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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Thinking Allowed: 19/05/2010

19/05/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, 19/05/2010

New research revealing the rifts and resentment created by researching family history.

What is the social impact of someone starting family research? Laurie Taylor discusses new research into the rifts caused by genealogy. Also a cultural history of Scouse.

Genealogical research has become a passion for a growing number of people. Programmes like Who Do You Think You Are? and websites like Genes Reunited feed a voracious interest in family origins and the lives of ancestors. But what impact does this kind of research have on the families which are being studied? Hidden pregnancies...mental illnesses...shunned relatives... Laurie Taylor talks to sociologist Anne-Marie Kramer, whose research has unveiled some of the conflicts which arise when family skeletons are dragged into the light, and to the cartoonist Martin Rowson who has performed some geneaological research of his own.
Also, how did a Danish stew of left-over vegetables and scrag end of lamb come to epitomise a proud and enduring British city culture? Ciara Kierans discusses a cultural history of Scouse. 

Producer: Charlie Taylor.

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19/05/2010

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