Best for a while

I can't post a lengthy missive this morning.  I have done my back in so badly that I just can't sit in my desk chair very comfortably for a long time!

However, I did just want to comment on Frank Gardner's Who Do You Think You Are? last night.  I have enjoyed all of the programmes in the last couple of series but it was really great to see an episode which really pushed the genealogy line rather than just concentrating on one or two ancestors' stories.

Who would have thought anyone who is not currently royal or "landed gentry" could trace their ancestry to William the Conqueror himself?  There is hope for us all!  It was just a shame that the programme was not long enough to show the paperwork route to the Tudor ancestor.  I personally have stalled with my own tree in the late 1600s.  I am proud of having got that far but it spurs you on to want more!  Human nature.

I was terribly envious of Frank Gardner's visit to the heraldic college too.  Even if it was not my tree, to have the chance to visit such a place and handle those documents would be amazing.  Weird genealogy crush, anyone??!

To Be A Writer

 

 

Back in the land of the living!  Well, in school hours anyway.  Eldest has started at secondary and it has been quite a learning curve this September.

So what to write about?  I must admit that genealogy work has completely taken a back seat.  I have, though, been maintaining an interest in my creative writing.  And I have decided to try to write up some of the stories gleaned from my family tree and integrate them into fiction.

I do make it sound so easy don't I?  Well it isn't, I can tell you.  There are possibilities whirring in my head but making myself just start writing and stop overthinking is another matter.

This morning I was reading a writers' blog about entering writing competitions.  It was talking about how long to continue trying to make it as a writer before accepting that maybe fiction is not where your talents lie.  I do agree that, at some point, I will have to admit defeat if this is the route I decide to follow and I am unsuccessful.

However, this summer I have been reading all sorts of books that I would never normally read.  A tutor had mentioned the merits of reading books that we considered "bad" in an effort to pick out what we thought was "wring" with them.  And very entertaining, it has been!  A couple of awful romances, a dreadful thriller and currently a best seller that I just can't get into.  But all of these people have reached the holy grail and been published.  So it is a bit chicken and egg.  You can  break all the "rules" given out by the creative writing tutors and still get published.  So are you writing for a genre and do not care what the quality is like?  Or are you writing and believing that you are writing great books?  If you get published, you must believe in your work or at least, your work is believable for a certain audience.

I mentioned this debate that I have been having with myself at our last book club meeting and the point was made that actually, we all do, or have done, jobs that we don't believe in - because they pay the bills.   An age old problem.

 

To round off with a genealogy point, I think there are probably two or three people on my entire family tree as it stands who found vocations rather than ways to pay the bills.  And they were all connected to religion.  So maybe I had better train to write some lucrative genre of fiction that will make some cash rather than holding out for critical acclaim.  52 Shades of Grey, anyone?

Wedding Etiquette

Last weekend my family and I attended the wedding of a very dear friend.  It was a very modern affair in some ways.  They had been together for eighteen years and produced two gorgeous children before they decided to tie the knot.  Yet in so many other ways, it was terribly traditional.  Far more than I had expected.

 

This was brought home to me whilst sitting waiting for the bridal party to appear.  My nine year old was asking question after question and it became clear to me that every step of a wedding is very much ingrained into most of us by adulthood.  You just know what is happening, no queries needed.  I guess that would be the same whatever religion or tradition you have been brought up within.

 

At this wedding, things about the day, the ceremony, the meal afterwards - all of which seemed perfectly normal and expected to us adults - were a source of much mystery to my child.  It was the first wedding she could remember attending.

 

So why was the groom waiting at the front without the bride?  And why did we stand up and sit down so much even though it wasn't a church?  Who is being given away and why?  Who told me what to read out at the ceremony?  Do all these people have to talk after dinner and what are they going on about?  What are we "toasting"?  More importantly, why can't we go over there and just cut ourselves some wedding cake?!  The child's eye view was fascinating.  It really made me think about what a wedding means. 

 

And to add a touch of genealogical musing (which was how this blog started - and please note, I have resisted the temptation to comment on Who Do You Think You Are? yet this series!), I did think this week about how times have changed in terms of late marriages.

 

Currently, when you are searching nineteenth and early twentieth century records, you tend to be surprised by illegitimacy, by people living together according to the census, by couples marrying later after having children.  Such genealogical discoveries lead to mysteries, to brickwalls, to family secrets.

 

Now, though, we are well used to such arrangements.  I can name many happy families who have no parental marriage certificate.  So, just as in the future genealogists will find divorce to be common place, they will also have to deal with far more fluid family arrangements.  They might find my friend on a census with her family, they will find her children.  Hopefully, they will look way past there and see the marriage as well...!

 

It was a fabulous day.  Even the weather was kind.  But it was particularly a day for love.  My beautiful friend was never more beautiful.

 

Auntie

This week I took my children on a BBC Tour at Broadcasting House in London.  Despite the absence of CBBC - now based in Manchester - they absolutely loved it.  Photos with a "real" tardis and darlek.  Reading the weather on a newsroom green screen.  Sitting on the One Show sofa.

 

And interwoven with the up to date stuff, there were wonderful bits of history about the BBC.  From the Art Deco building to the stories of the war.  From the lists of famous people who have been through the doors to the invention of television in the basement.

 

So using the tenuous connection of "Auntie", I am using this genealogy blog today to make a simple plea for people to defend the BBC in its coming battle with the government.

 

You would think that politicians who are conservative would value all of the history and Britishness that we saw and felt on our tour.  Apparently not.  The current government is hellbent on bringing down the BBC in its current form.  If we allow it to succeed, we are allowing it to bring down nearly a century of our history.

 

The BBC has figured in all of our lives and the lives of many generations before us.  It has encompassed all the arts, sports and entertainment we could want and it has been a source of comfort, pride, joy and many other emotions.

 

I don't want to rant on about the economics or politics of the BBC's funding.  And I don't doubt there have been huge mess-up's over the years.  But where have there not been scandals in recent years?  Child abuse, going to war without a vote, MPs' expenses, bribes and corruption in the City, the banking collapse, the list goes on.

 

I just felt the need to say "Stand up for Auntie".  We must not let the saying "you don't know what you've got until it's gone" apply to the BBC.  We do know and we should be proud.  See below!
 

 

The Return of WDYTYA

Far too many weeks since I last posted, sorry.  I had promised myself to get better at setting the timer thing to post more regularly.  Instead I have found myself on Yorkshire beaches, driving children to gym practice and walking the dog with ideas buzzing and no time to get them out.

 

However, I have managed to read Not My Father's Son, an excellent memoir by the actor Alan Cumming.  I heard him reading it on BBC Radio 4 soon after it was published last year but I have only just managed to discover the conclusion.

 

The gist is that at the same time Alan Cumming was doing Who Do You Think You Are? in 2010 - which turned up a completely fascinating family tale - he received a call from his estranged father, saying Alan should know, in the light of the programme being made, that he, Alan, was not his biological son.

 

The memoir is written in a number of  movingly interwoven strands - the WDYTYA shoot;  the time following its completion; childhood in Scotland; and early years as an actor.  The book is a great read and I really admire Alan Cumming for doing it but I won't discuss it further as I highly recommend reading it!

 

I watched Cumming's WDYTYA quite shocking episode when it was broadcast.  It has been fascinating, though, to read about what the poor guy was going through while he was on screen and talking about his ancestors.  And the childhood side of the memoir is awful but moving.  Human resilience in action.

 

However, as someone looking forward to the start of the new WDYTYA series (next week!), I was particularly interested in the machinations of the programme makers.  All the celebrities say, when asked, that they are told nothing before the shoot starts.  Read in the context of someone trying to deal with a personal crisis at the same time (albeit unbeknownst to the TV company), their methods seem almost cruel.  Of course, that is what makes good television.  Those special or disturbing moments, captured close-up.  I mean, they even squeezed a tear out of Jeremy Paxton so they must be good at what they do!  Television gold usually involves a "journey" these days and genealogy gives that in spades.

 

I don't imagine any of us, if confronted with the sort of information given to Alan Cumming, would keep a poker face.  The episode link is above.  Do watch it if you have not seen it already.  But read the book too.  The two make a good pairing.

 

And when WDYTYA returns, I think we should spare a thought for the celebrities who have agreed to take part.  Yes, they get top of the range (!) family trees given to them at the end but in return, they are expected to trip out their emotional reactions to whatever the producers have decided is most television-worthy.  Incidentally, for an example, in my humble opinion, of when the celebrity does not provide this entertainment, please see Sarah Jessica Parker's US episode of the show.  She literally had nothing to say....

Valid History

 

 

Last night, on Simon Mayo's Drivetime, it was Book Club night and the book being discussed sounded really fascinating.  The Truth According To Us by Annie Barrows is set in small town America in the Depression era.  I cannot comment on the book as I have not yet read it.  [Although I have now added it to the ever growing list of "must read" along with many Sunday supplement clippings, the Woman & Home Reading Room recommendations, my own local book club and the research for my fledgling creative writing.  No pressure...]

 

One discussion concerned "what is history".  Apparently, the book deals with the writing of a small town's history and the struggle to make sense of past events in the light of age-old grudges and warped memories.  Annie Barrows agreed very much with a comment that history is "about who writes it".  Very dependent on how someone or some organisation or some nation wants to be remembered.  Ms Barrows said that history is just a construct, not factual at all, "just a bunch of stories".

 

And I feel this resonates with many of my blog subjects in the last year.  Family history is what we make of it in the present generation.  My blog about The Demon Drink is an example.  Posts on how disease actually affected a family would be another.

 

John Hurt spent the whole of his Who Do You Think You Are? episode firmly convinced that he somehow came from Irish aristocracy.  He had been told so many tales over his life time that he had even convinced himself of a natural affinity with the country.  It was not true.  But it had coloured his family's view of themselves for generations.

 

Last weekend, I was reading a BBC History magazine (I know - my life is just so exciting...).  One of the articles was a revisionist view of the War of the Roses.  The author believes, along with many others, that Tudor propaganda aimed at cementing that family's position was responsible for substantially altering views of the pre-Tudor period.  He said, though, that it was not just down to primitive propaganda.  It was due to Shakespeare wanting to excite audiences, it was down to thrilling tales passed down and exaggerated between generations, and so on.

 

Look at Wolf Hall.  Tudor history rewritten in the twenty first century.  Thomas Cromwell has been a well known historical villain, of sorts, for centuries.  Now, after Hilary Mantel has finished with him, we are all feeling rather sorry for him and desperate for him not to die in the (please finish it soon, Hilary!) last of the trilogy.  Even though the fact of his death is one of the few certainties of his story.

 

Winston Churchill said "History is written by the victors".  Did you ever hear of a world famous book or film about German POWs escaping?  And what about Hiroshima's sufferings? 

 

It is not just victors though.  It is perception.  It is feelings.  In this blog, I have tried to look at how certain facts may have made participants feel and/or influenced their decisions.  I agree with Annie Barrows' assessment of history to a degree.  But history is no less valid for taking account of prevailing feelings, fashions, fortunes and families.

Pet Trees?

Yesterday our Labrador was one.  I remember blogging about her arrival last year.  Doesn't time fly when you are picking up poo and constantly hovering?!!

I do find it very interesting that she is so much part of the family though.  It has almost been like when you are waiting for a baby to arrive.  You can't imagine what it will be like when they arrive.  Then they do arrive and you can't imagine how you had a life without them, how you didn't know what they looked like.

When I blogged last year about the puppy, I was thinking about pedigree dog family trees.  It is so controlled, you know so much about the generations.

Today I was wondering about a human family tree which also named pets.  Can you imagine how many extra branches?  Well, twigs!  You could have dogs and cats with their dates and then extra twigs for hamsters, rabbits and so on.

This would provide quite an insight into some members of the family.  An unmarried sister might prove to be that cat lady cliché but you could at least recognise the beings that had enhanced her life experience.

Our dog has certainly enhanced our family's experience.  But it is funny to think that generations to come will more than likely not know of her existence let alone her importance to us.

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On a completely different matter, if you are interested in Irish family history, a number of new resources have become available in the last couple of weeks.  Land records, Catholic baptisms and various others.  I have not had chance to explore them properly yet but by all accounts, they are an exciting addition.  As I have blogged before, Ireland has presented me and numerous others with very particular research difficulties so far.  Not so much brickwalls as brick buildings, three feet thick!

The Demon Drink

 

 

In my last post, I referred to family issues affecting my writing.  One of the issues is alcoholism.  One of my husband's adopted brothers is sinking ever further into addiction and is simply unable to see that he needs help.  He believes he controls the alcohol, not the other way around.  His life, nearly fifty years of it, has not gone at all as he would have hoped and he has battled other addictions in the past.  However, the death of my father-in-law this year has tipped the balance and this is the worst that we have seen him - from any substance or liquid.

 

One of the issues which I wonder about, in my pondering, genealogy-obsessed way, is what has driven him to this point.  The circumstances of his adoption were not handled well by my parents-in-law.  A very old fashioned approach was taken to how the two brothers were told of their adoptions (they are not related to each other) and how the family then integrated when my husband, the only natural child, arrived.  My brother-in-law has always maintained no interest in seeking out his birth parents.  However, on Long Lost Family last week, one of the stories concerned a man who had sunk into addiction because of the rejection he felt from a combination of being adopted and of his adoptive parents then divorcing.  He described very eloquently how he had reacted and I believe my brother in law may have very similar issues.

 

Alcoholism can run in families.  I do not think a trace of the birth parents in this case would necessarily reveal alcohol related problems though.  I believe it is self esteem and family issues which have driven the constant need for a crutch in his life.

 

Now, though, we appear to have passed a point where counselling alone would help him to abandon his crutch.  Drying out is the only option but to do that, you have to recognise the existence of the problem and we are at a loss with how to make this happen.

 

I know, sadly, from having also witnessed a couple of acquaintances slip into alcoholism over the past ten years, that at a certain point, even organ failure and imminent death do not persuade someone that drink is not the answer.  They will lie, yellowing, on a hospital bed and ask you to slip them a drink.

 

Many of us like a drink, don't get me wrong.  This is drinking on a whole different scale.  Wake up, drink whiskey; once you are no longer capable of holding down a job you then drink on and off all day.  You lapse into sleep, wake up hungover at whatever time then start drinking again.  Continue ad infinitum...  Paula Hawkins' thriller The Girl On The Train describes the cycle very well.

 

We are lucky to have more knowledge than our ancestors on how to deal with these issues.  Despite government cuts, there are many services trying to help, to cope.  The Georgians, the Victorians or whoever did not have these insights.  However, at the end of the day in whatever age of history you are looking at, the key remains the same.  Admitting the problem and wanting to do something about it.  I hope my brother-in-law can find that key soon.

 

Our Common Humanity

 I have not been posting on this blog for a few weeks because of PC problems and, ironically, family issues.  However, this morning, reading yet more social media and newspaper comment about "The Migrants", I felt I had to start writing again.

Back in February, after listening to a BBC Radio 4 programme, I wrote a piece on this blog called Do We Know Who We Are? relating to immigration and the lack of thought given to people's personal circumstances in the reporting of the situation in the Mediterranean.
 
Today, when I looked at Twitter, there is now a hashtag in use called #MigrantsCrisis.  The headlines on certain tabloids and social media seem determined to make it appear that we are living under threat of faceless zombie hordes.  Apparently they are "swarming", travelling in "packs".  Surely this is the stuff of science fiction?  Should we now be arming our borders with ray guns?
 
On the BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine Programme yesterday, he finished a discussion about the Calais troubles with a line from a listener which referred to "our common humanity".  And I believe this is what is missing from our attitudes towards "the migrants".
 
The terminology being used by commentators, social media and broadcasters is dehumanising.  Purposely so.  They are conjuring up nightmarish pictures of these dangerous hordes at the gates of civilisation.
 
But how civilised are we, if we cannot see the common humanity before us?  How would this situation be reported if it was "hard working families" who were being "denied their rights", who were leaving European shores for sanctuary in the Middle East and being turned back or even dying at sea?  Would those families be faceless migrants, zombies threatening another country's way of life?
 
I believe that one of the reasons slavery lasted so long was the dehumanisation of the "cargoes".  Black Africans were lesser beings, therefore could be treated accordingly.  Attitudes still plaguing race relations the world over today.
 
As I noted in my February piece, those in glass houses and all that.  Very few of us can be sure that we are not descended from immigrants to the UK.  Whether that be from Vikings, Normans, European refugees, people from the ex-colonies, Ireland, wherever.  The British are a tapestry not an immaculate piece of finest linen.  The thread of that tapestry is humanity.

Richard III - Cumberbitch

 

Well still no commas or question marks and the cursor is funny now too!  But I will persevere and post again.

Recently I was reading The Guardian app and at the end of articles they put links to other related articles.  Some are current but mostly they are historical by months or even years.  I have completely forgotten which article I started reading but it led to a piece about the fact that genealogists had proved a distant link between Al Murray The Pub Landlord (who was standing for parliament) and David Cameron.  It was a very funny piece.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2014/jan/29/please-dont-say-im-related-to-david-cameron

.

This got me pondering about who I would and would not want to be linked to.  Of course in most scientific or religious theories we are all linked at some point anyway.  But how serendipitous was it for the finders of Richard III's remains when  Benedict Cumberbatch turned out to be related to the ex-king!  And links like that are gold dust for the producers of Who Do You Think You Are obviously.

So I have decided to keep pushing my tree in all directions until I come to a famous person.  I am already in the 1600s on one paternal line so that looks like slim pickings.  However I feel I must find some medieval king or personage on one of the lines.  Surely there must someone!  The journalist in the piece above mentions the idea that we are all related within 100 generations.  Plenty of scope for my ambitions.

 

If I want to guarantee a famous orator at my funeral though I will firstly have to become 1) so famous myself that they will want to be associated with me at all costs or  2)ensure my descendants are famous enough to get someone even more famous to officiate.  Link or no link.  Or possibly 3) lead some sort of battle get buried in a strange place and be dug up centuries later hopefully allowing enough time for really famous descendants to have made their names.

 

Maybe Richard was just waiting for Benedict.