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
20 August 2008
Does illegitimacy feature in your family tree?
Illegitimacy is a feature of family trees across the centuries and social classes.
The shame often associated with illegitimacy can lead to concealment of family facts, making traces difficult. But as Nick Barratt explains, it is possible to spot interesting clues on the family history trail if you look hard enough.
Stories in this week’s programme…
Follow the money
Money coming in to the family “from somewhere” can hint at ancestral illegitimacy. When Kevin Howarth's great grandmother fell pregnant whilst serving as a maid on a large estate, the finger of paternal suspicion pointed at the estate owner's son.
Kevin's grandfather was privately educated and had several sports cars but refused to talk about his upbringing. So where did the money come from? Nick Barratt questions whether Kevin's grandfather's middle name, Egerton, holds the key.
The secretary’s child A child born to the secretary of a married man but raised by the man’s wife as a child of her own. How would Edwardian England have reacted?
Dr Ruth Paley, author of an authoritative work on illegitimacy, explains how perceptions have changed through the ages.
Tracing Your Roots is the series that helps put branches on your family tree.
