I'M getting fed up with Who Do You Think You Are?
It remains one of my favourite television programmes but all the celebrities they feature have ancestors who made history. In comparison, my family have done little but survive over the past 400 years.
Actress Courteney Cox, of Friends fame, discovered in the US version of the show, that she is related, through a 13th century feudal English baron, to King John. And she's American.
In the latest British series, comedian Greg Davies found he is related to the first Prince of Wales in the 12th century, which gave him ideas of grandeur, until he discovered this Prince of Wales put it about a bit and half of Wales can lay claim to being his progeny.
Danny Dyer is a direct descendant to Edward III, Derek Jacobi's roots go back to a French financier at the court of the Sun King Louis XIV in 17th century France, Frances de la Tour found she comes from English aristocracy and even John Bishop's great great grandfather had a story to tell after getting captured in the Crimean War and becoming a POW.
So why is my family tree so sparse on royal connections, power and influence?
My roots contain mainly labourers, textile workers and coal miners. The most exotic claim I've got is that both my great grandfathers, on my mother's side, were journeymen maltsters. Which might explain my love of ale.
Most of my ancestors came from Ireland to escape famine. They were looking for a better life but, judging from the records I've sifted through, all they found was hardship. There is something intrinsically tragic when a 21-year-old groom (miner) and 20-year-old bride (domestic) and both witnesses made their marks because they couldn't read or write on a wedding form in 1857. A certificate signed in hope but which led to a life of struggle, hard work and poverty.
If I have one heroine in my past, it has to be Eliza Reeve, my great great great grandmother. Her husband died young and she became a matriarch that held the family together as head of household, living in such salubrious places as Salt Pie Alley. She was born in 1800 and died 84 years later.
I've searched diligently, but the only claim to any fame was a literary connection: my Irish ancestors once lodged in Shakespeare Yard in Chesterfield. I was born in Cheapside, Wakefield, which says it all.
My wife's background is far more exotic, with Italian, Flemish and Irish ancestry that includes a First World War VC, and an English strand to aristocracy and Hanging Judge Jeffreys in the 17th century. He sentenced 170 prisoners to death after the Monmouth Rebellion.
On the whole, I prefer my connection to Eliza Reeve.
It remains one of my favourite television programmes but all the celebrities they feature have ancestors who made history. In comparison, my family have done little but survive over the past 400 years.
Actress Courteney Cox, of Friends fame, discovered in the US version of the show, that she is related, through a 13th century feudal English baron, to King John. And she's American.
In the latest British series, comedian Greg Davies found he is related to the first Prince of Wales in the 12th century, which gave him ideas of grandeur, until he discovered this Prince of Wales put it about a bit and half of Wales can lay claim to being his progeny.
Danny Dyer is a direct descendant to Edward III, Derek Jacobi's roots go back to a French financier at the court of the Sun King Louis XIV in 17th century France, Frances de la Tour found she comes from English aristocracy and even John Bishop's great great grandfather had a story to tell after getting captured in the Crimean War and becoming a POW.
So why is my family tree so sparse on royal connections, power and influence?
My roots contain mainly labourers, textile workers and coal miners. The most exotic claim I've got is that both my great grandfathers, on my mother's side, were journeymen maltsters. Which might explain my love of ale.
Most of my ancestors came from Ireland to escape famine. They were looking for a better life but, judging from the records I've sifted through, all they found was hardship. There is something intrinsically tragic when a 21-year-old groom (miner) and 20-year-old bride (domestic) and both witnesses made their marks because they couldn't read or write on a wedding form in 1857. A certificate signed in hope but which led to a life of struggle, hard work and poverty.
If I have one heroine in my past, it has to be Eliza Reeve, my great great great grandmother. Her husband died young and she became a matriarch that held the family together as head of household, living in such salubrious places as Salt Pie Alley. She was born in 1800 and died 84 years later.
I've searched diligently, but the only claim to any fame was a literary connection: my Irish ancestors once lodged in Shakespeare Yard in Chesterfield. I was born in Cheapside, Wakefield, which says it all.
My wife's background is far more exotic, with Italian, Flemish and Irish ancestry that includes a First World War VC, and an English strand to aristocracy and Hanging Judge Jeffreys in the 17th century. He sentenced 170 prisoners to death after the Monmouth Rebellion.
On the whole, I prefer my connection to Eliza Reeve.
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