logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2018
23m 24s

Episode 1 – Basics: Before you start res...

Andy Holmes
About this episode

Welcome to the first podcast in this series. In this episode, I go back to basics to ease us all in gently. To get the ball rolling, I talk about the things that I really wish I knew before I embarked on my family history journey.

If, like I did, you are thinking ‘how hard can it be?’, or you’ve seen how easy it looks on genealogy shows on TV, this is the episode for you. Not that I’m trying to put you off, but it’s definitely worth knowing what you’re letting yourself in for before you tie yourself in the knots that I did when I first started out!

Handily, and coincidentally, my list of ‘things that I wish I knew before I started’ forms a nice neat list of ten – so here we have a ‘top ten’ nuggets of wisdom from my few years of experience of getting stuck into the rewarding, but frustrating, world of genealogy.

Recommended drinks to accompany this episode: Earl Grey tea (relaxing, yet historic)

Recommended biscuits to accompany this episode: Jaffa cakes (ten in a box, you get to eat one per item!)

Listen now

https://amateurfamilyhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Episode1-vFINAL.mp3

Up next
Jan 2022
Episode 33 – The 1921 Census: a first look
An initial view of the new records 
28m 38s
Oct 2021
Episode 32 – The 1921 census: a look ahead
A look ahead to January's release. 
33m 23s
Aug 2021
Episode 31 – Family History Societies: Part 2 (and other stuff besides)
Family History Societies and other topics 
27m 25s
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2022
E64: Mildred Fish-Harnack, part 2
Concluding part of our double podcast episode about Mildred Fish-Harnack, the US-born woman at the centre of the underground resistance to Nazism in Berlin during World War II. In conversation with Rebecca Donner, Mildred’s great great niece and author of All the Frequent Trouble ... Show More
47m 42s
Dec 2022
Bonus Ep 33 - The ORIGINS of The Great English Country Houses
📝 Get FREE Episode Worksheet 🧐 Take English Level Test 👄 Improve Your Pronunciation In this episode Charlie once again meets his historian friend Ben but this time to talk about the history of the Great English Country Houses. These often feature in popular British TV dramas a ... Show More
40m 5s
May 2021
Episode 16 | Captured by the Germans | A Harrowing POW Story of Survival | PART 2 of 2
On the brink of a fridgid winter in December 1944, The Battle of the Bulge began, after Adolf Hitler launched a surprise blitzkrieg against Allied Forces in northwest Europe. James Forsythe was a young American soldier bunkered down with his battalion in a Belgian village anxious ... Show More
21m 47s
Apr 2021
GunPlot: Episode 1 - The Spark that Lit the Flame
An Irish Army Captain goes on holidays – a strange kind of holiday. To a city where he knows there is likely to be ‘trouble’. He arrives as a three-day street battle, now known as 'the Battle of the Bogside', begins. And it changes everything (Ep1/8). To continue listening to thi ... Show More
31m 33s
Feb 2022
Family Stories Series 2: Episode 12
This week’s family stories include an IRA man who ended up fighting for Britain and being torpedoed twice, a Scot who spent five years as a prisoner of war, a teenage sailor who braved the Atlantic and the U-boats, and a pilot who never forgave his enemy. A Goalhanger Films produ ... Show More
25m 16s
Oct 2023
The Postwar Lives of WW2 Leaders, Both Axis and Allies
Check out this episode sample from James Early's "Key Battles of American History," In this episode, which wraps up a season devoted to World War 2 in the European Theatre, hosts James Early and Sean McIver follow a long-established Key Battles tradition by giving brief overviews ... Show More
20m 46s
Dec 2021
The Real (Decidedly-Less-Sentimental-Yet-Still-Wonderful) Story of WWI's Christmas Truce
One of the most famous stories to come out of World War I is that of the "Christmas Truce" of 1914, in which German and British forces engaged in a spontaneous and unofficial ceasefire and spent the holiday fraternizing with each other. In the popular imagination, the Christmas T ... Show More
38m 37s
Jul 2023
The Road to War - How the Irish Civil War Started
'The Road to War' is the first episode in a five part Irish History Podcast production on the Irish Civil War. The full series, exclusively available for supporters, features the leading Irish historian Dr Brian Hanley from Trinity College Dublin. Over the five episodes the serie ... Show More
31m 10s
Dec 2022
Bonus Ep 34 - The INSIDES of The Great English Country Houses
📝 Get FREE Episode Worksheet 🧐 Take English Level Test 👄 Improve Your Pronunciation In this episode Charlie and Ben continue to talk about the history of The Great English Country Houses. This time they head inside the house and discuss the roles of certain members of staff an ... Show More
38m 1s
May 2024
D-Day: The German Side (Episode 1)
May 1944, it is clear to Erwin Rommel that the Allied counter attack is just a few weeks away. The answer is simple - defend the Atlantic Wall. But Nazi infighting and ludicrous top-down decision making has led to chaos on the Western Front. With the 6th June just days away - the ... Show More
1h 2m