Tracing Your Roots is the series that helps put branches on your family tree.
Each week Sally Magnusson follows the ancestral trail back in time to uncover colourful stories and hidden slices of social history. Resident genealogist Nick Barratt is on hand with tips and inspiration to help you explore your own family's lineage.
Programme details
24 October 2007
What did your ancestor do for a living?
Finding out the profession of your ancestor can be one of the most enlightening methods of discovering what daily life would have been like for them.
On this week’s programme we look at where you can find resources relating to specific occupations to flesh out your knowledge of your ancestors.
Stories in this week’s programme…
From the graveyard to the Guildhall
Gerrard Burnell discovered a real life Dick Whittington in his family tree when he followed a trail from Yorkshire to a Berkshire churchyard. As he discovered from one of the graves, his ancestor John Burnell had sought his fortune in 18th century London as a humble bricklayer, and had later risen to Lord Mayor. A visit to the archives of the Guildhall Library reveals more about Lord Mayor Burnell and his meteoric career path.
Dante’s Inferno in the East End
Some of the jobs our ancestors had seem barbaric by today’s standards. Sharon Fuller was intrigued when she found out her ancestor was a “sugar baker”. As she discovered, this meant long, long hours in furnace-like temperatures in a refinery, making “loaves” from the red hot molten sugar. Sugar historian Ron Noon joins us to explain the relentless rise of the industry that brought “white gold” to the general UK population.
Agricultural goldmine
It’s notoriously difficult for family historians to find records relating to ancestors who were agricultural labourers. But you could be lucky... Alan Burgess uncovered detailed manorial records in his local archives, revealing what his ancestors were doing day to day in the local area, and what they were paid for their efforts.
Tracing Your Roots is the series that helps put branches on your family tree.
