Julian Clary - Who Do You Think You Are?

Did anyone else struggle to find this one interesting?

Jenny M Benson...

Yes! And my daughter would echo that.

I kept getting interrupted and found I didn't really care, whereas I
would normally have bitterly resented interruptions.

Wasn't that bit from his Mum - "don't find any foreign people!" - a bit
contrived? Rather an odd thing to say as a first reaction and then lo
and behold! he finds the family are German.

Phil C....

Quite. She might have been bothered about all sorts of things -
illegitimacy, incest, bigamy, hereditary illness, criminality etc etc.
But she was just bothered about foreigners. How incongruous - and what
a coincidence in a prog that needed some drama. And neither her
husband or son, with already known German ancestry (it turned out),
reacted at all.

Perhaps I'm too cynical but I'd lay odds that they only went to
Swindon to interview them once and then adjusted/edited the story to
make it look as if it were twice. Such techniques are commonplace,
sadly.

Whether it was because Stephen Fry's was a hard
act to follow I don't know......but I fell asleep half
way through this one.

kevin yates...

I didnt find it that dull but there again i have only just started doing my
family tree. The only thing i miss from the last series is the sumary of how
they found the records which they done in the last series

Kevin

Hugh Watkins...

when they got to Prussia they should have dug deeper

probably conscription records and military service

and after a 7 year apprenticeship
journeymen were expected to go on the road for 7 years to gain experience

today a bricklayer in DK is much more than in UK (does plastering as well)
many many avenues left unexplored
and DK tends to follow DE in qualifications and in administration

Then Bismark times were hard on the conscripts
and there were failed harvests and famine

so migration began

Hugh W

Roger Mills \(aka Set Square\)...

It was sort of interesting - but nothing like as good as the previous 3
programmes.

Andrew Brydon...

I thought it was very useful for a reminder that we're not all going
to find film-worthy stories in our past. Stephen Fry's show was great,
but how many of us can expect that? I'm from the north east so have
a few shop keepers, and then miner, miner, miner and maybe an ag-lab
for variety. Many, many other lines for large numbers of the British
population will be the same, not full of strange foreign lands and
exciting jobs in interesting industries. Conversely, interest comes
where we find it: my own family's story of miner, miner, miner, ag-lab
was turned into a 92 page booklet in time for Christmas. Julian's

C Rihan...

I agree that interest comes where we find it.
If most of your ancestors had the same sort of occupations then
you have nothing for contrast, but if there is one doing something
different, or one who has come from a different place, you wonder
why.
There have been a few dramas about miners so I would probable
class that as an fairly exciting occupation.(though not one I would
want to do). A shop keeper sounds quite exciting too, if they were
rich enough to run their own shop, and what sorts of things did they
sell.
An ag lab presumably had a bit of countryside around, that could
be pretty to go and have a look at, if still there.

C Rihan...

Quite a good description of the Julian Clary programme when you
think about it, with the things that came out which hadn't been
mentioned in his family, like mental health and Germans.

Best wishes
C.Rihan

story was similar perhaps: having found many less "exciting" and
media-friendly stories they concentrated on a few that were more
interesting for the mass market.

Personally, I found the actual process turned out to be interesting
when performing my own research. Since this series they are seeming
to concentrate more on the result than the method, i.e. the deductions,
wrong paths, revelations, insights, interviews (and corrections) etc.,
how much are they missing from the programme that would be of interest

roy...

I'm quite sure we are not! Does any TV programme maker produce
historical programmes aimed purely at historians, any more than
scientific programmes are aimed at scientists? They would have an
exceedingly small audience if they did. Who Do You Think You Are? is
clearly aimed at presenting genealogy and family history to the
ordinary person who hasn't yet taken it up, and perhaps those with a
modicum of experience.

Unfortunately - from my point of view - the effect is being felt at
the GRO again. I was talking to a girl there a few days ago and she
told me the certificate applications are soaring, just as last time.
It seems they've had to take on ever more temporary staff than
before, which hopefully means at least there won't be waiting periods
of up to a month as happened with the first series. She admitted
they'd seriously miscalculated the demand last time round.

In the meantime, it's back to the FRC for me until the fuss dies down
and the newcomers find another hobby!

Roy Stockdill

"Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest
knowledge of how to live, nor the remotest instinct about when to die."

Oscar Wilde

to genealogists? Or indeed are we not the target audience?