Who Do You Think You Are

[MargoTester]

Did anyone else watch this last night. Quite a fascinating journey back through time with Josh Widdicombe tracing his family tree and revealing major connections with royalty right back to his 23 times great grandfather Edward 1. Well worth a watch

[emmie]

i will do a catch up later on, i want to watch the Dame Judi Dench one,

[MargoTester]

Yes that should be good too

[bobbinwales]

When they go back 23 generations they allways find some way of linking us to royalty or more often Oliver cromwell.

[ToraToraTora]

so he's related to Danny Dyer then!

[roopower]

We all have a common ancestor! That would be some family party.

[lankeela]

Apart from the obvious references to Adam and Eve I wonder who is the oldest recorded ancestor anyone has?

[AuntPG]

My ancestry goes back to the House of Bourbon, France, through my Fathers side. I'm named after a great- god knows how many times grandmother born in 1628

[Mamyalynne]

It was a good episode, really enjoyed it.

[Lie-in King]

Good episode, a fun watch :-)

[MargoTester]

Josh's face at discovering that Henry Holland was a privy councillor who gloried in the title Groom of the Stool, whose job was escorting the King to the toilet, was comical. I can only say it was well worth a watch.

[Barmaid]

I watched the last half. I knew what was coming when he found his ancestress was Mary Boleyn because I knew quite a bit of her ancestry and about her liaison with King Henry VIII.

I find it fascinating, but also irritating, because I have been doing my family history for over 30 years and I havent got that far yet (probably due to the fact that my lot were mainly rogues)!

[Barsel]

APG how did you find that out?
I did my family tree years ago but I couldn't get very far back with it.
Thought that perhaps the only way you could go that far back is if you were to pay a professional to do it for you, or go on WDYTYA.
Would love to go further back than I managed too.

[zebo]

One of his grandfathers, Richie Rich the father of the Rich bloke, is the one who gave false evidence against Thomas More leading to More's execution so I've gone off Josh a bit, I cried buckets when I saw A Man For All Seasons.
His ancestor Mary Boleyn was The Other Boleyn Girl.

[zebo]

Barsel there are some free sites to start you off, familysearch.org is the site connected to the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City and they probably have the most comprehensive collection.
findmypast,co,uk is also very good, it's a pay site but is often available free at libraries and our library, Norfolk, allows members of the library to use it from home because of lockdown. They will have the 1921 Census next year.
The are also some regional site which are free throught the Online Parish Clerks, it covers about 8 counties.

[Barsel]

Zebo, when I did my family tree, I was able to use the Ancestry one free at the library.
Also, one of my late neighbours was a Mormon and she actually took me to her church as they had those 'films' can't remember what they are called.
The only thing I found of interest was where my Great Grandparents were buried, so I went to see that and second cousin I didn't know about.
Then the libraries closed and I think I only got back as far back as 1854.
I probably need to go to the Central Library in Manchester to find out more.

[AuntPG]

Hi Barsel. Family records kept by my paternal grandmother, and her mother before. She was very proud of the royal connections, one of our ancestors lived at the court of King Louis XIV and she had a sketch of a little girl holding a parrot which she said was her x times grand-mother. She was also grateful they had land up in Alsace they all fled to, to avoid getting their heads chopped off. The Germans took over the Chateau in the first world war and they never got it back. They all ended up in an apartment on the Boulevard St. Germain . All interesting stuff.

I only got back to the English census of 1801 on my mother's side as the records were sketchy -they were gamekeepers in the NE of England and then went into coal mining and shop keeping.

[Barmaid]

APG - how useful are the pre 1841 Census returns? I realise not many survive and I understood that there was no real information to be gleaned off them. OK 1841 onwards are extremely useful and I must have 1000s of pages of them stored away.

I have never needed to bother with any before but I have an issue with a line that 1821/31 might help with. What information is included on them, please? That might be another way of knocking down my brick wall. (Although whether they are even available is a different matter).

[jno]

something about it here, Barmaid

https://www1.essex.ac.uk/history/documents/research/RT2_Wall_2012.pdf

[AuntPG]

Barmaid I made a mistake, it was 1841 not 1801 . The family worked for a large estate in the NE of England 'Hardwick Hall' and were down as Gamekeeper' and 'Servant'. No other info, but I've never gleaned any other info on the public census except address, occupations and members of the family living in the house. I go through Ancestry.com.

[Barsel]

APG wow that sounds really interesting.
The most exciting thing I found was that my Fathers side come from Derbyshire and not Lancashire !!
Wondered if I would have to travel to Derbyshire to find out more.
They travel all over the world on that programme sometimes.