Who do you think you are series 20

[Blue70]

There was a lot of "pre 1840s famine" emigration from Ireland as well. Estimated that London had about 20'000 Irish people in 1800. I would say many of them in Westminster, St Giles and Bethnal Green.

Yes the 1840s famine generation found cities and towns in Britain with Irish people already living there and a catholic parish system to support them. Liverpool for example was in a part of the country where the catholic faith had survived so the earliest Irish migrants of that era in the 18th and early 19th century were welcomed into a pre-existing catholic community. My earliest Irish ancestor in Liverpool married an Englishwoman in Liverpool in 1807 whose ancestors were recusants they had stayed catholic through hundreds of years of persecution.


Blue 

[coombs]

Similar to the later wave of French Huguenots who arrived in England in the early to mid 1700s, after the initial 1685 wave. Many of the later ones went to Westminster of Spitalfields, or towns/cities outside London, such as Canterbury or Norwich. Several went to Ireland and other countries.

In the latter half of the 1700s Bethnal Green and Spitalfields was full of people with Huguenot surnames. My ancestor Francois Fradin died at the French Hospital in London in 1803, he was a silk weaver.

[BillyF]

I`ve just caught up with the Dev Griffin episode. I too would have liked to have seen more about his Jamaican ancestry. I thought he came across as a likeable person; I read an article that said he had bought some transport for the local school children out of the fee he received more making th programme.

[coombs]

I liked the Lesley Manville episode.

I can relate to her finding an ancestor was sent to Australia as I just found a direct ancestor sent to Australia. Makes any ancestor movement from say Norfolk to Kent (maybe done by horse and cart in a day) look small time compared to 11'000 miles on a 6 to 7 month voyage.

[IgorStrav]

I've just seen the Lesley Manville episode, and I do appreciate that there must be volumes of research covered which cannot be included in the programme because of time constraints.

But in this particular case, there seem to have been three sets of children (her grandfather's original family, her grandmother Harriet's children with her husband, and the English children of her gx3 grandfather, Aaron) who were all brushed out of the narrative.....

I bet I wasn't the only one thinking that I'd have been following them all up just to see what happened.

And whilst I am indeed very admiring of Aaron's fight back against terribly unfair working conditions (my Ag Lab ancestors also suffered), I wonder what his wife and children thought about his putting himself so much at risk and indeed leaving them behind to struggle......

I know it all wouldn't have fitted in.

[california dreamin]

I've just seen the Lesley Manville episode, and I do appreciate that there must be volumes of research covered which cannot be included in the programme because of time constraints.

But in this particular case, there seem to have been three sets of children (her grandfather's original family, her grandmother Harriet's children with her husband, and the English children of her gx3 grandfather, Aaron) who were all brushed out of the narrative.....

I bet I wasn't the only one thinking that I'd have been following them all up just to see what happened.

And whilst I am indeed very admiring of Aaron's fight back against terribly unfair working conditions (my Ag Lab ancestors also suffered), I wonder what his wife and children thought about his putting himself so much at risk and indeed leaving them behind to struggle......

I know it all wouldn't have fitted in.

Absolutely, I couldn't have said it better.  I was left non-plused by this episode. There were so many  more questions left to answer. They didn't appear to utilise the 1921 census which could have been because the episode was put together before the release of the '21 or because this is an 'Ancestry' produced show and they don't have this dataset.   

In terms of Aaron, the Swing riots and his deportation. I thought the man was a widower (or perhaps I'm misremembering....) and yes it is an important part of the story to understand what happened to the family that was left behind. 

For me too many gaps in this one that needed to be addressed, and as you say probably on the cutting room floor.

CD

[IgorStrav]

I may be wrong but I thought Aaron’s wife died in the early 1840’s as my immediate thought on hearing that was to the 1841 census, which wasn’t mentioned.

And given her youngest child was 8 months old at her death (if I heard right) then obviously there was another story to be told about what she did after her husband and brother-in-law’s transportation.

Well that’s Family History, isn’t it - many many threads to follow!!

[JenB]

According to this biography of Aaron his wife died in 1829.
http://www.johnowensmith.co.uk/riot/personal.htm#hardinga

[IgorStrav]

According to this biography of Aaron his wife died in 1829.
http://www.johnowensmith.co.uk/riot/personal.htm#hardinga

I’ll replay the programme to see what they said about her death. Quite prepared to be wrong - I was on a treadmill using headphones whilst watching on an iPhone so my memory of what was said certainly questionable