Monday 19 November 2012

Genealogy Roadshow - new series for 2013

L-R: Turtle Bunbury, Nicola Morris, John Grenham
The second series of The Genealogy Roadshow will begin filming in early 2013.

It's going to follow the same format as the launch series, which aired on RTE1 in August/September 2011 and has been repeated twice. In that first series, the Roadshow’s research team – headed up by well-known genealogists John Grenham MAPGI and Nicola Morris MAPGI and historian Turtle Bunbury – helped hundreds of people trace their family’s roots and discover extraordinary stories from their past.

Examples include the Collins family from Boston who were reunited with long lost relations in Co Galway, Paul Duffy from Co Meath who sought the owner of a mysterious 1858 passport and Glen Webb from Dublin who was found to be linked to Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.

Essentially, the producers are looking for people with either:
  • an unproven link to a famous or infamous historical character
  • ancestors who may have played a part in a local or national event
  • just some mystery (perhaps an unexplained document or heirloom) in the family story.
If your story is selected for further research, the team will start searching for the evidence. The Genealogy Roadshow has been described as a hybrid of "The Antiques Roadshow" and "Who Do You Think You Are?" because Turtle, John and Nicola meet members of the public at roadshows across Ireland and work out whether they are related to someone famous or connected to a historical event.

I've spoken this morning to Ciara at Big Mountain Productions who tells me that the 2013 series roadshows will be held in Derry, Cork, Dublin and a fourth location, likely to be in the Midlands. Filming will start in the New Year.

Apparently, the response to early press calls in local newspapers has been 'huge' and, with the audience having had the chance to acquaint themselves with The Genealogy Roadshow format, the stories being put forward are a lot more usable and suitable for research this time round.

To find out more or to suggest your own family history mystery, contact genealogy@bigmountainproductions.com or call 048 308 34046 (or 028 308 34046 from Northern Ireland).