The most recent programme in the celebrity genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? saw former Carnoustie High pupil, the actor Alan Cumming, delve into his family history.
Asked how far he’s got with his own family history he lets slip a guilty laugh before replying, “That would be a bit of a busman’s holiday for me. And in any case, others got there first I have several aunts and uncles who’ve delved into it.
“They discovered my great uncle was a Soviet spy in the 1920s and 30s. He passed on ciphers via the Paris Embassy.”
Nick thinks genealogy should be taught more extensively in schools.
“I think we have too much of a top-down approach. You need some fixed reference points, of course, but people aren’t only interested in what kings and queens did.
“They want to know what happened to their own ancestors in the trenches of the first world war.”
He’s also keen that everyone fills out their census form.
“People may think it’s intrusive but their details are kept confidential for 100 years, so they’ve nothing to fear.
“It’s an essential tool not just for today’s government but for genealogists a hundred years from now.”
Nick Barratt will be delivering the Saturday Evening Lecture at Dundee University at 6pm. Free tickets are available from 01382 385564 or www.dundee.ac.uk/externalrelations/events/sels/2011
To research your family tree visit Scotland’s People.
The X-Men 2 and GoldenEye star investigated his grandfather, Thomas Darling, and discovered he had died playing Russian roulette while serving as a police officer in Malaya.
“The one with Alan Cumming was quite fascinating,” Nick Barratt says. “It’s amazing what people can find out if they delve into their past.”
Nick, the genealogist consultant for the first four series of the show, will be in the City of Discovery this weekend to deliver the penultimate lecture in Dundee University’s Saturday evening series.
“I’ll be telling people what goes on behind the scenes in Who Do You Think You Are? and giving them an insight into the tools they can use to tell their own family history,” he says.
Nick (40) grew up in London, going to Hampton School and then King’s College.
“My PhD was in 13th century state finance and fiscal history. It isn’t a subject many people are crazy about, I know.”
After completing his studies, he worked at the National Archives, spending four years there before getting a job at the BBC completely by accident.
“I was working an early evening shift at the National Archives helpdesk when a harassed looking member of the public approached me with a look of terror on her face,” he explains.
“She had a 16th century document that she couldn’t read. I helped decipher it and linked it to other resources for her. It turns out she was a researcher on House Detectives. They offered me a job working on the programme almost straight away.”
Nick was thrust straight in front of the cameras, as an expert in deciphering and explaining the historical documents found by the programme. He established his own research agency and became a genealogy gun for hire. He was taken on by the then new BBC series Who Do You Think You Are, in which celebrities trace their family trees.
First broadcast on BBC2 in 2004, the series was an unexpected success, regularly attracting more than six million viewers and from series three onwards it was moved to BBC1.
Over the years, celebrities who have delved into their past have included Jeremy Clarkson, Moira Stewart, Jeremy Paxman, Stephen Fry, Nigella Lawson, David Tennant and Kim Cattrall.
“For me, the best group were the ones who took part in the first season. The show was brand new then so everyone who took part was taking a risk and placing their trust in the show’s producers not to do a hatchet job on them.
“From the second series, you had a body of work you could show people before they agreed to take part, but all the celebrities in season one were taking a gamble.Favourite”I think the one that I like best was Bill Oddie. He was visibly moved by it.”
That episode saw the comedian and presenter, who was brought up by his grandmother, delve into the background of his mother, who was said to have been mentally ill.
He looked at the history of his grandmother, who he blamed for preventing him becoming close with his father, and discovered that the memory loss for which his mother was institutionalised may not have been caused by mental illness, but by the electric shock therapy administered by those that were supposed to be treating her.
The experience brought him closer to understanding the roots of the bouts of depression he himself had suffered from.
“It was quite an emotional experience,” Nick says. “There’s a point when he says ‘I wish I knew then what I know now,’ and it’s clear it’s a very life-changing moment for him.”
Creating the show, Nick says, was a balancing act between showing too much of their working out and not showing enough.
“It’s a bit like watching a magician. You want to know how they do their tricks, but if they tell you then it’s a bit disappointing.
“The difference is, our job was to show how the tricks were done. A lot of the viewers are amateur genealogists themselves and our job is to show them how they can research their own family history.
“Of course, it’s also entertainment so there’s a balance that has to be struck between showing how to do it and bogging the programme down in so much procedural detail that we lose the story we’re trying to tell.”
Nick was heavily involved during the first four seasons of Who Do You Think You Are?, but only does occasional work for them now.
“They’ve set up an in-house team which has the expertise and resources to do most of the work themselves. I’m still involved, to do the books and some of the specials, but only on quite a peripheral basis these days.Franchised”The show has been franchised all over the world and I’ve been involved in setting up the Irish, South African, Australian and a little bit of the US version.
“Each country’s a little bit different. Doing Australia was good fun for obvious reasons of weather, but also because they have more of an oral history over there.
“You have the indigenous Australians and the settler Australians, and all kinds of fascinating interconnections.”
Nick says those seeking to trace their family histories will require a modicum of patience. “The thing with Who Do You Think You Are? is that they have a huge budget and a team of researchers.
“They can piece together a story in six weeks, and then we’ll get people on saying they’ve been trying to do the same thing with their relatives and it’s taken them 20 years to research their story.”
The success of Who Do You Think You Are? is reflective of what seems to be a current resurgence of interest in tracing our backgrounds.
“It’s actually been very popular for a long time. The Society of Genealogists is celebrating its centenary this year.
“What’s changed is the internet has brought all this out into the open. It used to be that people would research their family tree and when they moved on it would lie in a cupboard or attic.
“Now people are putting their discoveries online.”
This, for Nick, is the future of genealogy. “You have sites like D. C. Thomson’s Genes Reunited which are incredibly useful. But I think the future is going to be user-generated content.
“People will use social networking technology to generate their own content and link it to others’.”
Continued