50. Research My Family Tree

I am not a big fan of BBC's "Who do you think you are?" It always strikes me as being incredibly silly the way they cry about what happened to their great-great-grandparents. Silly and offensive too really because it is essentially saying "I knew that the famine/genocide/war/etc was a terrible thing but it never affected me emotionally but now that I know that my relative was there, now it is about me, I think I will cry." Self obsessed nonsense.

Like much television though it only makes an insufferable thing out of a good premise. The idea of researching your family tree is sound, and I imagine quite interesting.

I would like to know how tied to Walsall my roots are. Where did the Judge's come from. How long have the Dawsons been in Walsall (possibly, but very unlikely, they have been there since the first Celts moved to the area - Walsall means valley of the Celts - more likely they moved to the area with the industrial revolution - it would be interesting to find out where from)

It is a fallacy, I think, to try and claim some sort of heritage from your family tree. Nothing is more ridiculous than Americans buying their 'family' kilt or people pretending to be Irish on St Patrick's day. Rather the exercise gives you an interesting piece of social history and allows you to see how your family has been weaved into the fabric of history.