Looking for aunt Edna …… with help from BBC Two's ...... DNA Family Secrets with Stacey Dooley

Now during the last two decades there has been a huge increase in people researching the history of their families.

Mrs. Bux, date unknown

This is partly due to the vast number of official records which have been digitalized and are available on genealogical platforms.

So, when my sisters went looking for our family back in the 1970s it involved journeys up to the east Highlands, in search of parish records and family gravestones.

Just over 40 years later when I began looking for our mother’s story it was pretty much all done sitting at home at a desk with a computer, supported by the odd phone call to local history libraries.

To which I added long forgotten books, magazines, and Parliamentary Papers which had been rescued from dusty shelves in universities across Britain and the USA and presented as downloadable digital copies.

I still get a thrill at touching a 19^th century manuscript or the minutes of a local Poor Law Committee but recognise that I am never going to get easy access to material long ago deposited in a faraway place.

All of which has made Family History so much easier to do.

And in turn this has generated a series of television programmes.

Some like the celebrity based Who Do You Think You Are? have clocked up 19 series, explored the lives and family past of 161 individuals and has been replicated in 18 countries.

And then there is DNA Family Secrets with Stacey Dooley, which is “a factual series based on genetics and DNA”.

The programme is now into its 3^rd series and is “looking for people based in the UK with ancestry or heritage questions, or people who need help to find relatives (including relatives abroad). We have been looking into Britain’s home children and would be interested in representing this historical event through the series.

Samuel and Sarah Nixon, 2009

Inspired by the incredible advances in genetic/genomic technologies - and at a time when many of us will have either taken some form of genetic test ourselves or know somebody who has - our ambition is to create a public service series with science at its core, that would guide people as they seek to learn more about their DNA.

Led by a team of leading academic experts, clinicians and genetic counsellors, our series will follow individuals with specific questions they'd like to ask as they seek genetic testing for health, ancestry and relationships. 

If you’d like to watch episodes from our previous series, you can find them here on BBC iPlayer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000sthc ”

All of which leaves me to say the blog does sometimes do advertising but for the best possible reasons.

 * emma.bridgewood@minnowfilms.co.uk

Location; everywhere

Pictures;  Mrs. Bux, Cologne, date unknown, grave stone of Samuel & Sarah Nixon, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 2009 , place unknown