The Secret History of My Family BBC2

[kiterunner]

A new series starting this Thursday on BBC2 at 8 p.m. I can't find a BBC web page with information about it but here is a link to an article about it in the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/05/my-200-years-of-family-fortunes

[Ann from Sussex]

Anyone else watched this and been as disappointed as me? It was a mess of a family history programme with loads of padding (even an excerpt from Mary Poppins!), silly cartoon type drawings and loud background music. A shame because it had a really interesting social story to tell. I was surprised that one of the Australian descendants said she had suffered discrimination because she had a convict ancestor and that SHE was surprised that the( British sounding) interviewer wasn't used to being asked where he came from and who his ancestors had been. It struck me that class may actually be more of an issue in Australia than it is here. I was under the impression that to be a convict's descendant was an Aussie badge of honour. I've certainly never been asked those questions....I could give a really detailed account if I were!

[Olde Crone]

I was disappointed too and wandered off in the middle of it.

I would think that most Australians who can trace their families back to England have convict ancestors, so something else must be going on to make them conceal it as a nation!

OC

[Mary from Italy]

Not necessarily, there were quite a lot of free settlers too, who went out on assisted or unassisted passages.

I was always told that my great-grandfather who emigrated from Ireland to Aus went over during the potato famine; it may well be true, but I still haven't managed to find him on either a passenger list or convict records.

[Shona]

Yes, I was disappointed. Interesting idea poorly executed. I get irked when people attribute behavioural characteristics today to one distant ancestor. Didn't like the cartoons and other padding - clips from Oliver Twist, Mary Poppins, etc.

I had high hopes because this series is made by the same team that brought us The Secret History of our Streets, which I loved.

There were just too many errors - calling London in 1830 Victorian, for example. I think the girls were transported before Queen Victoria came to the throne. Cartoons of policemen wearing a later uniform. Now I may have got this wrong, but the Tasmanian MP waxed lyrical about her criminal Gadbury sister ancestor, but she was descended from Caroline's husband's son from a previous marriage/relationship.

Having had a glance at Ancestry, there seem to be some young Gadbury males committing crimes at the same time - one, William, was also transported in the 1830s.

[Olde Crone]

Oooh, Shona, I'm glad you said that because I thought I'd misheard and I was muttering about there not being any blood relationship.

I too loved SHOOS and yes, this was disappointing.

OC

[Ann from Sussex]

Here was the chance to show that it isn't only celebrities who can find interesting ancestors.....and tbey messed it up by sloppy presentation.

[anne fraser]

I was very irritated by them using the same graphics over and over again as well. I think girls who were transported had a good choice of husbands.

[Ann from Sussex]

This letter is in today's Telegraph. Sorry I've had to copy and paste but I can't get a link to post.


Historical fictions
SIR – Christopher Howse’s TV review of The Secret History of My Family refers to several errors in the programme, which attempts to find the descendents of three sisters caught stealing in the 1830s, two of whom, it says, were sent to penal colonies.
However, I cannot find any evidence to back up this story. I have looked at the Australian and Tasmanian convict archives, the online records of the Old Bailey, the British criminal registers and the online archives of newspapers, and there is no reference to the transportation of any female Gadbury.
Caroline, one of the sisters, appears in newspapers as a 12-year-old victim of three women who made her take her boots to the pawnbroker, then stole the proceeds. She appears in the criminal registers of 1834, 1836 and 1837, but was found not guilty in one case and given two days and one year in the other two cases. There is also a letter from her to “my husband”. This may have been John Ricketts, whom she married in 1844. They appear in the 1851 census with children.
Genealogical websites show three Gadbury couples living in Shoreditch and Bethnal Green in the early 1800s, but none has children with the right combination of names.
Elizabeth Howard
Downham Market, Norfolk

I haven't had time to have a look at the various sources quoted but I thought I had seen something on here (or it may have been FTF) that someone had found the family online. Has anyone?

[kiterunner]

I didn't watch the programme because of the comments about it on here, but maybe I will have a look at it tomorrow to see if I can find them!

[Shona]

I did a bit of searching last week to se if I could find could find out more.

There was a Caroline Gadbury in Tasmania There is a birth of a Caroline Ann Risby Chapman in Hobart in 1850. Then there is a marriage between Caroline Gadbury and a cab proprietor named Charles Chapman in Hobart in 1854 - she was 32 and he was 40.

There is another record for a Caroline Chapman marrying George Ogilvie (I remember his name from the show as it was his son from a previous marriage the people interviewed on the show were descended from).

Caroline Ogilvie died at the age of 73 in 1895. Her death record says she was born in England.

[Shona]

There are two births of a Caroline Gadbury in London:

- 5 May 1822, Holywell Road, Shoreditch, parents Robert (soldier) and Rachel.
- 25 April 1824, Castle Street, Bethnal Green, parents Thomas (plasterer) and Sarah.

The Caroline Gadbury born in Bethnal Green married John James Ricketts in 1844. This Caroline appears in the 1841 census in Bethnal Green, aged 15, with her father, Thomas, 50, and sisters, Jane, 15, Isabella, 10 and Emma, 11.

EDIT: This must be the Caroline Gadbury referred to in the letter to The Telegraph about errors. Like the writer, I couldn't find any transportation records for Caroline Gadbury or Caroline being sentenced to transportation.

There is a Caroline Gadbury, born c1822/3, committing petty crimes in 1834, 1836 and 1837. This looks like the lass born to Robert and Rachel.

In the 1834 case, Caroline says she is the daughter of Robert Gadbury. Her mother, Rachel, gives evidence. Rachel says that her eldest daughter was Sarah, 15. Another daughter, Mary Ann Smith was also mentioned by Rachel. These are the three girls mentioned in the episode.

Could she have emigrated rather than being sent as a convict? Or perhaps the records are missing or mis-transcribed. Off to have a look at Cadbury's.

[Shona]

Ah-ha. Seems as if Caroline Gadbury was going by the name of Sarah Cope.

https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18380514-1336&div=t18380514-1336&terms=gadbury#highlight

Ann Effingham, Sarah Cope and Mary Barnadine were tried at the Old Bailey for stealing 20 yards of cloth in 1838. Ann Effingham and Sarah Cope were found guilty and ordered to be transported.

Now if I recall the TV show correctly, they said the three Gadbury sisters were all involved in the theft. So did the two other sisters also use aliases?

[Ann from Sussex]

Well done Shona! Perhaps YOU should write to the paper now!

I thought last night's programme in this series was much better. It seemed to be more evidence based and, therefore, there was less use of irrelevant padding material to fill the hour.....although my finger was poised over the off button when some cartoon figures made an appearance at the beginning. I'm glad I stuck with it because I found it interesting. Like one of the descendants I would say I am classless. Maybe it is a peculiarity of the rural area I live in but I have friends and aquaintances ranging from the public school educated to farm workers and tradesmen. My parents would (did, in fact) say they were working class, even though my father ended up with a white collar job. He was a grammar school boy who came from a family of small-time farmers but began his working life in the building trade, became a regular soldier before the war and then joined the Civil Service....but stuck proudly to calling himself working class.

[anne fraser]

I enjoyed the second episode more. I think everyone just seemed nicer.