Who do you think you are...Richard Osman

Matt Lucas - another story with an amazing coincidence. I admired his stoicism throughout the filming. I wonder how much of that was due to the inevitability of what he was going to discover about his grandmother's cousins. For me, the most profound revelation was understanding why Margot was angry when he dropped out of university. Now we know why. In a way, it goes back to the Paxman episode when he stood outside that Scottish tenement and said "We don't know we're born.'"

For me, the very best was the episode with Ruby Wax a while back.
The Holocaust, familial mental illness down the decades and its treatment both here and abroad - riveting and intensely moving.
Thoroughly recommended viewing.

Matt Lucas came over as a very serious man, like many comedians I suppose, he's not the character he portrays on TV. Mind you, what he was hearing was pretty serious.

Doodledog I remember the Jeremy Paxman one too. I suppose it was unexpected watching as his tough outer skin peeled away to expose a tender heart and fury at the injustices of life.
Likewise Matt Lucas was no longer a comic but just a fortunate human being who, by chance, had escaped -am I allowed to say? the holocaust

Yes, I remember the Paxman episode and his reaction to finding out about the grinding poverty his ancestors experienced.
I can’t stand some of the ‘celebrities’ but they usually have an interesting history or wouldn’t be featured.

It must be tricky for the programme makers to get the balance between an interesting story and an engaging subject. Richard Osman is very engaging but the story wasn't particularly interesting, and there have been interesting stories about the families of celebrities who are annoying to watch.

One of my favourites was Jeremy Paxman, ages ago. his ancestors led very different lives from one another, and the researchers were able to go back quite far back. Paxman was visibly moved by what was found.

Some of them stick with one side of the family and concentrate on one incident, such as an experience in a particular battle. I prefer the ones where there is a lot of variety, but I guess it's the luck of the draw.

That was amazing and very timely.

Matt Lucas tonight

Very moving indeed and with another extraordinary coincidence.
No spoilers but keep the tissues handy - you will need them.

I found it one of the more interesting ones Harrigran but maybe because it resonated with some of my own family.
I am just envious that I am not a celeb so don't have researchers queuing up to explore my fascinating family tree

It was definitely not the best, but there were some interesting facts. My DD lives in Brighton which may have helped.

harrigran

Just watched this last night and thought it was boring, the content was mediocre.
My SIL is a big Richard Osman fan but he thought it should have ended up on the cutting room floor too.

I wasn’t bowled over by it either, and actually got slightly irritated by his incessant mentioning of his books….which I don’t rate anyway.

Just watched this last night and thought it was boring, the content was mediocre.
My SIL is a big Richard Osman fan but he thought it should have ended up on the cutting room floor too.

Michael Parkinson was one who researchers found to boring for tv.

I've read that it takes a long time to research each celeb and if there is nothing interesting they are cast aside! see below.
cut and pasted;

Before filming begins, a team of researchers spend hours and hours looking into a whole host of stars’ family backgrounds before deciding whose are the most compelling to feature.

Unfortunately, not everyone’s family history is quite TV-worthy, and that means there’s a whole lot of celebrities who haven’t made the cut for the show.

We hear a lot nowadays about the shortage of care home places and how families should be caring for their elderly parents at home "like we did in the old days" It was interesting to hear that in the 19th century a third of old people ended up in the workhouse, with some going in voluntarily so as not to be a burden on their families. So old granny only got her comfortable chair by the fireside if you had the money.

Just watched, very interesting and Richard seems to be a really nice person.
It's so sad to hear about the shocking lives of the poor in those days, and how high infant mortality was.

Thank you.
I have just enjoyed Richards journey, absolutely fascinating.

My father was a merchant sea man, so next time in Glasgow I will do a bit of investigating myself .
(Do I need to book ?)

Thank you all for the pointers.

I spent some time today exploring crew lists. I'm not able to be sure I have found my man as he had a common name, but reading the Master's report of the voyage is so fascinating.
Wonderful that these records survive.
Thanks for pointing me to these Caravanserai

Thanks very much CaravanSerai. Our county only has two record offices but I will try the nearest to the town where the Work house was. I never knew until the programme that old people could put themselves into the workhouse to prevent being a burden to their family. Others are recorded as being on Parish relief.

Grammaretto You might find this useful:

www.glasgowfamilyhistory.org.uk/ExploreRecords/Pages/Merchant-Seamen.aspx

Sounds like a trip to The Mitchell: Glasgow City Archives could be useful.

The book mentioned at the book of that page by Christophere and Michael Watts might give some pointers too.

A gentle giant

WDYTYA magazine had a fetaure in April this year about where to find workhouse records:

Few workhouse records are online, so the best place to start is often the County Record Office local to the institution. You will need to know roughly when your ancestor was in the workhouse and, if it was after 1834, which Poor Law Union their parish belonged to.

The Workhouse website is the best place to go online to find out about the history of a particular workhouse or Poor Law Union, with plenty of pictures and old maps. It also has some information about the workhouse record holdings for particular institutions.

Those Poor Law documents that have been digitised will mostly be found amongst large regional collections on family history websites. For example, Ancestry has online collections from the London Metropolitan Archives, including London workhouse records. It also has collections for Warwickshire, Norfolk, Bedfordshire and Cardiff.

www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/tutorials/workhouse-ancestors/

www.workhouses.org.uk/

He came over as a very thoughtful caring man. No false tears or lovey theatrics. It would have been difficult to follow his father's family with his mother still alive maybe it was done for him in private.
One of my relations has decided to make a record book of our family,we both use Ancestry but are finding it difficult to find records of people who survived WW1 in more than one regiment.
I would like to know where they get their records from as well.
Especially the workhouse ones where the building no longer exists.

CaravanSerai that's really interesting and useful, thankyou.
My ancestor was in Port Glasgow so not sure if their records were the same. The next time I see him is when he marries my widowed gt grandmother in New Zealand 18 yrs later. I found his Master Mariner's certificate NZ in the archives there (it was found for me by the archivist for a small fee). From there, his date and place of birth took me to Port Glasgow which is just down the road from me. I have been able to research his family back to Ireland in the 1700s. He has no death certificate as he disappeared at sea so it is those "missing years" I would love to see where he was..
I am on Ancestry so will definitely give the Mariner's records a try.

This was a very interesting programme what a nice down to earth man Richard is. What a family history apart from his father who does not deserve research.
It took me back to being eighteen. My job after typing school was working at the Merchant Navy establishment on Liverpool docks. In between typing out boring letters and answering the old PBX switchboard. There was always a lot of interesting information to read with admiration of young and old in the seaman’s records.