Who Do You Think You Are?; BBC 1, 25 Jan '17

[oddoneout]

A recurring theme for me of these programmes is how little people know, or appear to know, about their families.

Things get concealed or just not mentioned for all sorts of reasons(some of them seemingly petty)and once the people who knew the facts have gone then more often than not the matter remains buried, unless it has external connections - added to which is the problem that in many cases a family member may not have reason or interest to find out the stories until, again, it's too late. Different versions of events may be given to family members - I came across this when trying to find out the real reason why my mother didn't complete her veterinary training. She told me one thing, my two sisters another, and it wasn't until we were all together following her funeral that we realised that was the case.When I asked her brother it turned out to be something else altogether(and much sadder). My son's interest in my father's work has got me digging through my memory and, where possible, looking up things on the internet, but it's only as an adult that I can appreciate the importance of what, for instance, he was doing in the early 60's.There was no reason for it to be discussed at home, and my occasional trips to his workplace are remembered for things other than the significance of the project he was working on - at the age of 6,7,8 you have a different perspective! By the same token I had no cause to ask more about the stories my Scottish Granny told me although I now can appreciate that her life and experiences were not necessarily 'the norm'. There is no-one left to fill in the gaps though. Hindsight is a wonderful - and frustrating - thing.
My in-laws had a family scandal some 80 to 100 years ago that was effectively wiped from the collective archive. When attempts were made recently to piece together what had actually happened a couple of intriguing leads got them optimistic only to hit a brick wall of the WW2 destruction of records in the country concerned.

[Richard Tarleton]

All good points (##13 onwards) - I too uncovered a few skellingtons when researching my family. Like Stanfordian I discovered a grandmother born out of wedlock, and a really disgraceful episode involving a (different) great grandfather.... However much these events were covered up, there's no hiding from birth and marriage records, passenger lists, etc. etc., waiting to be discovered by subsequent generations.... I suppose I am mainly surprised by the positives which celeb guests seem not to know about their forbears.

In the light of current events, I'm especially proud of my Highland Scots 4xgreat grandfather who helped train the Mexican army in the 1820s and 1830s (along with other English and Scots officers in the years after Waterloo) - whether he was actually at the Alamo, I haven't been able to establish.