BBC TV "WDYTYA?" Series 6 Episode #1: Rory Bremner

[kooky]

My older daughter watched the programme with me. Afterwards she commented that they had not gone very far back and she had found it a bit boring. She is not the least interested in my family tree investigations, but I think I must agree with her.
As someone earlier said, we are interested in the process necessary to find information.
Kooky

[Lydart]

I missed the first half, must watch it on iPlayer !

So what have we learned ?

1.  Look properly at those old family portraits (if you are lucky enough to have some) and also at the old photo's.  Take in the details, don't just look at the faces.

2.  Look in the old family 'coffers' (or in my case, the old cake tin I found under Mothers bed !)  Again, look at the stuff in it with care and intelligence.

3.  Ask anyone in the older generation NOW about their families in the past ... don't wait until they are dead ... Rory may have found out more info earlier by talking to his father when he was still alive.

4.  Only then start to make the tree, and take the investigations further into record offices and online.


... and as someone said ... give time to the youngsters; they are part of the family tree too !

[Janey2]

Rory Bremner was on the Richard and Judy show this morning talking about WDYTYA and I was surprised to learn that they research several branches and then decide which one to televise, so lucky him! he has got a complete family tree!

Janey

[Lydart]

... which his mother seems to have made and he didn't know it !

[Petros]

If you Google his Surgeon General great grandfather you'll find that the BBC researchers were digging quite hard on the Bermudan connection

It was intersting becuase of the people he met who had known his father and to see  how lucky he was to have such memorabilia as the diary.

BTW The first series was accompanied by shorter programmes that showed ordinary peoples stories

[Gillg]

Well, I for one would like to have seen many more of his relatives.  The first half hour concentrated on his father alone.  The Surgeon-General Ogilvy line was fascinating because of the amount of material the family already had.  But what about the rest of the family?  Apart from a fleeting reference to Rory's Ogilvy grandmother we heard nothing, and his mother's side didn't even get a mention - rather a pity, as she had done all the hard work documenting the family tree in the first place.

The "finding" of the medals, portrait, diary, etc. seemed very staged.

A fascinating study of a father-son relationship, but that's quite another programme.

Gillg

[aspin]

I have to agree with lots of you
I watched the programme and I don't know why they chose him
H e had tots of information to start with there was nothing exciting like our findings we do at home like you say he had photo's medals letters etc

I wish some of mine had left me a letter to read

Elizabeth

[Lydart]

We say we weren't told anything of his other ancestors ... but its quite possible he didn't want them investigated ... or that the Beeb decided they were so dull and uninteresting that they weren't television material ...

[Suffolk Mawther]

I think as family history researchers, we tend to view these programmes in a different way to the ordinary television viewer who is watching to while away an hour.
If you are not that interested in finding your own FH, these programmes provide an hour of entertainment.

For us, they either fall short of expectation or we can see what could have been done to further the research etc etc.

As a child I knew all my grandparents and three of my maternal great-grandparents.  My husband, like Rory Bremner, never really knew his father or either of his grandfathers, they all died at an early age.

Each programme does give a little more information on a particular aspect of FH and clues to help with our research (although I must admit, I shall be watching the re-run tonight as I tended to miss bits towards the end - dozed off  

Pat ...