Armchair Genealogy - Family Tree & History

Genealogy Guy 0:00
Hello and welcome to the armchair genealogy podcast, where we aim to demystify technology and make it useful in family tree research, whilst making it fun and easy to do, featuring interviews and alternative tips. Please remember to subscribe and share the podcast. So on with the episode. And welcome along to another edition of armchair genealogy with myself, the genealogy guy UK, something I find very interesting is that genealogy now apparently, is the second most popular hobby next to gardening in the United Kingdom. And added to that there are more and more TV shows coming online and on streaming platforms that are helping people to either get inspired or giving minor tips. Now amongst those one of them that's caught my eye besides things like Who Do You Think You Are (@WDYTYA), is over on ITV, and it's called DNA Journey (@DNAJOURNEY), which is an interesting format because it takes two different celebrities and puts them on a journey that they share together, looking into their into their past families. So fascinated with it that I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to talk to some of the people that are behind the scenes that actually do all the real genealogy work? So I tracked down Paul McNeil, he's the managing director at Time Detectives, and also appears on in some of the episodes of DNA Journey. And like all genealogists, he has some really interesting stories and some very interesting tips. So first of all, give me a sort of brief explanation. If you were describing yourself in an elevator journey. How would you describe yourself as a genealogist?

Paul McNeil 1:46
I'd say I'm a professional TV genealogist purely by chance without the qualifications to do the job. But with the experience.

Genealogy Guy 1:56
How by chance, no, maybe let's take it right back. How did you how did you first get introduced to genealogy?

Speaker 1 2:04
So I left school with no qualifications and got a job in the GLC basically, the Greater London Council as a computer operator, which was great. I had no qualifications, but a past thier aptitude test. And we used to do all this shift work and get dog tired in the middle of the night, at four o'clock in the morning, you've been playing cards all night trying to take money off each other. But you were really tired. So we've split the shift, and we'd found out that there was a gym in the basement of the County Hall. So we go down to the gym, ever work out, have a shower afterwards, come back up fresh as a daisy carry on through the night. And then one night, as we came out the gym, we saw these these two great big wooden doors next to where the gym was in the basement of this building. And it said, London Metropolitan Archives on it were like, What's all that about, you know, like, blokes from South London, you know, we didn't know what was going on in the building other than what we were doing. So being boys from South London with a particular set of skills, we gained access to the London Metropolitan Archives at like four o'clock in the morning, nothing was taken, nothing was broken. But we in an unorthodox fashion gained access, we just went in there to have a look round really, because you're bored, it was a night shift, you're trying to find things to keep yourself awake before you go back on back on your turm for the shift. And we walked in there and there were there were all the parish records for London in there. And so I just went up to a set of parish records from one of the churches where I knew, you know, my family lived in that area and those streets and pulled them out, started going through them. And all of a sudden, I found my Victorian family in there. It was a real incredible moment because like it was like opening up a Dickens book, and all your ancestors tumbled out of it. But the you know, these characters are not just characters, you're descended from them. And once I realised there was all that wealth of information, all that stuff, I never know these people dead and gone. And all of a sudden they're alive, and they're in front of you. So I was hooked really from that point. So what I would do is finish a shift, then go in there legally, during the day ever look at the parish records and start pulling out things about me, you know, me ancestors, my grandparents, great grandparents, great, great grandparents and all the rest of it. So that's what started me that was the very first thing that started me off on this. I won't say a hobby, I'd say really a job or a career from my point of view, since like 1970s. And you know, if you wanted to find some records, you have to go and find the parish record. And if you don't want to set me up, you'd wait half a day it come through, you've ordered the wrong thing. You order something else, it's another half day. It takes you a week to find one, you know, certificate or whatever. It's just a nightmare or it used to be but I was in the computer department so I was unqualified but I had I had a lot of knowledge and And once things started to go online, I picked up on it straightaway. So I did it for a few years as a hobby. Then I started picking up on the CDs that came out and started doing a bit more seriously. And I think most I've got my family back, you know, over 200 years. And I was like, Well, you know, I'm no one all my family were poor, and all of them were poor going right the way back, they're all poor. And if I can find mine, can I find other people's. So you know, things progressed over the years, it became easier to do this stuff online, because you are quicker, is probably a bit a bit of description. And years later, I moved from being a lowly computer operator to running a software company. So there's all sorts of iterations in between mainly through sales. I was I was unqualified again. So instead of going on a technical side, I went on sales. I did have a little dabble with the technical side, then I realized that the sales when I was working with were doing 10% of the work and getting 90% of the money. I thought well now I want to be doing this, I want to be doing that. So I wouldn't have sales and eventually ended up running the European arm of a software company. By that time we've moved out of South London out of Peckham, straight out of Peckham, and we were down in Winchester, and got a nice house down there. And we built this house up and I was getting it all painted. And the guy that came around to paint it was guy called Terry Jacobs, just a local Hampshire lad, you know, a bit younger than me. But he had the same birth date as one of my sons, not the same year but the same date for less interested it made me think I thought right, I'm going to go have a look see if I can trace him. Because you know, it was just an ordinary bloke, and he was painting on the windows over a period of two weeks and he's painting all window frames. I'm going Terry, Terry law, I found that a lot I found your great grandfather and he's coming in looking all this because we're doing that me Mrs. would walk and go leave him alone let him get on with the painting in we want to get this work down, you know. So anyway, I traced this family tree they are all shepherds in Mansbridge. And around there in near Southampton in in Hampshire. And I thought, well, if I could do mine I can do his I can probably do any ones. So I started doing it kind of as a hobby, but a paid hobby. I mean, I'm working class and I can't do anything that doesn't involve getting money for it. So I started doing it just on the off for people, you know, people I knew. And I put a few adverts in local papers started doing that. I started collecting interested names. And Fred Dinenage, I don't know if you remember him off of HOW (1970's TV show) oh, yeah, newsreader kind of semi retired now. But he was on Meridian News down here. I live in Hampshire now. I've watched an unusual name dying, which very few people with that name. And basically I've traced his tree. And he had an ancestor that went down on the Titanic, he had one that fought in the Battle of Waterloo in the the Rifle Brigade, all this kind of thing. So it's fantastic. And I found that his name was originally Dunidge and then Dinige. And the Dinenage bit with the E in the middle came from his ancestor at Waterloo who was part of the British occupation force after we defeated Napoleon and he married a French woman. And she put an E in to make the name sound a little bit more French so it became sort of Dinaage or Dinenige edge. And so everybody with that name now in the UK is related to Fred Dinenage. So there you go so anyway traces, traces tree and I thought, right? What can I do with this? So previously, I would, I'd looked at Danny Baker's (UK radio Broadcaster) tree, because he was from South London like me and I done his tree. I sent it into him on his radio show. And he picked it up and he read it out. And I thought, okay, if it's easy to get your name out there, maybe I can do something on the tele as well. So the Fred Dineage connection came up, traced him ancestry at the Battle of Waterloo, all the rest of it. And I phoned up the TV company and just said, Look, you know, I've traced Fred's tree. Are you interested in this story? And they said, Yeah, no, that'd be interesting. So basically, he came down to my house, and we filmed an episode, a little takeout that they do on the news programs all about his tree, going back to Waterloo, going back to the Titanic, because obviously it went from Southampton. So it was a good local story. And my Mrs. came home, she walking up the drive. And there's this great big Rolls Royce in there with HOW 1 on the number plate and there's me and Fred in the dining room doing this interview. So that got me into tele qa bit and after that started the blog, basically, again, looking for well known people like the Redknapps, etc. Unusual name, well known people do their tree, put it on the blog, you get a lot of readers coming in. And then you get interest from people you know, you're doing people's trees which you could charge for and that was kind of as far as it went. I'd retired by then. We'd flogged our company to the Yanks made a bit of money a very happy and we were on holiday, and a phone call came through and I thought it was a scam. And this blokes going I work for a TV company and we were interested in this, that and the other and I thought he's gonna ask me for money minute ain't he and he said we've read your A blog about the Redknapp family you seem to know a lot about them. I said, Well, yeah. I've done a lot of research on it. He said, Well, we're making this new show called DNA journey. He said, And we wondered if we could use your work. And as anyone knows, thats dealt with the media, generally, they like to get it for free if they can. And I said, you know, I've been in sales for a long time, I've run businesses. And I said, I'll tell you what, you can use it as not a problem, because you always say yes, when you're in sales, but you got to pay me. Then it went quiet, and you went. Yeah, okay. We can probably work something out on that. I thought, right. Let's the first Yes. Let's see what else I get. I said, and I want to be in it. And it just went deadly, deadly silent. And I thought I'm not saying anything. You know, I'm in Tenerife, sitting here in the sun, I can stay on this phone as long as you want. He went, why don't you come in and see us when you come back from holiday. So basically went in to see him, they can see I'm not shy, you know, I was prepared to talk on camera and that and it took off from there I was in the, I filmed an episode. And err kind of big bit on the telly with the DNA journey program. All came from that purely by chance, because some of this research picked up on some work that I did. So the whole thing has been by good fortune and chance, basically, me taking opportunities when they present themselves, you know, cold cold a TV company and asked if I could do for Dineages tree on the telly. And they said yes, it's

Genealogy Guy 11:31
it's the classic case, though, isn't it, you just put yourself out there, you've just done stuff. And people don't come knock on your door. Because they've never heard of you, they come and knock on your door because they've heard your name or, or read something or seen, there's always. So you have to reach out before they reach back, you

Paul McNeil 11:48
You got to put yourself in the way of chance happenings, my philosophy has always been, I'll never stop myself from getting a chance in life. Because there are plenty of people out there that will stop you from having a chance in life. So if someone wants to take me on to do something, I don't care whether I,m qualified, whether I'm unqualified, whatever, I will do it. And if it doesn't work, it's their fault for taking me on

Genealogy Guy 11:48
On your very unusual journey into into genealogy and into into TV and radio. So what are some of the key things that you've come across that you realize other people fall into those traps that they just automatically go down the wrong route, or they just look at the wrong files, or they start in the wrong place?

Paul McNeil 12:31
I think the problem is, when you first get into it, there's so much you can find out. So there's a there's a wealth of knowledge, there's all these people, you start digging up that were dead, and now they're not because you found them again. And that's intoxicating. We're descended from twice the number of people, each generation going back, and it goes on and on and on there hundreds or 1000s it goes on. And eventually it sort of gets a bit inbred because it has to because there aren't that many people who have ever lived. So you get a little bit the inbreeding going on. But the route you take, and I've always looked at it to have a goal of what you're looking for. So if I do someone's tree, I'm not touting to business. But if I do a private commission, I take one surname line, and I go right up that surname line as far as I can go. I map out every family generation and what happened to them. So I've mapped it all the way down from as far as I can, right, the way down to the present with each generation went to the brothers and sisters and that kind of thing. And if you can do that and focus on one thing, you can get something that's a result. And then the key is you've got dates, you've got places, you've got names, but so what you know, there's nothing is it. It's just a list of things, just data. What you need is the story. And this really came home to me again, I was I was working from home years ago. And I found out that there was an archeological dig near me digging up a school called Lankhills in Winchester and Winchester has got a fantastic heritage going back to the Romans and before Iron Age and whatever. I thought thats interesting they are digging up a Romano British cemetery there. I thought, well, I'm interested in that. So I'm gonna go down there. Again, you know, there are no rules. So I walk down there. And I've always found, if you will come to a place and you act like you're meant to be there. They they probably think you're meant to be there. And most people are nice. And most people want to talk about ourselves like either, you know, so we're talking to this archeological site. The bloke that was in charge of it from Oxford archaeology. I said, fantastic. What you're doing, I said. What's going on what you found? And he just went, Oh, okay. I'll show you I'll show you around. So they started taking me around, and they're like open graves, and you're six foot or five foot nine from this grave. And we looked in it and there was a skeleton of a woman in there with a little baby. And he's saying tp me, Well, you know, the child probably died just after childbirth and you You know, the mother probably died for some infection. And all of a sudden, this woman who had died 1500 years ago, wasn't dead anymore, because I could see her. And I thought, she's got this story, there's a story in there. And it's been lost for 1500 years, she didn't even it wasn't even just lost, she didn't exist. But then there was another body that the head cut off and the cut between the knees and things, which is a thing that the Romans used to do, nobody quite knows why they think it might be a punishment if they're a criminal, or it might be to stop them coming back after death or something like that. But there are all these stories and seeing all this stuff. And I'm thinking, I want to tell the stories. So I started doing it with my own tree. But then when I started tracing other people's, it's right, you know, dates, and that fine. Places are fine, but they're all just data, you can turn into a story. And if you can do that, if you can concentrate on one thing. And if you can turn it into a story, you've built something that's worth having. And that, to me, is a big thrill of it. And of course that spills over into the TV work, because you don't want to watch the TV and someone says, Yeah, you got all these ancestors. And these are all the dates, and that's where they lived. Enjoy that. You want the story, you want to know what they did, good or bad. I mean, I'm usually you know, in on the bad stuff, but you know, good or bad. So for me, it's concentrate one thing, look for the story, and then move on to the next thing. And if you don't do that, you can have a great time because spread yourself very wide. But what have you got at the end of it, you got a lot of data and data on its own is of much use, maybe to someone else? I don't know.

Jingle 16:35
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Genealogy Guy 16:41
So let's return to the second part of the interview with Paul McNeil who appears in and is one of the main researchers in the ITV show DNA Journey. So when when you're doing it, do you have favorite places that you start, like any particular datas, that you instantly go? Well, I'll start with that one. And then I'll work from there.

Paul McNeil 17:01
I tend to use a genealogy program, you know, I use all of them basically. So I use Ancestry I use Find My Past, you name it, The Genealogist, site of genealogist I'm a memember of that, so I go into all of them. But again, start simple start with a tree, start with a tree, start with what you know, to start with your parents, go to grandparents, listen to the family stories. Because quite often, the family stories aren't completely true. But there's a seed of truth in there. And you'll often find someone to say a story about the war. And you know, where they were, and what they did might not quite be true, but at least you know they're in the war, you know, they're in the army, or the air force or the navy or whatever it might be. So start with that and build out from it, put it in a tree, put everything in there and start to sift through it. I tend to use Ancestry, not just saying that, because they pay me when I do the show, they have got a very good front end, they got a very good database, simple to use from end you can obviously put your DNA in there as well. But there are a lot of good good systems out there. And a work back gradually through that if you're on a budget, great resources, free BMD free births, marriages and deaths. As the title says it's free and go in there and find out lots of information. But it's dates and names and places. They let you sift through things very quickly, it might save you some money from just holding up any certificate you get. But then I start to put it into the tree and gradually build a tree out and do it generation by generation. So find the parents find the children what happened to him, did they disappear, is that because they died, etc. build out from there. So the usual sample staff looking for births, deaths, marriages, Army records are very good. Naval records are very good. And then if you want to add a bit of spice, if you've got your Pie and Mash, now you want a bit of spicy liquor on it, look for newspapers, because if they've made the newspapers chances are they've done something very, very good. Or very, very bad.

Genealogy Guy 19:08
There's a lot of this data now coming online and people just specialising in gathering data of newspapers. And you're right it's it's it's the it's the real story behind the people now it's like, did they do something really good or really bad?

Paul McNeil 19:24
Exactly and if they were wounded in the war that might get a mention. So there's all these kind of little things and the other is when when you search, search on variations of the Name put wild characters in and things like this especially if you've got if I'm Smith, then you're probably going to be alright and unless someone spelt it with a Y. And if you're a Cockney, then an F and a T H and a P H sound like the same sound to me. They're all they'll sound like you know, Smith, Fank you (thank you), etc. Do that look for the odd things. And I think if there's if there's a key thing, it's, "Don't try and prove what you found. Try and Disprove what you've found". Because you can never be 100% sure that what you found is right. But you can sometimes be 100% sure that what you found is wrong. And you always try and disprove it. If you can't disprove it, you're probably right. You only need one black swan to prove that Not all swans are white.

Genealogy Guy 20:20
How have you found your exploration of genealogy and then the introduction of DNA? How have you found that has enabled you to actually delve either quicker or more succinctly through a story.

Paul McNeil 20:34
It can complicate it is very useful. It's useful in two aspects, I find it's useful in the immediate. So I can throw out a lot of people that you're closely related to that you may or may not have known about. It can also prove relationships. mean, there's an old adage, you know, "People Lie, Documents Lie, DNA Doesn't Lie". The other thing you can do it, it can, it can point to where you came from, in the Stone Age 1000s of years ago. It doesn't necessarily prove anything, but it gives a very good indication. But it's a Pandora's box. So what will be a good example, you open this box, you don't know what's gonna be in it. But it's the truth, no matter what's in there, no matter how much you may not like it, it is the truth. So my name is Paul McNeil. On my birth certificate, my name is Paul Edward McNeil. And my dad is Leonard Henry McNeil. And I've always been told that my dad was Leonard Edward Mcneal And he was my dad. So people told me that the paperwork tells me that I did a DNA test four years ago when I was 64. And it came back, and I was using Ancestry. So you map the DNA to the, to the tree that you've built, and then it starts giving you hints is great, there's an AI and that gives you hints about people you may be related to, it gives you a rough idea what sort of relationship, I was getting tons of hits on my mother's side of the family, which was great, and they will fit it into the tree that I've been developing. I got no hits at all, on my father side of the family. I thought, well, that's strange. But you know, it's not that common. And I met Neil over here. And it could be that none of them have taken DNA tests. And that could be why there's a bit of a hole in the in the, you know, the hits I should be getting. But then I found a third family, who I got a ton of hits for, and didn't fit anywhere in my tree. So I thought, well, I gonna have to test this. And you know, I'm like 68 now, my parents are dead long ago. More or less, everyone I grew up with is dead. So I thought well, what I'll do, I've got a nephew, my brother, son, I'll get his test. He agreed to have a DNA test. We tested that when it came back. Turns out he was my half nephew. So straightaway, there's alarm bells. So you know, I'm a genealogist, I started looking into it. So I build a tree for this other family that I'm getting hits from and actually build out their tree. And I find some very close like cousin hits first cousin hits, not second or third, you know, 100, 200 years back relationship. This is close stuff. Basically, I've worked out that one of three guys, three brothers was my real father. So I knew it, because it's in the DNA, but I thought what am I going to? You know, there must be some corroborating evidence. So what I did, I've got one cousin, who's eighty now and in his eighties he's 13 years older than me, so he was 13 when I was born, so I phoned him up. I said Stevie I said when I was born were there like rumors about me or my dad or anything like that? And he went hmmmm let me ever think and I'll phone you back Paul. I thought aye aye you know he's worried about telling me anyway five minutes later bring bring phone rings pick it up it's Pauline, his Mrs. She goes are told him Just tell him just tell him what you know. hands the phone over, on comes Stevie said Well, yeah, yeah, my mom and dad had quite a difficult relationship for most of their marriages, I mean, they stayed together all their lives, but they didn't get on go figure kind of thing. But they had broken up a couple of times only for like a matter of weeks or whatever. And in the early days in the 1950s when I was born, they honestly literally had no money. And from what I can make out the mom was taken in by someone that knew me dad's nine months late I'm born

Genealogy Guy 24:34
What you emphasise that in which I tell other people is is just because you've had a DNA you shouldn't then just go oh, well no, none of the brothers and sisters need to to it because everyone goes well you've done yours I don't need to do mine is like you do because it helps because it's a bigger pool of DNA that he can access.

Paul McNeil 24:51
Exactly you don't know we're gonna find but even even if you leave that aside the shock horror, you know, he's not your dad. Kind of Revelation and to be honest, it doesn't bother me it's an interesting story me dad had been dead for years the bloke brought me out and I weren't even his kid, you know what a great bloke, you know, I'm not bothered by it I find it quite interesting. A question came up on Facebook the other day on, you know, I'm on a lot of the genealogy sites on there and I jump in and cause arguments and this kind of thing. But someone asked the question, they said, If I'm on I'm actually on the Mensa site because never part of the story because I left school with no qualifications I was going for jobs because I sound like this because I look like this. And I've got no qualifications. Everybody thinks you're thick, you know. So I did a MENSA test, and I passed the Mensa test. So, you know, got into Mensa. And I thought, well, we forgot that my CV no one can ever call me thick. Because, you notice that, I pronounce my T H. Very good. I'm trying to sound more intelligent, no one can call me fick? Because, you know, I'm in Mensa. Anyway, this question came up in Mensa, and someone said, If I've got my DNA tested, is there any point in me asking my mum and dad to have this tested as well? Because you know, I've got the results. And I said, Well, actually, you've got half the results. Because every female egg, and every male sperm has got exactly half of your parents recombining DNA, and every other egg and sperm may have a different combination of half of that, and that all gets thrown away. So the half you don't get is gone forever, you get half of each exceptions being Y chromosone and mitochondrial. But basically, you get half the recombining DNA. So you've only got half the story of your parents, and they've only got half the story of their parents. So if you have yours done, that's great, you'll get a lot of results. And they'll be interesting. If you have this done as well, you're getting twice as much back, because you've only got half of their DNA, and so on and so forth. So yes, it is worth getting more tests done. You never know what you're gonna find out. And obviously, people got to be cool with that they got to understand what they could find out. And actually, you could end up with a lot of relationship don't want and end up buying lots and lots of Christmas cards. Who wants to do that?

Genealogy Guy 27:11
So if people want to find out more about what you're up to, and what you're doing well, you mentioned that you're on different groups, and there is a sort of direct web page or a blog that you would say, Oh, check out this if you want to actually find out some more things.

Paul McNeil 27:24
Yeah I use, I use a WordPress blog as my web page, basically. So it's www dot time. detectives dot wordpress dot com (www.timedetectives.wordpress.com). So I've trademark the word time detectives in the UK very good. So if you see @timedetectives anywhere on you know, Twitter or on Facebook or wherever that's most likely me and if it's not, I may well sue. So that's how you tend to find me and I've started going on the road now. So I've not because it's the wife checked me out. But because I'm doing like stand I'm trying to do stand up genealogy, I'm trying to invent a whole new genre of entertainment, called Stand Up Genealogy. So rather than going and talking at an event and making it very dry, I try and put humor into it. So for example, in January, I'm over at Sudbury in Suffolk, which is like four hour's journey from the south coast where I live, but going over there to a Theatre I'm doing like, we stand up there. I do local charity things and all this so occasionally, I'll put these on on on my website and will come up in Facebook if I'm going to be appearing somewhere. So if anyone's an agent out there, then get in touch. I'm doing it all myself at the moment. But yeah, but basically my blog site and I'll put stories out there about what's happening with the TV show about things I've traced, I'm into archaeology quite a bit. So I put up latest theories about you know, Were there ever any Celts in in in the UK and Ireland? And the answer of course is no. They spoke a Celtic language but the only Celts that ever existed that called themselves Celts were in Spain and southern France basically. So things like that I'll put up all these different you know, historical archaeological, obviously a lot of genealogical stories again I'm trying to put stories up but make an interesting read for five minutes 10 minutes 20 minutes for people.

Genealogy Guy 29:17
Absolutely I'm always a big fan of the, Did you know type facts, the things that when you just generally chatting and you say, Did you know that and most people go I never knew and I say neither did I which is why I,m telling you because it's it's the Celts like the Celts thing is a classic example. I wouldn't have known that so now you've told me.

Paul McNeil 29:34
People will argue it because they're emotionally involved with being Celtic, but they are probably not unless they come from Spain.

Genealogy Guy 29:44
Well, thank you very much Paul MacNeil. I'm sure I'm gonna come back to you at some point because like you've obviously got loads of tales of interesting things that have happened to you to do with genealogy and all the other things that have happened and the best of success with the with the tour and hopefully You'll end up somewhere over in my direction and I can get to see you live. Thank you much very much again, Paul. It's been it's been great having you on as another guest because it's always it's other people's stories, as you've said at the beginning, that makes genealogy so fascinating. Great pleasure talking to you.

A very big thank you there to Paul MacNeil, the managing director at Time Detectives and one of the researchers from the ITV show DNA Journey, and I do hope he's inspired more of you to get out there and start finding out more about your families. Until the next time happy and productive researching.

Jingle 2 30:38
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