Who Do You Think You Are?

Me too, but I suspect mine would be too boring to be televised.

I think that ‘black people also had slaves’ would be better seen as ‘humans will exploit one another given the chance’, and reframed as being about the dynamics between rich and poor rather than about colour. Yes, colour-based racism grew out of slavery, and it’s legacy is still with us, but it didn’t cause it.

People had slaves from ancient times (eg Egyptians and Romans) based on who conquered whom and nothing to do with skin colour. Modern slavery is not colour-based either. Ancestors of people who were enslaved in, say, Roman times, would be better able to integrate as they wouldn’t stand out because of colour, and because there was no narrative that enslaved people were inherently inferior.

It’s often ignored that black people procured and held slaves.
The saying that you have to know where you come from to know where you’re going is so true. We don’t know what our families had to do so we could be here. That poor man put into a mental hospital and not being let out to be with his family that wanted him was shameful.
I would absolutely love them to do mine, whatever they found,

So very moving tonight- the poor girl didn't know what hit her. And concurrently with Ridley Road- it showed how anti-semetism and fascism in London was real.

And both sides of slavery hit her hard too- the reality that black people also owned slaves. But one sentence will remain with me from her 'cousin' who helped her find the grave 'if you don't know where you come from, you don't know where you are going'.

So true- I know many people who just will not look into the past or acknowledge it, and personally, I feel they are really missing out- whether good or bad.

Most of mine were farm labourers and fishermen
No royalty in my blood and I don’t mind in the least I do prefer the programmes with the family trees who had infamous folk rather than aristocracy so I wasn’t so interested in Josh s far far back royal family I like history but more from the point of social history than royal history
Judi Dench is very personable

On a similar theme there was a programme on ITV this week in which Charlene White (the black ITV newsreader) traces her background. It was fascinating, and beautifully presented.

My family , slate quarry workers in North Wales, Coal Miners in South Wales, a few baptist church ministers and a g uncle who was physician to Queen Mary, George V1 and the Queen.

I was upset to find baptism records in a county in North Wales
where an illegitimate child was described as a ‘base child’ .

I know my great-aunt and great-uncle met Queen Victoria.
They also knew Edward VII and met the Russian Tsar and Royal Family when they visited the Isle of Wight in 1909.
But they weren't invited to tea!

My DH was told that he is descended, on his father's side ,from a sister of Lady Jane Grey.
Another claim to royalty was on my maternal grandfather's side, he had cousins whose surname was Royal, but that could also mean their ancestors were servants to royalty.I can remember my grandmother, when two of these cousins visited them, boasting to her friends that she was having two royal ladies coming to tea.
There is a missing link on my paternal grandfather's side.He never knew who his father was, his mother was not married when he was born and she refused to reveal the identity of his father.The place for father's name on his birth certificate is left blank.He was brought up by his mother's parents with their surname, his mother later married a wealthy farmer then disappeared off the family tree

I wonder how many tree branches they have to follow to find such an interesting link?
I'm sure there must be something really astonishing in my ancestry but I just haven't followed the right branch yet ?

Smith is my brick wall.
I had success finding a Jones in Wales when another relative contacted me. It is worth putting your tree on Ancestry or the like as somebody else may have the answer.

As for Judi Dench and the Shakespearean link, wow!
I wonder how many tree branches they have to follow to find such an interesting link?

Alias Smith and Jones Grammaretto

My family had a less well-known surname but they kept changing it and no, it wasn't a spelling mistake, there was obviously an argument about what it was exactly ?

can we mention the Judi Dench one yet or is that on another thread?
I have just watched it. Another brilliant one. Quite different from Josh's but really interesting.

I would love for the team to do mine, however lowly it is.
I have done my own but you eventually get a brick wall usually in the form of a SMITH

Maggiemaybe

From their census addresses I don’t think our farmers were the posh sort, Callistemon. More the scratty old field and a couple of cows level. One had a fair few acres, but didn’t seem to hang onto them for long. As for our mill owner, we lost our chance of riches when great grandma ran off with a miner and got cut off.

I do hope Jones the Jilter wasn’t one of my lot.

Jones the Jilter ?
I tried to find out if he'd died or just scarpered and married someone else but with a surname like Jones it was impossible. He had a very ordinary first name too.

Poor Great-Granny.

Yes, Josh's attitude and genuine laughter and amazement were what made that programme. He came across as very likeable.

I’ve just caught up with the episode and it was the best I’ve seen. He seems such a nice bloke and genuinely astounded by all the facts that came to light.

The revelations in Josh's family tree were amazing. He really didn't seem to know about any of it other than the "Bearings" bank connection which truly paled into insignificance once the researchers moved back into the mists of time. Brought back memories of the WDYTYA which I loved too, when the subject was His Grace the Duke of Walford! and his extremely tenuous link all the way back to Edward I, there you go Josh and His Grace are probably umpteen cousins removed which is something else for him to ponder upon! Josh, I've seen him once or twice, came across as a very nice young man. He's probably stuck into finding out what happened to the children of the unfortunate many times great grandfather who was executed, can't have been very nice to find that out.

Sometimes, it's not always favoured personalities that throw up the most interesting programmes. I'd never watched TOWIE, but thought Mark Wright's family tree made a stand out programme. I also love the ones that have traced their ancestry back to India, notably Alistair McGowan, Billy Connolly and Rupert Penry-Jones.

I enjoyed the programme, but must say I find it more interesting when the ancestors are a bit more recent.

From their census addresses I don’t think our farmers were the posh sort, Callistemon. More the scratty old field and a couple of cows level. One had a fair few acres, but didn’t seem to hang onto them for long. As for our mill owner, we lost our chance of riches when great grandma ran off with a miner and got cut off.

I do hope Jones the Jilter wasn’t one of my lot.

Witzend

And a lot on the wrong side of the blanket, I dare say!

Not heard this saying!! Hilarious!

Funnily enough, I've always felt like a princess - some people have said I behave like one at times! Lolol.

farmers

Farmers are posher than farm labourers, Maggiemaybe. As for a mill owner, that is really posh!

I have a Jones in the family tree but he was a wrong'un, Maggie. I think he jilted my great-grandma at the altar when she was very pregnant with my grandmother.
But they "didn't talk about that" and she died before I was born.

Ah yes, Gwenisgreat, I came up with a whole raft of Welsh Edwardses when I started on my mum’s side. Marrying lots of Joneses. At least DH has an unusual last name - I got a lot further with his family tree than I ever will with mine.

I did have a go, I got as far as my maternal grandmother who married Hugh Jones (several of them) her maiden name was Jones. Haven't been able to get past that, the small town where she lived was absolutely full of Joneses!!Q

Blimey, you all have such interesting family trees. DH’s and mine are all miners, factory workers and farmers, though there is a mill owner who I always imagine as being like the Timothy West character in Brass.

DH’s great-grandfather was left on a doorstep as a baby though, so we’ll just have to assume he was the one with blue blood.

I use Ancestry and have found out about my family until the early 1700s. Nothing like the things on Tuesday evening which were fantastic.
Good things like a link with the first black policeman in England,a well known poet and a large famous potery firm. Though I've also found plantation owners involved in the slave trade , a pit axe murderer, a convict sent to Australia for manslaughter and someone stabbed at Appelby Horsefair.All in one small remote corner of England.

Grandma70s

Witzend

My normally very level headed MiL used to say that way back in the mists, her mother’s side was descended from the Irish kings.

My grandmother said that, too. Those Irish kings had a lot of descendants!

So did my Mum. There were a lot of Kings in Ireland, each clan had their own and most of their subjects were related.