I know I am somewhat biased, because as I mentioned last week the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was my local railway company, and the talk mainly focuses on stations within Sussex and on routes with which I am familiar. Whilst the location is not particularly critical to the theme of the talk, it was a help because I was able to visualise the routes he was talking about, which is just as well because none of the visual presentation appears to be available on the TNA website.

After an introduction to the history of the railway timetable Dr Wakeford illustrated some of the ways in which data from these historic timetables can be used. I do have several historic railway (and bus) timetables in my collection, but have never carried out any serious study of their contents in the way that Dr Wakeford has.

He used various examples to show how many aspects of rail travel changed over time. From drastically reducing the time taken to travel from A to B and increasing the range of opportunities, to showing how increasing railway traffic would affect those working on the railway.

Of course I couldn’t listen to it without wondering what impact the railway had on my ancestors. It is something I have wondered about many times before, but never really explored. Take for example the TROWER family of Henfield, Sussex. Did the arrival of the railway (the Horsham to Shoreham line briefly mentioned in the podcast) in 1861 increase the mobility of the family? Did the children spread their wings further when it came time to leave home? Did the family seek employment further afield?

It would be interesting to take a closer look at the mobility of successive generations of TROWERs, but that is an awful lot of data to process, fortunately I do have a lot of that data already available, but it would still be a lot of work. Maybe I will add it to my list of things to do.

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.
	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

First was the next episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme Ramblings, in which Clare Balding walked part of the South Downs Way from Ditchling Beacon to Devil’s Dyke. It was wonderful to hear her talking about some of the places that I had seen on my walk last week, and some of the things I had mentioned on my blog post.

Next up was the latest podcast from The National Archives, this was a talk entitled Lost London Pubs given by Jack Adams at the Pub History Society Conference I attended back in February and wrote about here. It was great to hear the talk again and I hope that some of the other talks will appear over the next few weeks.

It is very rare to get a podcast that is so close to home, relevant and interesting, but to get two come along at the same time is unheard of, but nevertheless welcome.

The latest podcast Counting the People is a real gem, and will be of interest to any family historian with an interest in finding out what it took to actually make the census happen.

Audrey Collins gives a sometimes humorous “behind the scenes” look at some of the people involved, some of the problems encountered in taking the census and many other aspects of the decennial census.

I would recommend this podcast (just over an hour long) and the accompanying notes to all family historians, as it will help explain why we may not always find what we are looking for on the census, as well as describing how the whole enumeration process worked.

This got me thinking about my own family myths and legends and the fact that I don’t appear to have any in my family tree.

I have tried to remember if I was ever told any stories as a child or whether there was anything I wanted to try and prove when I started my research, but I don’t think there ever was. No criminals amongst my ancestors, no stories of relations moving to far off lands and making their fortune, no missing millions waiting to be discovered and I didn’t think I might have been descended from the illegitimate child of some distant King or Queen.

Plenty of mysteries and puzzles have turned up since I started researching, like why did my grandfather end up at school in London, but nothing actually from the start that I wanted to prove or made me start researching my family tree.

I suppose there is only one myth that I had and that was one that I created soon after I started researching. I rather foolishly believed that my ancestors and relations were not very interesting and never did anything unusual. How wrong could I be!

Was there a particular family story that you wanted to prove that got you started in family history research, or was it just general curiosity?

The first videocast is Hope and Glory and is a short but useful introduction to life in London at the start of the war and during the Blitz. It features extracts and footage taken from The National Archives. It can be found on The National Archives website or on their YouTube channel.

This first episode is entitled Wartime Losses, and picks up on the Second World War anniversary theme. The programme synopsis gives brief details of the three case studies featured, all people trying to find out more about their fathers.

There is some really useful advice in this programme (links are provided in the synopsis) for people in a similar situation, trying to trace a parent who had been “lost” after or during the war. Two of the cases prove that there can be a happy ending, but it is still by no means an easy task, but there are now several organisations who may be able to help.

It was fascinating to hear about some of the characters involved, their motives and the methods involved in creating their forgeries and how they were eventually uncovered. It then goes to explain that new evidence has meant that some documents which were originally believed to be forgeries may not be after all.

It is unlikely that family historians will have to worry about forgeries (although there is one case mentioned involving a parish register) because as the speaker (David Thomas) points out it is mainly famous individuals like Shakespeare and Hitler that feature in forgeries, presumably because this is where the money and fame can found.

Sadly, despite what it say at the start of the podcast there is no further information on the website, but there is more information on the case involving The National Archives on their website, in the 2007 Freedom of Information disclosure log, including copies of the documents and police witness statements.

These podcasts are recordings of talks given at The National Archives in Kew, and cover a varied range of subjects and historical periods (right up to only a few decades ago). Usually, but not always, the talk has some connection to the holdings of The National Archives. The show notes for each podcast contain a varying degree of background material, all have a brief description of the talk, but some also include illustrations and a transcript of the talk.

Those relevant to the subject of criminals and prisons include:

Victorian Women Prisoners by Chris Heather (published 9th October 2008)

The real Little Dorrit: Charles Dickens and the debtors’ prison by David Thomas (published 28th November 2008)

Catching Victorian and Edwardian criminals on paper by Professor Barry Godfrey and Doctor David Cox (published 8th May 2009)

Prison: five hundred years behind bars by Edward Marston (published 22nd May 2009)

If you watched last week’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? with Kate Humble then you might also want to have a listen to the podcast about The Great Escape, which tells the real story behind the events that inspired the film.

Family History Podcast: Episode 8 – News, clues and street views

Things have been a bit quiet over at the Family History Podcast in recent months, but I am pleased to say that Will Howells has just put up a new episode. There are only a few episodes in the archive so far, but they are well worth a listen (and watch in the case of the video episodes) if you have an interest in UK family history.

British Postal Museum and Archives Podcast: Tony Benn – Girobank: The 40th Anniversary of The People’s Bank

This is a new venture from the British Postal Museum and Archive, and their first podcast features Tony Benn talking about the establishment of the National Girobank (amongst other things). It was recorded on the 16th October 2008, and will probably be of more interest to social historians than genealogists. It is a very entertaining and informative talk, although sadly the questions at the end are a little tricky to hear.

Neil Innes: Works in Progress

As I still had a couple of shirts to go and had run out of podcasts, I switched over to music and started listening to Neil Innes’ most recent album Works in Progress. I have long been a fan of Neil Innes, and have seen him live several times. As well as fantastic music, it has some great lyrics as well, an example of which from the track “One of Those People” is “The last thing I need is a feeling of guilt, when I’m wading through treacle on balsa wood stilts”. It never fails to make me smile, likewise from “Eye Candy”, “At the ambassador’s reception I had to get away, so I hid behind a pyramid of Ferrero Roche”.

I was a little sceptical about listening to a guided walk without actually being there and walking the walk, but I shouldn’t have been. I really enjoyed the experience and would recommend anyone with London ancestors to check out the wide range of podcasts available and give them a listen.

I briefly visited the area a few months ago and got a flavour of the area but this podcast gave me a further insight into the history and character of the area, and some ideas for places to visit as well for when I return to Soho again.

It was great to hear about some of the streets where Thomas KINGHORN and some of his children lived, liked Meard Street, Broadwick Street (formerly Broad Street), Ganton Street (formerly Cross Street) and Golden Square.

It has inspired me to try and find out more about the area and make a return visit, although perhaps summertime with lots of tourists is not such a good time to be visiting. Having said that I guess I would be a tourist as well, a genealogical tourist.

If you have London ancestors then check out this series of podcasts for a taste of modern London life, with a touch of history thrown in.