TV shows and family history

In truth, you shouldn’t hire a researcher at all.

Everyone should do their own research, discover their own stories, do all their own legwork – and learn about the people who came before them slowly and carefully themselves, so they can take it all in.

Why wouldn’t they? These days, television shows and certain well known genealogy companies make it all seem so easy! Celebrity stories are televised each week, their entire family histories - generations of lives lived from one side of the world to the other –– are skipped over like pebbles on a pond, then neatly tied up, with gut-wrenching accuracy, in just under an hour. Incredible!

What genealogy shows don’t show is the months or years the production company has spent on researching those reduced down lives – nor the vast amounts of money they paid for dozens of researchers around the globe to dig it all up on their behalf! Neither do they show the vast amounts of money it took them to ship said celebrity – and the entire production team, equipment etc – to said place, just to show us what a mean/fantastic bloke old uncle whatshisname was! And that’s a crying shame because it gives such an unrealistic, impossible to replicate, view of what researching your family history is like. 

Whilst we can’t hope to replicate much of what we see on a big budget TV show, these days there are vast repositories and resources open to all, through which we can perhaps come close. But researching takes time, knowledge, determination and experience - all of which we have in spades at Know Your History.