Who Do You Think You Are?

As royalty and there linage are very well documented, its much easier to find the information, as for the rest of use we'll just have to make do with badly keeped records and very scratchy handwriting lol

I haven’t seen it yet but it must be good because DD messaged me about it (albeit saying how cool it was and not going into great detail). Does it make him more royal than Danny Dyer was my first thought when I realised what had been uncovered?

On the subject of film reviews, pre pandemic when I used to go to the cinema a lot I made a point of not reading film reviews before I went. But sometimes, having seen the film I wished I had read a review, especially if it was a bit complicated and I didn’t understand it. I’d then have to get it when it came out on dvd and rewatch it. My biggest problem was trying to avoid knowing what happened in series 8 of Game of Thrones given that I didn’t have Netflix and had to wait several months for the dvd to be released. I then picked up a newspaper that had a give away picture of one scene so that was that.

It was a great one to start with. I hope the rest of the series lives up to it!!

MayBee70

I haven’t seen it yet but it must be good because DD messaged me about it (albeit saying how cool it was and not going into great detail). Does it make him more royal than Danny Dyer was my first thought when I realised what had been uncovered?

I hope so. He'd make a better royal than Danny Dyer!!!

My family tree on Mum’s side can only go back to her grandparents on one side as they were both abandoned in the work house. I found this very inspiring because , although they were both illiterate, they were great believers in education. My grandfather, their 13th child, became an optician and his son became a doctor. My brother has traced our family back to the 1500s . It is a great thing to do if you can spare the time.

Tracing your family tree becomes addictive. It certainly did for me.

Bijou

When we traced our family on my maternal grandfathers side to the late seventeenth century we were upset to learn that they owned plantations in Barbados and were engaged in the slave trade and owned hundreds of slaves. After abolition when they returned to Bristol they were compensated for the number of slaves they owned but theslaves got nothing.

I also discovered that there were slave traders in my family, in the late 1700s/early 1800s, and they made their fortunes in Jamaica. One of them returned to England and lived in a castle in Herefordshire but sadly one of his sisters (my direct ancestor) died in an almshouse in London. How's that for brotherly love! But I like to think that my Gtx5 Grandmother went to London to distance herself from his nefarious lifestyle ....

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

The further back you go in time, the smaller the number of people there were. My husband has got his family tree back to the year 800 and the first Kings of Finland. He’s now working in mine and my go back to the first Kings of Wales and France. If you have an unusual name and a place plus not living in a big urban area which might have been bombed it helps. Non conformists also can have greater difficulty as less was recorded.

I did Ancestry this year and through DNA matches it seems like my ancestors lived in a few houses that are now National Trust properties . My 8th great grandmother was Margaret Bowles . The family changed their name to Parker - Bowles , I researched this as recognised the name , and it was a surprise to find out I'm related to Camilla 's first husband Andrew.
I also have an ancestor who was privy to Henry V111 , and he was one of the men who took Thomas Cromwell to the tower. It's all so fascinating .
At the opposite end of the spectrum a great great grandfather took part in a farm Labour revolt and was sent to Australia for 7 years hard labour . He was married with 8 children . On release he remains living ( in Tasmania ) and I'm getting lots of DNA matches from Australia ( I wonder how ? )

Obviously remained living not remains !

I heard Josh W on the radio the other day and he said that Anne W had moved to the small Dartmoor village where his parents live - which must cause much confusion!

He's such a nice cheerful lad. I like the way he laughs loudly at other comedian's jokes on various panel games. They don't all do that.

We watched it and loved it! What an amazing start to the new series. Looking forward to the Judi Dench episode, I'm a big fan. I'd love to know how they research and how many people work on it. I often think they make it look too easy.

I've been researching my FH for twenty years but have only got back to about 1650 on one side of the family, the Welsh side. The expense of research and documents is a big drawback, and not being able to travel to places to research 'on the ground' as it were. I've hit a couple of brick walls now but will pick it up again sometime. No particularly exciting ancestors though.

I think I’m unusual in that unless it’s something where the reveal is crucial to the plot (as in Line of Duty), I don’t mind seeing a spoiler, and if I did I’d avoid threads about specific TV series or books I don’t always watch WDYTYA, but will certainly catch up with this one now that I’ve learnt what happens!

Mine go back to royalty on my mother’s side. The Plantagenets, who were all bumped off pretty early on. Shame, wouldn’t have minded living in a palace.

tictacnana

My family tree on Mum’s side can only go back to her grandparents on one side as they were both abandoned in the work house. I found this very inspiring because , although they were both illiterate, they were great believers in education. My grandfather, their 13th child, became an optician and his son became a doctor. My brother has traced our family back to the 1500s . It is a great thing to do if you can spare the time.

tictacnana, were they both born in the workhouse or were they anonymously dumped on the doorstep? Have you searched the workhouse records if they still exist? If they were born in or after 1837, do they have birth certificates?

It is almost certain that one of my ancestors painted the famous portrait of Elizabeth 1 in her silver/white gown.
Other than that - they were all peasantry, so obviously we slid downhill financially and socially rather rapidly.

Callistemon

Someone had put a family tree in Ancestry which included my great-grandmother, showing a direct line to Henry VIII through his marriage to Anne Boleyn.
I thought it was a load of rubbish because their only child, Elizabeth, did not marry or have any children.

Now I'm beginning to wonder ..... ?

And one DD is a redhead ?

I'm more excited to think I might be related to Josh Widdecombe!

But the link could be to Richard III - a lot of the Plantagenets were redheads - that's probably where Henry VIII got his red hair from, his mother was Elizabeth of York.

Richard III had an illegitimate son who was brought up by Richard, whose wife seems to have felt quite rightly that a bairn is a bairn, and should at least know his father. I had an old aunt who insisted that her mother's family was descended from this son of Richard by an unknown mother.

My aunt's mother's maiden name was Plant and family tradition held it to be a deliberate abbreviation of Plantagenet because after the Battle of Bosworth the young man felt it wise not to go around proclaiming that his father had been Richard Crookback!

On my mum's English side I've gone back to the 1400s and on my dad's paternal side I've gone back to around the 800s but things start getting murky then, all hearsay and folklore and very little written down. But according to legends we go back to the sister of Saint Patrick and Joseph of Aramathea.

I agree with the person who said they must tell WDYTYA participants to feign igorance of history to allow experts to explain and for the benefit of viewers who dont know. I did however think it was a bit of a stretch when the Virgin Queen was being discussed and Josh asked if the suitor trying to win her hand in marriage had succeeded! Feigning ignorance needs to be a bit believable. Wikipedia informs me Josh Widdicombe has a degree, admittedly not in history, but then I failed my history GCE and I knew the Virgin Queen never married!

I was quite intrigued when right at the beginning of this programme Josh said it was the first bit of TV he had done where he didnt know what was going to happen.

Dh seems to have some ancient Scottish nobility. I got him back as far as a Lord Chancellor of Scotland in about the 15th or 16th century if I remember rightly.

Interesting, Grandtante

As an aside, I think the Plantagenets should be on the throne as the rightful monarchs! ?

Germanshepherdsmum

Yes, I have come across quite a lot and some even publish erroneous family trees on the web.
I've contacted a couple or more people on Ancestry to suggest that they may have the wrong person in their tree as I check, double check and follow every lead to make sure it's right.
Some people just copy from another person's tree whether right or wrong or if the name is the same as one of their ancestors.