Find My Past - New television series

[Margarett]

Apart from the obvious re-capping and advert breaks, I think this is a very good series. The research is excellent, and it makes for good viewing. but thank goodness for Sky/ Vplus!

[millymcb]

I love the way Nick Barratt found the young lad's birth on the FindMyPast BMD then managed to quickly trace back through all the ancestor marriages using maiden names and instantly clicked on a ready made family tree

Really not keen on the family tree bit at the beginning (seems a bit of a waste of time and completely unrealistic) - but I do like the history bits and interviews with experts and veterans..  And I also like the letting the youngsters have a go at plotting and sitting in the spitfire bits.

Milly

[jc26red]

Apart from the poor production and presenter, the thing I find most encouraging from this program is the interaction and encouragement its giving to the young descendants.  A hands on approach to modern history with a personal touch is brilliant, you can see them warming to the stories as they unfold.  I loved the boy getting really into plotting the aircraft movements, a real eyeopener to the pre-computer age!  I feel he came away with deep respect for his great aunt.
I do hope that the youngsters carry on the interest and came away with enough knowledge on how to research on their own.

[CBGenealogy]

Seriously, though, tonight's episode is the third one about WWII - we haven't even been in the 19th century.  I just don't think of grandparents and their siblings as "ancestors", even the ones I didn't know.  Sky + is the only way to watch it - I got through the Battle of Britain ep in about 35 mins.

[millymcb]

The programme relies quite a lot on archive film so I guess anything from 19th Century would be problematic for them!

Milly

[Winterbloom21]

I agree that the topics are a bit recent for my taste, too.    However, when putting together some stuff about my great uncle in WW1 this morning, it struck me quite forcibly that, for the grandsons for whom I am doing this, WW1 is as distant to them as the Crimea is to me, or Waterloo to my mother and father!!       Even WW2, for them, is about on a par with what for me would be the Zulu Wars.
   
So, perhaps they are aiming this as a younger audience, and we should be more understanding at the lack of knowledge of some of the younger participants. 

[flipflops]

I'd like to be more positive about this programme, but I simply cannot stand that dreadful piano which always seems to rise to a cacophonous crescendo when Nick Barratt is speaking so I don't know for sure whether during last week's Battle of Britain edition, the origin of the information plotted by WAAF plotters was mentioned.

Much of the information received by Fighter Command  operations and ALL of that once enemy aircraft had crossed the coast was tracked by the members of the (Royal) Observer Corps who were stationed on rooftops and the like, and expected to spot and identify an aircraft within 3 seconds. If not, perhaps it should have been - maybe instead of one of those endless recaps.

[cati]

I found last night's programme about Pegasus Bridge kept my interest far more than earlier programmes did.

Wish they'd turn the backgound music off!

[millymcb]

I think this series may be getting better. I quite enjoyed this week's episode about Captain Bligh and the mutiny on the Bounty. 

Although I still don't like the "show and tell" discussion at the end

Milly