Unearth the Past: A family history & genealogy podcast
Step into the fascinating world of genealogy and family history with Unearth the Past, a podcast hosted by the charismatic Dr. Michala Hulme. This show masterfully blends riveting discussions, deep dives into historical contexts, and practical tips for uncovering your ancestral roots. Each week, Dr Hulme welcomes an eclectic mix of guests—musicians, actors, sports stars, and public figures—unravelling the remarkable and often surprising stories hidden within their family trees.
Beyond these compelling narratives, the podcast serves as a treasure trove for genealogy enthusiasts, spotlighting essential tools and resources for research. It also paints a vivid picture of the social and cultural landscapes that shaped family histories, exploring powerful themes like immigration, industrial revolutions, and the resilience of past generations.
If you would like to get in touch with Michala, you can do so via her website, www.michalahulme.com
If you want to help support the making of the podcast, please visit Michala's Patreon account https://www. patreon.com/DrMichalaHulme
Unearth the Past: A family history & genealogy podcast
Ep 16: Unearthing the Hidden Stories of Your House with TV's Melanie Backe-Hansen
Ready to unearth the secrets behind your home's history? Join me, Dr. Michala Hulme, and my cherished guest, Melanie Backe-Hansen, a revered house historian, as we journey through the captivating world of house histories. Together, we discover the intricate links that bind family history, local history, and house history, highlighting the significance of understanding your home's past. At the same time, Mel unravels her personal journey into the realm of house histories, while imparting practical advice for those intrigued by their own homes' past.
Venture with us as Mel and I meticulously piece together the past of a house, shedding light on the immense value of tax records in such research. We navigate through rich resources like the National Library of Scotland's Ordnance Survey maps, census returns, and more, which can all serve as a treasure trove of information. Additionally, we illuminate the enigmatic 1910 Valuation Record, discussing its relevance in taxation and the intriguing snapshot it provides from 1910 to 1915. This episode is your comprehensive guide to uncover the fascinating narratives hidden within your home.
To contact Michala, you can do so via her website www.michalahulme.com
If you would like to purchase one of Melanie's books (House Histories; A House Through Time; Historic Streets and Squares), you can get them on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Melanie-Backe-Hansen/e/B006LTDUPG
Hello and welcome back to an earth of past, a brand new family history and genealogy podcast brought to you by me, dr McKaylee Hume. I hope you have had a really good week researching. I know, actually this question and I send positive fives out every week. My week has actually not been that bad in terms of research. I've had some new clients come forward asking me if I'll research their family trees, which is always interesting. I don't normally, as you guys know, take on a lot of clients just because of the academic side of my life.
Speaker 1:If you have any questions about any of the podcasts I've done so far, you want to reach out to any of the guests, you can do so via my website, which is wwwmackayleehumecom. Now roll out the red carpet, folks. I've got a treat for you. You guys know I'm a massive, massive fan of a house. Through time. I am passionate about house histories. If you're listening to this, you know that I'm always telling you to forget family trees, research the history of your home. Well, have I got an expert and a half? Can we all give a massive, warm welcome to my favourite barn on house historian Melanie Backhansen. Thank you so much for being on this podcast.
Speaker 2:I don't often get that, so that's lovely. Oh no, I love it.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I always say to people right, so when people think about you know family history and those genealogical skills that we use in research, not many people think about research in their homes, do they? Or the history of their home?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny actually. Yeah, obviously family history is huge and people have a real personal attachment. Obviously it's their own family, so it's a big deal. But yeah, it's slowly becoming a bit more of a thing. I think the links between sort of family history and house history and local history are obviously very intertwined. So I think, slowly but surely, people are sort of doing their family and maybe they're finding an ancestral home or maybe they've I don't know they've just come across something to do with houses as they're, as they're researching, and they're thinking, oh I wonder what was there before or I wonder what. You know how long they lived in that house, and that's kind of kind of spurred them on and moved them on to house history. So it's getting there. But yeah, to some degree, you know, family history is still still king.
Speaker 1:So let's start, then, right back at the beginning. So how did you get interested in house histories? Where did it start for you?
Speaker 2:Well, it's gosh. It feels like a long story, but I studied history at university but when I graduated, you know there was nothing like this. So I went into publishing. For many years was in marketing a PR. So very, very far away it, far removed, but it's through a very complicated turn of events.
Speaker 2:I was looking for a new role and I actually it was an estate agent who were looking for someone who could do the historic research but also had marketing and PR experience. So it was just that sort of random combination of skills and I was, you know, right time, right place. So I started with Chesterton's estate agent and I was employed specifically to research the history of the houses that they had on the market, so partly to gain publicity, to get features and newspapers and that sort of thing also to set them apart. You know. You know there's obviously a lot of estate agents out there and this was something new and different that they could offer. So yeah, that's kind of how I kind of came into it and obviously it just fell in love with it.
Speaker 2:So I was with them for close to six years and in the process I was asked to write my first book. I was because of the nature of the publicity and and marketing. I was also featured in newspapers and so it sort of gained a bit of a profile. And then Twitter was coming along and so all these sort of things culminated and it meant that I was starting to get asked to do more and more private commissions. So, 2012, I took the leap and became freelance and haven't looked back, so it's just been brilliant. So more and more people want to know the history of the house. So I, you know, researching houses all the way from Devon to Scotland. So, yeah, it's quite quite an adventure.
Speaker 1:So it's it's brilliant and I absolutely love it so for people just starting off, then, where should they go? What should they do? What are the records that they need to be looking out for?
Speaker 2:Well, the easiest thing actually is to go to the local archives. I think you can get a lot of sources online, but if you're really new to it and you don't know where you're going, it can you can get a bit mixed up, you can get a bit lost. There's things like maps you can do online. It's very easy. The National Library of Scotland has the Ordnance Survey maps digitized and online so you can freely search those. And that's the entire country, not just Scotland. But and that's a good place to start to sort of get some at least a visual picture of what your, the location of your house looked like. And the 25 inch maps are the. The were brilliant for providing more detail and they were produced mid, mid to late-ish 19th century and then they were periodically updated. So you can sort of look at sort of 1860s and 70s, then like the 1890s, then the 1910s, and you can sort of track the visual picture of what the area looked like. But beyond that, you start getting into a lot of familiar sources like the census returns. There's things like the trade directories or street directories, electoral registers, but then you can you start delving further into things like tax records. Then there's deeds. So there's actually the thing with house histories is there.
Speaker 2:There are actually an enormous number of sources you can go to, but it's just piecing them all together and that's partly to sort of make sure you're looking at the right house for a start, but also that you've got the right details, because you know some of them are a bit hit and miss and there's gaps in some records and others. So, but a lot of that is in the local archives or the county record office for wherever the house is situated. So so that's why I think it's easier if you're in the archives and all the archives actually have free access to things like ancestry and find my past and the genealogists and things as well, so you can do the online records while you're there. But then you can also look at the physical records, the books and things, and a lot of that isn't digitized, depending on the area, again, it's it can be a bit hit and miss, again depending on where you are. So some, some counties, some boroughs, have a lot of records online, whereas others have very little, so it just depends on where you are.
Speaker 2:But so that's my my main kind of piece of advice if you are sort of wanting to jump into house histories is head down to the local archives or the record office, and also the archivist will be brilliant at sort of guiding you and directing you as to where to start and where to go.
Speaker 2:But that's, yeah, that's my, my one tip and also one key thing which, again with if you're into family history or any of that sort of historic research, is to work backwards in time. I think that's a key where it can be really tempting when you're doing house histories if you know that it's Georgian, for example, and you think, well, who was living there in 1750? And so well, actually you can't just jump back into 1750 because you really need to look at other records first later on and make sure you're looking at the right house. So things like house numbers, they change for a start, but the further back you go there are no house numbers or even house names. You know you, you can be lucky and actually if you've got an old house which has had the same name for centuries, but in a lot of cases the house names and numbers change and then in earlier records it might not even be clearly identified. So you might find so I've done.
Speaker 1:I'm obsessed with guest houses. Okay, if any listeners have been on my website, they'll know that I have wrote the history of guest houses. I'm obsessed with them. I don't know what it is about them. Well, honestly, just like I have a postcard collection and I must have well over 100 postcards so what I thought I was going to do is actually trace the history of the houses on the front of these postcards. There's only a couple of sort of like family dwellings. Most of them are guest houses from places up north like Blackpool and Reel. So I've been doing that probably for a couple of years, and I did turn into a little podcast at one point. But I found and I don't know about you, but when I wanted the really interesting detail like the juicy bits, newspapers were really helpful. Have you found them helpful in your research?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, enormously helpful, yeah, and actually the digitization of newspapers has just has been a game changer. I think you know, 10, 20 years ago you had to go to the British Library in Collendale and you had to search, and if you, if you were looking for a house name or a person's name, without any kind of index, without any kind of idea of dates, then it was basically impossible, unless you had, you know, months and months, to kind of trail through newspapers. But yeah, they're enormously useful. Everything from looking for the house itself they're putting in number 33, station, road or whatever it is but also the details of the people, and that's where it really comes alive.
Speaker 2:So you've got things like announcements of burst and marriages, engagements, burials or funerals, but also things like court records which tell stories of crime and you know, something scandalous happened at a house or or with the former owners and occupants, or, and you can, you can just find so much wonderful detail that just isn't in a lot of the other records. So it's, yeah, everything from announcements or advertisements for the house when it's being auctioned or when the lady of the house is advertising for a new lady's maid, or you know all that kind of stuff. It, yeah, just brings it alive and actually get more of a sense of the people in the house.
Speaker 1:I know you mentioned it before, but how do you grapple with when you're looking at a record and, like what you said, it's not identifiable, like are there some houses that are just impossible to research, because I know, for example, when you look at some early censuses, the numbers aren't there. Are they? Like you say, numbers change, so how do you? How do you deal with that, or can you just not?
Speaker 2:Well, this is where looking at lots of different sources helps. So you might, yeah, census is wonderful if you know what you're looking at. But yeah, for a lot of villages and even small towns, you know, if they were in 1841 actually if they were just small a lot of them would have just been under the name of the village. There wasn't even street names or anything, let alone house numbers. But the same happens with other records, where you just get the name of a resident in a certain town or whatever, and that's where you actually start tracking back through the people. So you know the owners and the occupants.
Speaker 2:And that's why working backwards is really essential, because you're working back from what you are definite about. So you know that Mr Smith was in the house with his family in, you know, 1950, for example. And then if you work back through things like electoral registers and trade directories and then the census and then 1939 register is another big one. But if you work back through those and you track where the house is clearly identified and you know the people, you can see where things start to change and also where the address disappears. You can start, if you already know that, through the directory, for example that in 1876 it was the Smith family and then all of a sudden in the 1871 census there's no addresses. But then if you know actually the Smith family and you know you get the right one.
Speaker 2:Smith's probably a bad example, but you know if you got the family name and you know it's John and you know it's Sarah and you know they've got three children, and so you can actually make sure you're looking at the right family, then you can sort of identify. But again, looking at different records, you piece it together. Tax records is a big one, so things like rate books, which is like our modern-day council tax.
Speaker 2:But yeah it was broken up into different rates, so that's things like the poor rate, which is probably the most common, which was where a household was taxed on the value of their home to provide poor relief in that parish, and the same for sewerage rates, lighting rates, watching rates, which is security. There's highway rates for the maintenance of the road, so all the sort of stuff that we, you know, is in part of our council tax, but it was sort of broken up, and so if you're tracking through who was paying the rates and then you can match that with the census and the trade directories and different things like that, you you can track the names of the people and then you know where the, where the house name changes or the numbers disappear or something, you can still track it back through the people. So that's basically what you end up doing.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite record? So, if research in the history house, do you have like a favorite record or you think, yeah, I'm gonna get a lot of detail from this, or it might be slightly obscure, mel, and you think you know what? I don't think many people would have thought this record, but it's actually really interesting.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, that's really tough actually because because I'm always a big, you know, supporter of multiple records you've got lots of different records. I mean actually, weirdly enough, the rate books and tax records. They really don't sound sexy or exciting in any way, but actually they can be enormously useful and they vary from county to county and parish to parish. But yeah, it's tricky though. I mean the other thing you could slot in there with tax records, as there's the 1910 valuation record, which it goes by a few different names, but it was 1910 inland revenue valuation and all the David Lloyd George Doomsday, but it was. It was basically the survey of the nation's property for an introduction of a new tax between 1910 and 1915. The records are in the National Archives, but you can find valuation records in county record offices.
Speaker 2:But the key thing with this is it was for the introduction of a new tax, so throw that in there, which actually didn't eventuate, but we're left with the records, which is brilliant and one of the main reasons is that it gives you a snapshot of 19 between 1910 and 1915 and it provides details like whether it was freehold or leasehold, also if it was still copyhold, which that's an old term that was essential for if your house was part of a manner, and that then gets more confusing into sort of menorial records and things. But. But it provides that information it also might. It gives you the name of the owner, the name of the occupant, it gives you a description of the house, which a lot of records just don't do, and in some cases it obviously gives you then a valuation. But then it also can provide a whole lot of things, like when the last sale took place or when the last lease was signed. It can actually in some cases they have drawings that provide a layout of the house and or a layout of the plot, like if it was part of it. It was a farmhouse, for example. Sometimes you get details of the farmhouse, but then all the farm buildings that go along with it, so. So that's a wonderful source and if you match that with the 1911 census then you can particularly then in the First World War, certain records disappear for a period. So but it's a really great snapshot and allows you to sort of look at what was going on at that pivotal moment, and then you can go backwards or forwards depending on what you're working on.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and then there's another tax record which is well technically is the Tithe map and apportionment. This was when the change from a Tithe tax or Tithe payment was changing from goods to a monetary system. So prior to the 1840s or 1838, was when the Tithe I think it was 1838 or 1837, the Tithe Act was changed. And the key again is that you have a map that identifies the property and then the accompanying apportionment and it gives you the name of the owner, the name of the occupant and then a brief description of the lands. So it is very brief but it will provide at least a key sort of identifier on the map and you can look at the house that you're looking at and then look at the apportionment and gain who was living there, who was the owner. And that's another key source, again moving forward into the 19th century, but moving backwards into the 18th century. So it's another. So I guess you could say tax records is my favorite, but there's a lot involved with that. So there's a few key sources there.
Speaker 1:What about maps? I mean, obviously maps are gonna be important, aren't they? Cause they're gonna sort of show us how an area has changed, maybe how a street has changed. What map do you think is particularly useful? I suppose it does depend on the time. I know I've got quite a few Board and Survey map behind me. I think they've been useful for me over the years, more from a family history point of view, I suppose, thinking about, well, could it be them on the census? You know how close is that to where they lived before? But I take it she is a lot of maps, mel, in your research.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we do what I do. Ordnance Survey is probably the best in terms of, particularly because it does give you a clear picture of the house. I think a lot of other maps they're really useful for tracking, as I was just saying, with the Tide and the 1910 valuation, both based on maps. But things like the Tide it's not actually a clear identifier of the property, so it's often just a square or a box, so at least to some degree it's likely to sort of match and you're able to see that it is pretty much on the same spot, but it doesn't give you clear identifier of the house. But there's other things like enclosure maps which are really helpful.
Speaker 2:And there again, that was when it changes to the nature of sort of land. Occupation changed. It's complicated Basically when they were enclosing a lot of common lands and sort of reorganizing lands and they it's controversial because it was meant the loss of the rights of a lot of people, yeah, the poor people who actually had. Previous to that, there was a sort of medieval system where you had rights to the land. You could go and you could graze your sheep or your pigs or your whatever animals, but you also had rights to sort of graze and forage and different parts of the commons and things Anyway. So it reorganized all of that. But again it's based on a map and so you can actually visualize and you can see the house. Again, it's not a specific drawing but it's a roughly. But then it also provides details of who was the owner and who was the occupant.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, yeah, it's a vital one for the sort of late 18th into the early 19th century, particularly where at that point you're starting to get back into the 18th century and there are fewer detailed records. So it can be a real important one. So, for example, a house I'm working on at the moment which is in Norfolk and there's a lot of, I suspect it's a bit of a mystery into the 18th century, but I've firmly got the details from the enclosure map in 1808. Just so happens that the owner owned vast sums of acreage and lands across half of that part of Norfolk. But the house is clearly there and I can clearly identify it and I know who the owner was and that helps piece it together so much with other records.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, the maps are really important and it helps because there are fewer sort of visual records. So I think being able to actually look at a map and get an idea of what was going on, the area of the house itself, but also the streets and the area around it, the town, the village, what was going on. So it can help sort of help put you into that. I guess zone is probably the best word If you're all trying to piece together the history of a house but you can actually visualize it and have a rough idea of the situation, say, for example, in 1808, and that helps enormously. So yeah, the maps are a key thing.
Speaker 1:Do you also find in your research that the functionality of houses have changed? So, for example, I don't know Victorian times, if you owned a shop, generally you lived above the shop, and then we get the suburbs and the middle classes, especially here in the Northwest, on moving out. Now they're moving towards nearer where the train stations are in the suburbs. So do you tend to find that, mel, when you're researching them at some time, like I, see some houses, and especially that I come across in my research, and there's a family living on every floor, where now those houses are worth millions and just one family occupies them? But I know during my period you'd have had a family in the basement, a family on the ground.
Speaker 2:So we yeah, yeah, very much. It's an ever-evolving picture, I think, and that's still true today. I think it's still constantly changing about how we live in houses, but definitely it's constantly changing. And the house might have been built and actually this comes across in the series of House Through Time where pretty much all of the houses featured went up and down in a sort of demographic scale and they started a sort of a single family dwelling with a sort of gentleman or a merchant who was doing very well and then, as the years went by, it maybe became a bit more down and out. Then it was divided into flats or rented in lodging rooms and that sort of thing, and then it's come about again where it's now a single family home.
Speaker 2:So it happens all the time and, as you say, even now there's a constant sort of cry for the loss of the local pub and so many local pubs are all being converted into homes or flats or things. So there's that sort of different use space as well. So and that happened over the years might have been a farmhouse, you get barns being converted, all sorts of commercial dwellings or sort of yeah, farm dwellings is a big one, but it's constantly changing. And yeah, it's funny because even in the house I live, I live in a converted Victorian house but weirdly enough I haven't done it in depth. It's not my own home, but I've done a snippet of research and actually the first census after it was built. So actually just a few years it was already divided into two households, so, which I found really interesting.
Speaker 2:So I live in a part of Southwest London and basically it was the expansion of the underground railway massively changed the way that people lived in London and so all of a sudden people are moving out because they can catch the underground. But yeah, you look at it and think, oh, it must have been a single family home, but pretty much straight away it was already divided. So and then that's changed over the years, so, and that's the same for urban houses as well as rural houses, and there's all sorts of changes and that's sort of part of the fascination in a way, and actually how life in a house changes. So it's the stories of the people but how they lived, as you say, like in certain times you had houses that were basically falling apart and were effectively slum housing and if they survived, now they're all being done up and renovated and restored, and so it's constantly changing, and that's part of its story.
Speaker 1:We have. So in Manchester back-to-back houses were sort of outlawed in the mid-Victorian period so they couldn't be built. People were still living in them but you just couldn't build anymore. For people that are listening, that don't know what a back-to-back houses, if you can imagine, like a row of terraces that stuck together so there's no alley at the back, you've just got a basically a house at the front and then you've got a house stuck to it at the back. That is what back-to-backs are. But they were condemned even in the 19th century for basically encouraging the spread of disease. They were Not basically not fit for purpose. They were put up very cheaply, often by greedy landlords or Milowners to house the workers, but they were really not great in terms of ventilation and and life expectancy in back-to-backs was was pretty dire. So they were outlawed even though people were living in them. And I obviously now Work in Birmingham and the National Trust have a back-to-back Museum, which is probably quite bizarre later to my ancestors who lived in those type of houses that their house Would be a museum.
Speaker 1:Because I think Often when we think of turning the house into a museum we think of something like you know, the National Trust with their big Stately homes and you know. But the fact that they've turned these sort of very working class houses into a museum, it's fascinating, honestly. It's fascinating for me. If you're in Birmingham, folks go and check it out. I thoroughly, thoroughly, in enjoyed it. Um, but yeah, it's. It's funny, isn't it, how these houses were outlawed and yet people still thought it was acceptable for people to live in them. Well into, you know, well into the, the 20th century. These are not that long ago. For a lot of us it's our great Grandparents, great, great grandparents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, I know it's and it's I Mean, it's sad but true. And and yeah, it's, it's a constant. It's difficult not to Compare it to today, actually, and you know this increasing stories about, yeah, dodgy landlords who are, yeah, I Mean you know what. There's a story and was it part of north London, where a man was Renting out a sort of semi-detached house or I think it was a. Yeah, Anyway, I don't know the specifics. Yeah, it was a normal sized house and there was something like 30 people living in this one house. He was just renting out floor space effectively and it's. It's really sad that that's sort of still carrying on.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I did actually a lot of work on this for the book a house through time, which I wrote with David Olusuga, because it was we were tracking the sort of evolution of houses from, you know, pre-medieval all the way through, and this sort of Way of cramming people in. You know it's constant. It seems to be, certainly since maybe the 19th century, maybe even the 18th century, this idea of just making money out of an asset Rather than it become, rather than it being a home, and it's a constant sort of battle, dichotomy between a home and an asset and it's tricky with people who just can't afford them. And then you get this story and seems to be sort of the story of humanity about finding your space. And yeah, the back-to-backs and the slum housing of the 19th century Sadly continued into the 20th century and now the 21st century. So it's yeah, it's, yeah, it's. I want to say it's depressing, but it certainly said yeah, I Know, thinking about my own family.
Speaker 1:I mean thinking about that idea of a house and a home like my own family moved so much During the 19th century. Every census, every birth record or marriage record they're a new address. They are constantly moving during that period. Did you find that the norm with working-class Families in your research mail and and all working-class houses harder to trace? Or Because it just matter? Does it just depend on the house?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it just depends on the house. But, um, but yeah it's, it's kind of a common Sort of miss note, but well, miss actually, that people stayed in the same house for much longer, or people stayed in the same village for generations, and but actually it's not really true. You know, I found the same thing with, with my work and and that's everything from you know, a two up to down all the way through to a larger, some more comfortable sized attached home. Actually, people moved around a fair bit and one of the key things with this as well is that Certainly before the First World War I think the statistics are roughly 10 to 12 percent of people were were owner occupiers. So you heard it, as much as 90% of the nation did not own their own home.
Speaker 2:Everyone leased or rented a home and that was everything from a long-term lease that you might have if you're at a, you're in a farm or actually if you're in a sort of stable, large townhouse and you have sort of an ongoing lease for decades or All the way down to people renting per month, per week, per day, per night. You know, and depending on where you were in the social scale depended on your, your status. But it's yeah, I think that's one of the main things is actually because people rented or yeah, as I say, for a week or a month or even if something a bit more long term. They moved about, they. They either because circumstances with work or Just the ups and downs of their finances or finding a better place. It just, yeah, people moved about a lot. And it's also the case that you look at the upper sort of echelons of society and you had someone who had their country estate or their country seat out in Lincolnshire or Berkshire or Gloucestershire or wherever, but then they would rent a house in London for the season and that didn't necessarily mean their own. They didn't.
Speaker 2:Not all of them had their own townhouse in London. They, they rented for the season. And actually is another very important source, which is the court guides, which are only applicable to London, because they were produced to list the people who were coming to London for the season, but they were literally only there for six months, maybe even less, sometimes any three to six months. So they don't appear in a lot of the official records because they just rented the space, for that, you know, could have been. There could have been a few rooms, that could have been a whole house. And so even you know you've got Lord and Lady such and such who are in London, for you know November 1832 through to you know March or April 19 1833, but so they won't actually appear in a lot of the records.
Speaker 2:But so things like that where people moved about and and that is this, yeah, certainly with with working class, but I do, I don't think it's actually class specific. I think people did just generally move far more often. I mean, certainly, if you have a big stately home and it's actually been in the same family for the centuries, that's a whole different thing. But yeah, I think even in this sort of what we would now call middle classes, people did move about. So, yeah, it's, it's part of a challenge actually, because Increasingly I'm like, would you just stay? Would you just put the same family stay there? You know I've had some where they just turn over. You're like, oh, please, not another person.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I'm working on a really difficult case at the moment. I'm trying to find somebody's like great-great-granddad and I have him getting married in 1923, mm-hmm, and he's got a really popular name. So I went to the 1921 census. I searched it by address, thinking come on, it's a two-year gap. Please be living in that. No, so, um, yeah. So I think DNA is gonna be the next step, without one, because you can't you can't outsmart me with the DNA mail. I'll find that way. If I can't find you on a paper record, I'll find you the DNA. And we talk about a house through time, so Very, very popular series in the UK, that's. If our worldwide listeners do not know what it is, how would you sum it up?
Speaker 2:Well, essentially it is the story of one house Through the generations and there's this four series. So there's it's a Liverpool, newcastle, bristol and Leeds, and it's the telling the story of one house in those places and it's Everything from all the way back to when it was built through to the current day and it's revealing the stories that you found find in the history of a house. Um, so that's, and they, I mean it's just, it's actually wonderful because it's, even though there's literally only four houses, but it just it just proves and shows how much history you can find in just one house, and it's everything from who the families were, of course, but also just the events that went on, their work, life, how they, how they fit into sort of more of a national story, whether there was any crime or whether there was any controversy, and it just, yeah, through the generations, it just Just provides such a wonderful glimpse of that, the broader history you can find, as well as the sort of intimate personal history you can find Just by looking into the history of a house.
Speaker 1:Which has been, out of all those houses you mentioned, which has been your favorite house to sort of research and tell the story of?
Speaker 2:Oh, it is tricky because I had I I was involved in sniffing, I was brought in as a research consultant to the other team of researchers doing this sort of the hard work, so to speak. But then they would contact me if they hit a wall or if they had any trouble with certain things. And I was probably more involved with the Bristol house Lossy, because it was one of the older houses that they they featured. It's actually quite frustrating because it for the Leeds house, which is the most recent series that went out, and they featured a Victorian house, but they actually had a much older house outside of Leeds that we're going to feature. But and I was more involved with that as well, but do so Covid and there was another outbreak and lockdown and whatnot. They had to sort of go to plan B, which was a bit of a shame because that, that the other house had had, yeah, a lot more history and that was actually brilliant and had fascinating stories.
Speaker 2:But For the Bristol house I was sort of more heavily involved in tracking the earlier history, particularly through land tax, which was another source I haven't mentioned. But again, it's another tax record. But then what? What is brilliant actually in the Bristol records. Their land tax goes back quite far.
Speaker 2:A lot of land tax records only go from about the 1780s through to 1832 roughly, and but the Bristol records went right back to the late 17th century and so that it allowed it, it took some. Again it's a the earlier records. This is a prime example where actually it's just a list of names, so you have no clear identifier which name goes with which house. So you actually sort of track but again back us through time. But you also said almost tracking the neighbors as well to make sure you're looking at the right house. But it allowed us to really identify the clear Owner, who happened to be the captain of a Ship who was involved with the slave trade, and that was a huge part of the story with the Bristol house. So I think that probably was my favorite and a lot of other people said that to me when I've been doing talks or whatever, and everyone says all the Bristol house was. So, yeah, I probably say that.
Speaker 1:But they're all, they're all interesting and they all have Um, they're, they're unique stories and so, yeah, it's interesting talking to you because there are a lot of things we research as house historians, as genealogists, that don't make it onto the telly Me and Paul Paul McNeil, who comes on the podcast a lot he's another expert with me on itv's DNA journey and we tell some fascinating stories to our celebrities that don't make it on the telly. And it's trying to understand the difference, I think, between Us as researchers and as historians and also the story arc and the narrative, that that you know that the director is who knows far better than us what makes a good story, what makes a good TV show. But yeah, we always say, you know, you talking about the other house that was researched in Leeds? Yeah, it's the same for us. We always have stories and we think they are fascinating, but for whatever reason, they just you know, often things beyond our control just just don't make it onto TV.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can we talk a bit about your books before you go? Yes, so you've written quite a few books.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, where can we get those books? So your books haven't just focused on the history of a house, have you? You've also looked at towns and streets? Yeah, we're sort of. You've expanded past the house, now we're looking onto streets and Again, I take it is just through your research mail. You just thought you know you wanted, you had all this Research and you thought I'll put it into a book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was, and yeah again. It just sort of shows you how, how house histories are sort of interlinked with family history and local history because they are very much intertwined. But it's, yeah, my first book was house histories, which was Is a collection of almost a hundred different houses, and so it's again, it's, and the key thing again is it's, it's ordinary houses. I want to say Not, not to downplay those houses, because some of them are beautiful and wonderful and lovely, but it's. I think that one of the things is that a lot of people say, oh, you have to live in a stately home or an old Manor house or something for you have any story or any history.
Speaker 2:But actually it's not true at all and I so the different houses in house histories just shows you that there's a real range of you know two up-to-downs and cottages and Rural locations and urban locations, and it's just, yeah, delving into their unique stories. And then from that I wrote historic streets and squares, which was it was primarily looking at a lot of well-known streets and squares. So everything from Portobello Road in London To, just trying to think Charlotte Square Was it? Queen Square in Bristol gotta remember them. I've got a long list, yeah, things like the shambles in York and so a lot of these sort of more famous locations. But how did they? Part of the part of the book looks at how they became that or how they have been retained, but also how they developed over time and how they became the famous streets and squares that that we know today, and that's everything from sort of luck that they weren't developed and they weren't knocked down, they weren't bombed, you know. But equally they all have their own stories and so Whether they were the location of just a trade street, it was just local people working away through the generations, or perhaps it was the location for a sort of a more exciting Events there was riots in Bristol, was, there was a famous one and actually so things like that.
Speaker 2:But also, yeah, I'm just looking down my list. It's everything from Goldhill in Goldhill in Shansbury and Hollywood Street, knoxville, which is actually brilliant. It's one of the most amazing streets. It's actually sort of if a lot of the time everyone goes to the Bodleian and the Radley. Just round the corner is Hollywood Street and it's a beautiful street of really old houses, mixed. You know, lots of different aged houses and it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:But yeah, then you've got more famous perhaps Gropner Square in London and Soho Square in London, but it features all sorts of places all over the country. But it is just looking at. I guess it's the idea that if you're walking through these streets and squares, just taking a moment to sort of look up and just pause and actually look at the different houses or look at the layout or Whatever it is, and actually just having a moment of thinking, wow, this has been here for 200, 300 years and I wonder who are the people that lived here before and all that sort of thing, and that's that sort of part of its Story. That's, yeah, part of the book.
Speaker 1:If you are interested in purchasing any of mouth books, I'll put a link in the description so you'll be able to go on and get those, and I Highly recommend them. It's just a fantastic read if you are into your history, not even if you know, you don't even have to be interested in house histories if you are just interested in history. Honestly, check out Mel's books. They are absolutely brilliant. They are on my shelf here and I even give them to my students to read. So, yes, if you get chance, honestly check those out. Now, mel, I normally finish this bit of the podcast right by asking you if you could, you know, go into your family tree and pick somebody who would you invite for dinner. I'm not gonna do that with you. I'm gonna do something a bit different, right? Okay, we're at a dinner party and I said to you what has been the favorite, what's been your favorite house that you've researched?
Speaker 2:What would you?
Speaker 1:yeah, which is the one you would talk? Tell me about I.
Speaker 2:I probably the one I tend to go to. I mean, there have been a few Corkers, as we say, but actually probably the one I go to first is is a house. Actually it's in a small village in the Cotswolds Now Gloucestershire was Worcestershire but it started out as a farmhouse in the 16th century and it was extended later in the 18th century and sort of now is a sort of largest, of comfortable large home, big gardens. But it just had so much history, it's it or it genuinely I was going through it, just going, no, no, I, basically I. What is wonderful is actually it had the menorial record. So I was actually able to chase not only the ownership but also the occupants all the way back to the 16th century, which is Can be rare, especially that sort of Time, because a lot of the records only really showed the owners, not the occupants. But I discovered that it was at one point the bishops of Worcester gave it and a lot of land around it to Queen Elizabeth the first. So that was one thing.
Speaker 2:I was in the archives and had one of those moments of oh yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:But then she didn't hang on to it for long.
Speaker 2:She gave it to her personal physician at the time, which was someone called Dr Lopez, and this is around the time of the Spanish Armada and all sorts of intrigue and the Elizabethan court and all sorts.
Speaker 2:And it turns out he was accused of trying to poison the Queen and it, you know, I think people have written whole books on this because it's one of you know, given the times, there was all sorts of you know all sorts going on, so but he was arrested and charged and he was put on the rack and all sorts of things, but he was finally executed and, yeah, all his property had passed on from there. So that was a story and a half and actually it's. It's supposed that the story of dr Lopez so much inspired Shakespeare that he based his character shylock in the merchant of Venice on dr Lopez. So you know, when I'm telling the owners of the house that you took to Elizabeth the first and then Shakespeare, and yeah, that that went down well. But then later in the 18th century it was owned by a man who became a merchant, who based himself in the harv in France.
Speaker 2:Okay so, and actually this was 1780, 1790s, into the early 1800s. So of course this is time of the French Revolution, is all sorts going on. But he became very wealthy and successful. But he became friends with Thomas Jefferson, the future president of America or the United States, because he was leaving France To go back to America and he went via lahal. He also became friendly with Mary Wollstonecraft because she was there and she'd just been right, she was pregnant with her first daughter but she was writing her Treaties on the French Revolution. So he actually rented rooms to Mary Wollstonecraft and he was a Signatory on the birth of Fanny Imlay, her first daughter. So there's all these stuff and it just. And then later in the 20th century in the house was occupied by an Olympian. So all just, it just every generation. There was something fascinating with and this is one house just in a quiet Village in the Cotswolds and it just. All this history came out. So it was just yeah, wonderful, wonderful history of a house.
Speaker 1:Melanie back Hanson, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Oh, I really hope you'll come back on again and talk more about house histories, and if you want to get in touch with Melanie, you can either do so via her website, which is wwwhouse dash historian dot code UK Get in touch with us.
Speaker 1:So have you been researching the history of your house? Have you found anything interesting out? I'll happily share it on the podcast. You know, if you have, get in contact with me and let me know. If you want to contact me about anything to do with the podcast, you can do so via my website, which is wwwmakaelahuecom. Apologies that there was no podcast last week. I actually was away and didn't have any internet, which was you know, it took me back to 1992. Yeah, I know internet, so I wasn't able to upload, but I did record a podcast last week which you'll get in a couple of weeks time. So have a great week, folks, and I shall see you again soon. Thank you, thank you.