CAMBRIDGE LETTER
Places we come from
BILL KIRKMAN
Most of us are keen to learn about the place in which we spent our childhood years, and the places where our parents spent theirs.
FAMILY history is definitely a growth industry in the U.K. One illustration of this is the success of a television series "Who do you think you are?", in which well-known people have traced their family origins, visiting places from which their families came, and meeting long lost family members. The programmes have been compelling, often moving, and not at all voyeuristic. In several cases they have succeeded in putting the participants in a social and historical context of which the viewers, and sometimes the participants themselves, had been unaware.
Widely prevalent
The success of this series reflects a much wider interest in tracing ancestors. It has always existed, and bodies such as the Family History Society and the Society of Genealogists are long established. My wife is a good example of someone who has done much work exploring her family's roots. My late father-in-law also worked at it.
One thing which has given a boost to this activity is the fact that, through the Internet, it is now much easier to get access to crucial records. No longer do you have to travel round the country to look at birth and death records, for example. Now they are available online. Similarly, details from the early years of the U.K. national census, begun in 1841, and taken every 10 years since then, are available online. The information is not released for 100 years, and 1901 is therefore the latest which is generally accessible, but computerisation of the means of access has been of great benefit to researchers.
Importance of roots
There is obviously a link between family history and local history, and that too is generating increasing interest. Most of us, I believe, are keen to learn about the place in which we spent our childhood years, and the places where our parents and grandparents spent theirs. A few months ago I indulged this interest with respect to my own family, spending a day visiting two areas of London in which my great grandparents (whom I never knew) had lived. Both of the areas, quite clearly, had changed in the time since they lived there — more than a century. As it happened, through her research my wife had discovered their addresses — and, surprisingly and excitingly, the two houses were still there.
Until relatively recently, people moved to live in new areas far less frequently than they do now. In many rural areas, until quite late in the 20th century, it was not at all unusual for families to continue to live and work in the community where their families had lived for generations. This was certainly true of Willingham, the village, quite close to the international university city of Cambridge, where I have had my home for nearly 40 years. And it is still true that there are older residents in the village whose families have lived here for generations, and who themselves have never lived anywhere else.
They are, of course, a minority. A much greater proportion than 50 years ago undertake higher education. Employment is less static than it was, and far more international. Living permanently away from "home" is not at all exceptional, as it would have been to earlier generations.
Heightened interest
That does not mean, however, that the interest which people have in the place of their birth, or their childhood, or those of their families, has diminished.
We have demonstrated this in our village. A local man, now sadly dead, was a keen local historian. Over many years he collected a mass of information, and documents, about the village, and also a huge collection of photographs. He bequeathed them to the county library, which has an impressive local history collection. On the initiative of a relative newcomer to the village, there is now a growing and much appreciated "old Willingham" collection online.
In the autumn, some of us decided to produce an "old Willingham" calendar (as a fund-raising project). We saw it as a rather risky decision, but we need not have worried. The calendar has sold well, and has generated a great deal of interest. Many copies have been sent to family members who have moved away.
Personal incident
I should not have been surprised. I remember the excitement I felt when, in 1989, I was able to visit Mokameh Ghat and Samastipur, in Bihar, where I was born, but which I had left at the age of six months, and recognise it from photographs which my parents had taken over 50 years before. Even shallow roots can still feed interest.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, UK. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
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