought to look at the death certificates which revealed he eventually died of suicide. But it was by chance that a file with his name on it was released by the National Archives and then was digitised. So, of course, out of curiosity, there's that curiosity Again you pile in, have a look and it came from a really obscure part of the catalogue KV2, which when you start and all historians should do this, by the way to look at what the series is and the governing department that it came from and all the various history, the admin history, you realise that it was part of the Secret Service, it was MI5. So I immediately thought fantastic, it's James Bond, he's going to be the spy master and I can die now on that. And then you realise that these were people under surveillance by MI5 and that possibly this wasn't such a great story. So it was another moment. But some of that had already been discovered by one of my Godfathers family, because they were related from the same sisters. So a little bit of it had been done already. But it was only when I started to unpick and look at the circumstances of the period and the names and then follow those threads that you realise that this wasn't just a Soviet spy. This was pre-Cold War era, this was 1920s, 1930s. And actually, if you follow the threads even further, if it wasn't for people like my great uncle, ernest Holloway-Ultam, the Soviets would not have changed tack and gone to ideological recruitment. They preferred finding weak and broken people and pressing on those fracture lines and paying the money until they broke, which was the story of my great uncle. So then it became even more revelatory oh, my goodness, if it wasn't for him, all this other stuff possibly wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2:One of those what-if moments of history. So it was quite exciting doing the research, but there was that moment where you think, oh, what must it have been like for him? You step out of the research thrill and you begin to think of the people and you know, as I've said in the book, that it turned into. You can't help but feel revulsion for what he did.
Speaker 2:His actions in passing secrets to the Soviets probably cost people their lives. You can't hide from that. But equally you can't hide from the fact that his experiences after the First World War, when he came back from his promotion but internal politics cast him as sides and that's the seeds of this sort of anger against the establishment and the system. He should have been a war hero, but actually he was treated pretty shabbily by his employer. That's not to condone his actions, but it's to contextualize them. And in his last days, when he either took his life or was killed by one of the various factions trying to control him, it must have been a pretty desperate and lonely existence. You know the wretched end to a wretched life. And there's a human story at the heart of all of the things that were on Earth, and it just reminded me of that a lot more.
Speaker 1:How did you grapple with that? I think when we all look into our past, we all hope you know that our ancestors, for example, were not in a workhouse, that they had a pretty financially you know, I don't know stable life. We kind of want good things, don't we? When we look into our past.
Speaker 2:For me. It was quite exciting. I'd be quite blunt about that. It was exciting to find out. I've got this really incredible story and I went to town on it and I searched it a bit more because no one alive could remember him. I guess my uncle was alive at the time, but it didn't have any immediate repercussions. It wasn't in anyone's direct line. It was that sort of you know great uncle, the black sheep of the family.
Speaker 2:However, I do have more empathy with the search I've been doing for my grandmother who was born illegitimately in 1911 in Knoch. It turns out we didn't know that in Belgium and my mother would always want to know about her backstory and my grandmother would never tell her because she said well, I'm illegitimate, that's all you need to know. There was a clear stigma that she associated with that and refused to tell anyone anything. Now she might not have known anything and from what we found there's probably a good reason for that. But we talk about people in our DNA. My grandmother's biological father Skip, germany in 1911, finding out that he got this other girl pregnant, went to the States, married out there, got involved with the Chicago mafia, ditched his wife, moved to Sacramento when things got a bit hot but continued to run the lines back into Chicago until that got tricky. He was eventually put into San Quentin Prison where the whole story began to unravel. He was revealed as an impostor, a bigamist, a convict in felon for various frauds, you know. So you could argue that's in my direct line of DNA. Now, I found that fascinating for this tasteful. My mother was less than impressed because she somehow felt that this was part of her immediate story. So I guess it comes down to generational ownership. And for me I guess, because I do this professionally, I can detach myself from some of it. You know I still pick around the edges, but every now and again you catch yourself.
Speaker 2:I come back from Chitzi, france and Belgium.
Speaker 2:Until we went to Knoch, where she was born, there wasn't a trace of the house where we know she was born, on Lipenslan, la Ville de Sante, where we think mothers would go to give up their children for adoption, and we think she was then brought back in 1914, 15, when the war broke out, and was fostered.
Speaker 2:And you can't help but think what a terrible, terrible childhood this poor, unwanted child had, to the point where in the 1921 census thank goodness that data set survived. We have her placed in a private school in Swanley, not far from where her real mother was living, who had disowned her with the note saying born in Belgium, belgian national. Both parents dead, but they were clearly alive and keeping an eye on her for various reasons. How cruel is that? So you do occasionally feel the blood rising and the frustration and anger with some of these decisions, even with the detachment of a professional researcher, especially if it's quite close to home. And yeah, it does pose some very difficult conversations when those closer to us have done things that we would just be ashamed of or horrified by if they were to happen today.
Speaker 1:In terms of records. Do you have a favourite record, or a record that is, you know that you? Sort of go from the past, or you're like, if I can just find one here.
Speaker 2:So the flippant answer is I love the pipe for Elson, the 13th century, but that's not what you want to hear. I guess my favourite never heard of source that genealogists can use a little bit more of are the 1910 valuation of this record, the National Archives. They double up for me as a way of validating stuff in 1911 and actions of bridge back to 1901, because it's sequential. These records were created for tax yes, I am a financial historian, I can't get away from it and they were intended to create a map of all rateable property in England, wales, parts of Scotland from 1910, 11 onwards. So this is right on the cusp of the 1911 census. You've got detailed information about every property where people lived rateable value, number of rooms, data, form of sale. So it's great because you've got the maps, you've got the documents and therefore it doubles up as both house history and family history and very few genealogists.
Speaker 2:I might be doing a terrible generalization to service to people there. Very few people actually look at them because they're only now just being digitised. So it is quite tricky to actually go to an archive these days and look the stuff up Back in the old days. That's what we did all the time. So they are a fantastic gateway, not just for the records that are online, but also for a different style of genealogy, the social history. You can pour over the ordinance survey maps which were used to compile the hereditment numbers for the field books, which then tell you all about the people and the place you can see. You know where the house is fairly new, what was going on in the area. That just is such a fantastic resource. I guess has to be my longstanding favourite.
Speaker 1:I still have a pencil in my rucksack and a pencil sharpener, because you never know, do you, when you might get caught out. I think a lot of people just tend to realise so much on the internet and look rightly so you know, if you can pick somebody up. On the census, you can generally go back to 1841, you've got slightly unusual name from your living room, but nothing takes a place. Does it go into the archives? Scrolling through their archives catalogue Often they are online, but sometimes they are quite difficult to decipher Filling in your card, handing it in, waiting for this horrendously big book to come, you might have to wear white gloves, depending on how old the book is.
Speaker 1:You'll probably end up with red stuff, by the way, all over your hands. And then you've got your pencil. I think most records office do allow laptops now, but in the olden days it was just a pencil. Whoa pens are so forbidden and you could, you know, write away with your pencil. And it took the day, take a little pat lunch. But it was all part of the experience of genealogy and research in the past.
Speaker 2:I miss it. I'm very much a traditionalist and I mean my goodness, through the pandemic, thank goodness we've had so many digitised records to keep ourselves busy over the years. But somewhere I'm just looking at my pencil collection. Yes, I have a pencil collection. I have one of the original public record office red pencils you could buy in the bookshop at Chancery Lane not even the place that we now go to in Cuba in Chancery Lane. It's your badge of honour, really.
Speaker 2:There's something that concerns me about the post pandemic way of accessing records, because many archives now require you to pre-order your material. Now, one of the great research skills you call it serendipity, you call it luck, you call it perseverance and diligence is getting that book out with the crumbling leather spine and the rest of it. That's the thing right now. So if that's there, I need to get these three items and you could order them in the day and you get them out and that's your research trail and until you'd looked at that first item, you simply would not know and there might be nothing. You need to order the next few. You can't do that if you're pre-ordering. It simply is not the same style of research. It is a real risk to not just genealogy but all forms of historical research, and you know we're losing something valuable.
Speaker 2:Having said that, obviously online access is fantastic and I don't underplay the huge challenge facing our archival sector in Making sure that this valuable historic material is available to us. I'm not having a go or a pop at anyone there, but it is so important that these research skills are at the forefront of what we do Otherwise. You know it's search engine. You're putting in some names, you're getting some normal names out. That's not very satisfactory. As you said, you can zip back to the 19th century quite quickly, but are you actually working at what those people are? Who are they? Where do they live? That's when you go into the archive and it's fun, it's magical, it's exciting. You get that detective thriller, that chase. It's brilliant, and I do miss that not doing as much of it as I have done recently. So, yeah, it is great, fun and that you recall moment where people I found it and the silent search room suddenly a lit up with these cries of excitement and delight.
Speaker 1:I Was in the Liverpool records office and I was trying to find somebody's Birth parents. Dad was doing the paternal life and I'd ordered what they call Bastidi books, and the Bastidi books are if the father the alleged father had been proven that he was actually the dad and he was ordered to pay maintenance. It was recorded in the book. They were like a family court record, I suppose, but they are actually called Bastidi books and I was searching through these books and I didn't quite know the year. Potentially she may have tried to take him to court. I didn't even know, actually, if the mother had tried to take him to court. It was just, you know, on the off chance. And I searched through three years, nick, of these records. It was hours and hours and hours and I'm not gonna lie. I think I did the biggest yes in the you know, when everyone's really quiet and you know, probably people are doing whatever they're doing, and I did the biggest yes because I managed to find him.
Speaker 1:She had Identified a person that was the father. This was before DNA. She identified a person, father, and she had taken into court and he did have to pay money up until the child was 16. It was a few pence a week, but it was. It was just going through and go and when you honestly Genealogy, there's so many highs and these lows don't get me wrong, you hit brick walls, but the highs make you all the worth doing, don't they? And then lead you on to something else.
Speaker 2:They do not just for yourself, but when you're working with clients as well, you don't lose that excitement of finding the thing out. You can then share that good news with someone else and hope they have one of those gotcha moments as well. I've that was my usual phrase when I Try to track that. You know. So only Holloway, all my, my Soviet spy chap, all records that relate to him in the foreign office have been deleted and destroyed, deliberate destruction of his departments records. So you almost seem ghosting through the records and everything now and again. I went through about 150 of these index volume simply trying to find any records and every now and again You'd find is that gotcha, there you are being signed off sick because you've had too much to drink again and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it is just like ghosting someone and they occasionally hover, interview tantalizingly and you have to let it out, you have to be excited at that moment. You can't just be detached and sort of. You know we spent three hours going through 20 volumes and finally he's there in number four. I've always wondered about those basity books actually, what sort of level of proof they required because, as you said, there was no DNA. Did they look a bit like the father? You know which cases were rejected and which ones were approved. Was there an alibi? I'd love to get into one of those court sessions to find out what was actually discussed, but it'd be very interesting.
Speaker 1:And it'll be interesting as well because I'm doing DNA on this person. This was a few years ago, yeah, and we are doing a DNA test and such DNA tests. So it'll be interesting to know, actually, if it is the person that the mum has claimed in the court. So, yes, that will be interesting. I mean, dna has revolutionized my research, especially in terms of unknown parentage. You know, I've worked with a lot of people who were adopted, and Not only adopted, but I've worked with a lot of people who potentially don't know who the mother is or who the father is. Dna, you know, has completely changed that. As I say, records before few and far between. You know you get the odd bastardy book here and there, but they were few, far between. But DNA, nick, I mean, have you found it with your research?
Speaker 2:we've Used it, you know so, with the Researchers that we've got looking at research for private clients. It's it's a growing area to validate and then extend the family tree and check things out. But you know, even then we're still quite wary of some of the results because of the the challenges of connectivity, and the challenge is also confronting people with what is seem to be the truth. I can only again relate this to personal experience where, when we first found out my grandmother's baptism record in knock, the father that was named was completely different to the biological father, which we only found through DNA, and that entire branch of the family would have remained hitherto undiscovered and unknown If we hadn't been able to do some sampling. And it was made even more complex because His family came from Germany, where you don't do DNA testing for genealogical purposes. It was only as the family had come to the states that allowed us to track him down. Otherwise would have been very, very happy to have had Our other candidates, harry Victor Fuller, as the named father, because he was the direct descendant from the Mayflower fullers. So I had this fantastic story. Then it all crumbled with DNA and so of course you can't help but feel that empathy again, can you? That's what we do with my own feelings, finding out all this research was for nothing yet.
Speaker 2:Actually, this other chat was now in the frame because that's the sort of information we relate to our clients. So it's a double-edged sword and there's something really challenging there about the Just a position, the, the paradox, I guess, between what the records are telling us and what the DNA is telling us. Both are absolutely accurate. The baptism record is a piece of historical record and it states this individual and all of that research is there and therefore he's loosely associated with my family history, but he's not a biological relative. I don't even know why he was named. That's a mystery we're still digging around. Yet equally true, is this DNA family tree constructed and they're both sitting out there on ancestry. So there's something that we need to reconcile as a field with what DNA is telling us about the veracity of these historic records.
Speaker 1:You have written so many books, so many books on genealogy, family history, and also your history books, your straight history books. Shall I say, if somebody is listening to this and they are interested in, they might be inspired and they want to look into their family tree. Where would you tell them where to start? Where is a good place to start?
Speaker 2:Firstly, the best place to start is with yourself. If you've never done any family history before, start with yourself. What is your motivation? What do you want to find out? Go back to basics, then just talk to your family. If you can't, then that might be when you start to build your research trail in your first family tree. But genuinely think about why you're doing this. Think about what you want to find out. What are the outcomes, because there are emotional challenges with doing this sort of thing from scratch.
Speaker 2:There is a lot of information out there online about the how to. There are organisations and all sorts of publications. I've written a book that's 15 years older. That's way out of date. Penn and Sword do a great series. There are online publications that the National Archives have created. There are lots of literature, but the basic process remains the same Write down what you know about yourself.
Speaker 2:Write down what your family can tell you about yourself. Find the family archive, if it exists, and put all that together. Construct your family tree, which assembles what you think you know about your family, and then start to validate it through civil registration. Be amazed at what you think you know is not true. We've found that on so many episodes of who Do you Think you Are including in various cases in the early series that are celebrities didn't tell us their true date of birth. But let's gloss over that. Then that will give you something to work on. Push back through civil registration, 1921 census back.
Speaker 2:If you can settle in the 19th century, I would do what you've done and just explore. Look at the people. That's what it's about. It is about people understanding their lives. That's when you can start to move from online data sets back into some of the records that we've been talking about. There are so many out there to give you this context before even thinking about going further back in time and looking at the pre-industrial era, which was much more localized, very linked to family and community, a very different way of life altogether. So, step by step, work from the present back in time.
Speaker 1:In terms of who Do you Think you Are. I know you've just alluded to it then you did a lot of research for that show in the early days. Which was your favorite celebrity that you researched?
Speaker 2:I think it has to be Bill Oddy, not necessarily because it was a dramatic revelation about his family. They were essentially involved in the Industrial Revolution, moved from Yorkshire to Lancashire in the 1820s when the factors were starting to emerge. It was a really gritty story of a family affected by local and national and international events that had to move out of their towns because of the Coffin family in the 1860s and their mills hadn't stockpiled so they had to go and find work some really big history through their family. But it was more about what Bill taught us about why we were doing this show. We were interested in this backstory of the Industrial Revolution. He wanted to find out about his mum, that one generation in which he think well, everyone knows about that, don't you? But actually it just highlights that perhaps we don't know as much as we think we do about our parents and grandparents as we've been talking about here, and it allowed us to tackle a really sensitive subject. His mum had had various mental health problems throughout her life and in the course of Bill's story we found out what had triggered them the death of what would have been his old sister when she was only five days old Really traumatic, and the way that she'd been misdiagnosed and then placed into a hospital which was starting to look at electric shock therapy and the vifties which made the situation worse and really shocking stuff to Bill to find this out. And yeah, for us it made us think about why we were doing this show.
Speaker 2:It was originally intended to be 10 stories of social history back to the 1850s. Working with Bill it became much more of a personal journey of discovery and that's where the whole sense of who do you think you are came from. He didn't know who he was because he didn't know this backstory about one generation. And he, you know, we take him on the rest of the journey and show him all his other ancestors. But he's on the train, his final moments of his program. He's sitting there reflecting what he's discovered and he says something that I think we could all reflect on and he says I wish I knew then what I know now. And then he pauses and he says because I could have made a difference.
Speaker 2:Now, so often genealogy in family history is seen as well. I'll quote the reviewer from the first series of PGQR self-indulgent navel gazing, a sort of a hobby, a pastime, but actually in you could argue it's one of the purest forms of history, because it does have personal relevance and meaning. Not just playing back, but thinking forward. What legacy, what stories do we want to share with the generations to come? What changes can we make to our lives that will improve those stories? Are we actually bound by the ties of the past or can we make our own story by taking clear decisions and actions?
Speaker 2:And we've applied this outside of the program to various different settings working with prison communities, with people coming up for release and helping them reintegrate, but also find inspirational characters that they can emulate, as well as professions they might like to try. Working with community archive groups to capture forgotten voices or eradicated voices from communities, to give them purpose and meaning and help then bring people back together again. Really powerful applications of some of the techniques. But it all comes down to those comments from Bill. I could have made a difference. I think that's something we could all just think about when we go researching our ancestors what we've done in those circumstances. What can we then do today? Moving forward. It's got meaning, it's got purpose, and I think Bill's episode, very first one that was shown its echoes are still felt today.
Speaker 1:I always wonder what people's motivations are for genealogy and it's like what you said you know when you first start. That is something you should think about. Why are you doing this? You know what you want to know about the past and with me it was.
Speaker 1:I wanted to understand my granddad better and I wish I had of known, because if I had of known then what I know now, I would have understood him better, because I understand this is on my mum's side what he had been through with his dad, and on my mum's side my granddad also served in in World War.
Speaker 1:I say with my dad's side, on my mum's side he was present, but I don't think he was the best father that he could have been. And was that because of World War I and what he'd seen and what he'd witnessed? Quite possibly, but by all accounts he wasn't a very nice person, which probably, even though my granddad was lovely, would explain some questions that I maybe had about him in later life, like he was a lovely bloke but he never hugged us and that was fine. We didn't need it because you know, you know we knew he loved us. But then, when I now know what I know about his dad and the way he was brought up. It just explains so much. And I never asked him and I don't know if he'd have ever told me about what it was like for him growing up. But I wish I knew then what I know now, because I would have approached him, or maybe I wouldn't have, maybe I just wouldn't have approached him indifferently.
Speaker 2:Maybe you wouldn't, but I think having that knowledge would have at least given you the option and we go through so many of these encounters not knowing that backstory to give ourselves those options, to take into account some of those patterns of behaviour which may well, as you said, have been brought forward from previous generations.
Speaker 2:And you know, that sort of psychoanalytical approach to family history and family stories is really important to bear in mind.
Speaker 2:It's both something that you can apply, whether it's directly or indirectly, or just think about there are also risks in doing that something to find stuff you don't want to know or is a little bit close to home and does affect your relationship with people, the way you think about them. But at least you're giving yourself that choice and that chance, and I think that agency, that purpose, is really important, I think more now than ever, because of the way we create records, we create encounters, we interact with other people. You know we're not in the same room. We're doing this digitally and more and more transactions are now in this format, and actually that human connection, that embrace, whatever it is, is something that I'm concerned about doing less of, and actually giving ourselves that understanding Could just make a step forward into that space a bit more. I don't know, maybe that's a little bit too philosophical for a podcast and genealogy, but there is something really profound about why we do these things. It's the purest form of human understanding. You could say generational, familial activity and behaviour.
Speaker 1:And I will say my biggest regret is that I did not ask more questions when my granddad was alive. So if you take anything from this podcast, go and ask those questions, be it just about. You know granddad, you know who was your grandparents, do you remember them? Do you remember going to their house? What was their house like? You know? What did you do? What did you have for Sunday dinner? You know, these are all questions I now wish I'd have asked, and it's just too late.
Speaker 2:And I think there's two bits of that so that could be applied to ourselves. Let's make sure we're writing down there and recording and memorising these things using the fantastic technological tools we've got at our disposal. But I think there's also that slight caveat from, again, a personal experience about asking the right questions at the right time in the right way. I charged in like a bully in a china shop asking my grandmother oh so you were illegitimate, tell me more, tell me more. Of course, that just put a back right up, and I didn't have the experience and certainly not some of this material that's come to light after her death in 2008 to be able to apply what I now know. So I think it is worth just thinking about that human side again. How is some going to react to these things?
Speaker 2:And there are ways to up conversations with photographs that save space, and you know there's a lot of technique, but it is. It is so important to at least make that attempt. It really is, because the personal story told in someone's words not just the words they speak, but the way they speak them is irreplaceable. Forget the records, that is to flat mirror of what had happened. This is real human experience and the tone of someone's voice, you can tell when the emotions there are not. That is what's irreplaceable about it.
Speaker 1:Now me and you have both done TV research through. Say you know I remember you from your days on. Who do you think you are? I do it for a show called DNA Journey on ITV. I've also done Michelle Keegan's and Ralph Little's. Who do you think you are? Do you find researching for TV different to researching, say, for private clients, where you know it doesn't have to have an element of entertainment to it?
Speaker 2:It is a very different set of pressures. Even if the methodology remains the same, the challenges are different. There's always that back of one's mind feeling when you're doing research let's take who do you think you are back in the day that this is for TV and that there needs to be some hook or story. Now, for me, some of the most fascinating stories have never made it on the program because they just lift the lead on a way of life. The agricultural laborer. How many ag lab stories have featured over the years on? Who do you think you are? Well, they're not royalty or legitimacy, or murderers, or military or immigration. It's not. It's not sexy TV.
Speaker 2:So when you're presenting that to a client, you can actually contextualize it in a different way. So look, this sounds like an ag lab, but actually this is what they were doing. You want to visit this church? This was the field structure, this is where they would have worked. Go to the Museum of Rural Life. This will tell you all about the clothes and the technologies and that you can really give them an experience, whereas for TV it can sometimes get sensationalized.
Speaker 2:I've just I mean clearly out of the blue been talking to the first person who hardly for the BBC back in the 90s and we worked on house detectives. I can remember to this day where my straight back no, this is what the record says, this is what the record says, and I know you can't say that because this is what the record says broke and I said but it's possible that they might have been murdered because of this evidence here, and he was delighted. He said you've got all tabloid on me. That's just what we want and that's rather stuck in my mind about.
Speaker 2:It's a different style of research. You're looking for a story. Tv is an entertainment medium, as well as all the education that it really does, and people need to watch it for a purpose. And with who do you think you are? Of course we research every branch of the family. You don't see all of that. You see three or four stories which are slightly elevated above most of the others because either they're a personal interest or there's something a little bit more emotional attached to them. So it is a different rationale of doing it. It's techniques are the same, but you can't help but think about that. It's always in the background.
Speaker 1:Now, nick, I always ask this question. I say it's a question, it's kind of a few questions in one. If there is one person from your family tree that you could invite for dinner tonight, who would it be and why and what would you cook then?
Speaker 2:Oh right, okay, Can I have two?
Speaker 1:Can I have?
Speaker 2:two separate dinner parties, because I do want to meet Ernest Holloway-Elden. I want to know what on earth he was thinking of when he went to the Russian embassy in his broken French and tried to sell them British secrets. What were you doing, fellow? What were you doing? You know what was the need? Allegedly, his wife had money. So was it the money? Was it ideology? What was it that drove him to make that fateful decision that set him on a course of action that would lead to his death three years later? What were you thinking, fellow? That's one. It could be the very end of a dinner party there. You know what were you doing? Write yourself.
Speaker 2:I'd cook him humble pie, obviously, because I think he needs a little slice of that even what he was doing and I think we'd probably have a good old chat about some of his better days before he took that decision, when he had come back from the war, maybe about his experiences of leading men for the first time and some of the training he got when he applied to join military intelligence and after six weeks was returned to the trenches, which might also have affected his decision. His journey around Europe would be fascinating Just trying to see how he followed the king's messengers and reconfigured their routes and took the advantage of that process to go and visit all the places there to stay right the way to Istanbul, as constant as it was then. You know it would have been an amazing life for him. Taking messages to the king in Belgium for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Dehaverland plain this new technology. He had an incredible set of experiences right up to that point and that might be where the dinner party ends.
Speaker 2:I guess the other would be my great-grandmother. I want to know so much about what she was doing, why she abandoned her little girl and then arranged for it to be brought back and there were pictures of them when they were reunited before she's then placed again in this remote farmhouse with two elderly women to be looked after. She goes off and eventually leaves for the States and marries and has another child and then sends her daughter pictures of her half-brother, without any revelation that this is a relative how well. I want to know what was going through her mind. But then I'm judging her. I want to find out what her rationale was and I want to think of her in a more nuanced and balanced way.
Speaker 2:So I think we would probably dine out on World Cuisine. I'd like to know what the local delicacies were in Freiburg, where she was living in between 1906 and 1911. Clearly she had a connection with the family whose son got her pregnant, and they were importers and exporters from around the world of all sorts of goods and materials, and so they'd been quite a feast, I'd imagine. So probably a good German meal. Perhaps I don't know. Well, we'll have to consult the Freiburg recipe books and see what was going on there.
Speaker 1:Nick, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Who you've enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:It's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for having me on. Have a great fun. So yeah, really appreciate the offer.
Speaker 1:Nick, thank you so much, and thank you everybody for tuning in. I really appreciate it, and have a good week researching. Get out there with your pencil and your pencil sharpener. Take care everyone. Thank you very much, thank you, thank you, thank you.