Family history is something which I find fascinating but with the best will in the world can’t be said normally to be of life changing importance to others.

Sometimes though, the result of your genealogical  activities transcend the mundane and take on an altogether higher order of importance when families are brought together for the very first time.

Yesterday was just such a day.  A friend was able to speak to her 92 year old grandmother for the very first time . She called me excitedly late last night to tell me the wonderful news.

Sadly her father never knew his mother – removed from her at birth after being born in an institution prior to the formation of the NHS.  He died a few years ago knowing nothing about his mother other than some meagre information on a 1947 birth certificate. No photographs – no memorabilia. Last year my friend asked me to help in trying to trace her father’s family.

Over time, I uncovered a sad trail of parental divorce, foster care, then removal to educational and health institutions throughout the forties and fifties in different parts of Scotland.  The search was anything but straightforward with hundred year closure rules working against us on more than one occasion. When I eventually managed to trace her granny getting married in the 1960s in her forties and going on to have a family of her own, there was still a huge degree of uncertainty about whether she would still be alive today.  But after a chance conversation that my friend had with someone from the same area in Paisley, it transpired that her grandmother was still very much alive and living independently as a widow. So, with a degree of trepidation, my friend summoned up the courage to call her grandmother directly. Following on from that successful first step, the next agreed step is for my friend to write her granny a full explanatory letter with the hope that they can meet in person quite soon. Result !

Have you ever watched an episode of the phenomenally successful BBC show Who Do You Think You Are ? and wonder why these celebrities appear to have such interesting origins ? Perhaps you’ve thought to yourself if only my own ancestral background was half as interesting ?

Who Do You Think You Are ?  has now racked up 12 series on BBC TV, as well as a host of international spin-offs, a magazine and a 3 day annual live show attracting countless thousands of would-be family historians.  It has popularised family history by making it interesting to all.

Well here’s a little secret about the celebs chosen – they’re no different to you and me ! It is true that from time to time celebs have been approached to appear on the show but have had to be ‘rejected’ because they didn’t have a  sufficiently interesting family history  to create an hour of good television. But for the most part their stories are not so very different to our own. The show is able to be highly selective about the particular family line chosen.  Think of it this way – we each have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents.   That’s 16 different family branches and sixteen different stories that can be told.  With a bit of informed research there’s every chance that engaging stories can be identified in some of our own family bloodlines. It could be about migration or the military, about poverty or oppression, or one of entrepreneurship or invention. If records were kept, then they can usually be uncovered !

I’d encourage everyone with an interest in their family history to look beyond the obvious in 2016 and explore different branches of their family. It might just throw up an engaging story, worthy of a WDYTYA episode, and bring your family history to life.