BBC TV "WDYTYA?" Series 10 Episode 6 Alex Kingston

[ReadyDale]

Interesting though that in addition to the 1861 entry shown, there is another Elizabeth Braham of a similar age, also in Marylebone (where the one with Rosa now was) who is also a Lodging House Keeper, in a street with many female "proprietor of houses". Coincidence or entered twice?

[Nick29]

I wonder how many of us will be scrutinizing those Census returns for some of our female 'Head of the Household' ancestors with fresh eyes  .  I have one or two groups of female 'Needlewomen' living together in the mid 19th Century - what d'ya think?  .  Great episode!

Well, I noticed at least one 'Dressmaker' on the census form where Alex's ancestor lived 

[Lydart]

About to watch on iPlayer .....

[LizzieW]

Got to watch on iplayer.  I usually watch WDYTYA and record Grand Designs, Sky+ set up for this, but last night OH decided he wanted to watch Grand Designs and I forgot to reset the Sky+, so we not only watched GD, we also recorded it, but didn't record WDYTYA. Am I getting old? 

[Spidermonkey]

Really enjoyed this one - even the WW1 aspect despite my moans from last week 

My unanswered questions from this episode were - did Rosa continue her grandmother's profession, and how did Eve manage to marry into a prominent Orthodox Jewish family?

[Sandymc47]

Dont you have playback Lizzie.

I havent found this series as exciting or as interesting as other series.
I too, have found the World War parts a little boring as there were only
so many battles in France.  
I liked the Annie Lennox one as it went backwards quite along way.
Liked the boarding house espisode of Alex.  At least Elizabeth didnt
starve to death or go in the Poorhouse and die from disease.  I dont
blame her for her life.  No one knows nowadays what it was like and why
these women had to make such a decision to survive.  It even confirmed
that if they had any money and remarried they lost all of it to the husband.
Not on your nelly I say.
My question would be what happened to all of those houses, they must
be worth millions nowadays.

[silvery]

I enjoyed this episode as well but was shouting at the TV when they assumed the grandaughter must be the daughter of Lewis as she had the same surname. If she had been an illigitimate daughter of one of his sisters then she still would have the same surname as everyone else. Without displaying a birth certificate to prove this it was another leap of faith that as professional researchers they should not be demonstrating on TV to individuals with no experience. How many others will now jump to this conclusion I wonder? Leading to a load of bogus information being added to family trees on well know internet websites without sources to back the information up (rant over)

panda

When she was leaving her jewellery to her grand-daughter in the will, there was a section of the will that started to read 'daughter of.....' but the camera didn't move along to show the next bit.  Maybe that was the proof but we weren't shown it. 

I found it strange that only the son and the grand-daughter were mentioned in the will, no mention of her daughters.

[roopat]

I also shouted at the TV at the assumption regarding Rosa's parentage!  They never bothered to find out anything about Rosa's mother - in my family it was always the mother's mother who took in the illegitimate children. (happened frequently  )  Even more likely to be one of the daughters' children if they were 'working' in their mother's house of ill-repute. 

I'm afraid I found this episode a bit long-drawn-out, with Alex reading everything out v-e-r-y slowly when she quite obviously was reading from the typed transcript which could be seen next to the original.
 
The information was interesting but I felt it could have been done in half an hour and they could have actually got more in. I'm sure in earlier series they covered more ground in each episode.

Still I fell asleep 10 minutes before the end, maybe it livened up then  but OH did fill me in what I missed.

[Spidermonkey]

Really enjoyed this one - even the WW1 aspect despite my moans from last week 

My unanswered questions from this episode were - did Rosa continue her grandmother's profession, and how did Eve manage to marry into a prominent Orthodox Jewish family?

To answer my own question - Rosa married Alfred Good in 1877.  In 1881, they are living at 28 Barrow Hill Road - was that one of Grandma's houses?