BBC TV "WDYTYA?" Series 10 Episode #2: Gregg Wallace

[suey]

My ears pricked up when he was looking into the divorce that never happened, he mentioned the National Archives but I can't for the life of me find anything on there. There again, TNA has always baffled me

Snap!  - I was looking on the NA website yesterday, why oh why did they do away with the old A2A at least you could search by individual record office

Back to the point...We enjoyed every minute of last nights programme.  So they jumped to conclusions, who doesn't when told 'facts' by one's elderly rellies, they got there in the end.

[Parmesan]

I felt the programme was somewhat contrived and scripted.  I think the producers wanted you to believe one thing then another in order to make it more interesting.

Greg went to his mum's to find out what she knew - she produced census records and GRO birth certificates.  As a previous posting says, why wasn't the other pregnancy mentioned on this 1911 census which his mum just happened to have!

I think the series has deteriorated from stories which hold a lot of history (eg Babs Winsdsor and her match girl stories) to this which was almost like a soap opera story to me.

It also shows a flawed approach to research - we go backwards, ie start with a death cert and work backwards, rather than pick a random birth cert.

sallysmum

I agree but the story was still a good one.Like a soap opera maybe but it happened to be true

I liked Greg, so different to SW last week who really irtitated me

[Finley 1]

Somebody get hold of Gregg and tell him we will restore and colour it if he wants.... 

xin

[Rishile]

Xin - give it a try 

http://greggwallace.com/contact/

Rishile

[Nick29]

This (very moving) programme demonstrated the power of family stories, and why you should always take them 'with a pinch of salt' 

[Trees]

My grandfather was presented with a bible and photograph when he left the cottage homes in 1905 but that was a much happier situation they found him a live in position which proved to be a good start for him.
 I have several gloveress ancesters in the Torrington area but I thought the pack men bought the work to them and returned the completed gloves so they didnot have the grulling walks to and from Torrington mentioned in the programme I was surprised they didn't mention the gloving schools too. They implied the women worked on the gloves early morning and late night by poor light and used the day time for household duties but I have read somewhere that the children went to gloving schools as early as 4 yrs old giving mum the opportunity to sew all day the house and family may have suffered but the family income could be doubled by a homeworking mum. Women could earn as much or even more than her Ag lab husband.
I can remember a fuss about the materials used in children's night clothes even when I was small and campaignes for prople to use fire guards and not hang the mirror above the fireplace which was the common practice.
I thought it a powerful and enjoyable programme even though I had the tissues to hand
Trees

[stonechat]

So many sad and difficult episodes

At least Henry R S lived through all the bad things

Shame though that he was cut off from his first family

[behindthefrogs]

It also shows a flawed approach to research - we go backwards, ie start with a death cert and work backwards, rather than pick a random birth cert.

sallysmum

I don't agree.  I did all my early research using just marriage and birth certificates.  As each step involved a trip to London and a few weeks delay, death certificates were only used when I hit a brick wall and were rarely of any use.

[baggygenes]

It also shows a flawed approach to research - we go backwards, ie start with a death cert and work backwards, rather than pick a random birth cert.

sallysmum

I don't agree.  I did all my early research using just marriage and birth certificates.  As each step involved a trip to London and a few weeks delay, death certificates were only used when I hit a brick wall and were rarely of any use.

Same here - in most cases I knew of peoples existence, who they married or who their parents were but not necessarily when they died so easier to work from a birth or marriage