A Family History Of...

One working-class mining family, and nine days that reshaped a nation’s history. 

Humble miner Will Lawther rose from the pit to face the frontlines of the 1926 General Strike, swapping coal dust for politics. Across four episodes, host and genealogist Jen Baldwin is joined by historian Jonathan Kindleysides (Beamish Museum) to trace how one family and one determined young man met an extraordinary moment in British history....

When records are fractured, biased, or simply gone, how do you tell a true family story? 

In this final part of A Family History of the Irish Famine, host and genealogist Jen Baldwin steps into the silences surrounding Archibald MacKenzie’s life. Through the archives, the missing lines, and the traces that remain, she asks what survival really meant, and what it cost the countless families who left no trail behind. 

One Irish family fights to rebuild after the Famine.

By the mid‑1850s, Archibald MacKenzie has crossed the sea to Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, trading the barren fields of Cork for the roar of furnaces. The MacKenzie family rebuilds in a world thick with smoke and prejudice. Host and genealogist Jen Baldwin, and her guest, Irish genealogy expert Fiona Fitzsimons, trace his footsteps through the evidence. What does survival look like...

Hunger spreads. Tempers ignite One man swept into a riot. 

It’s September 1845 in Coolderrihy, and hunger is beginning to bite. As fear and anger are on the rise, Archibald MacKenzie finds himself in the thick of a desperate riot. Join host and genealogist Jen Baldwin, and her guest, Irish genealogy expert Fiona Fitzsimons, as they unpick the records behind this moment. What drives an ordinary man to r...

A boy at the edge of famine-era Ireland. A world about to break. 

Archibald MacKenzie is 11 years old in Coolderrihy, County Cork, when the world he knows suddenly shifts. Joined by Irish genealogy expert Fiona Fitzsimons, host and genealogist Jen Baldwin traces the records that reveal what life looked like for a boy growing up in a land already restless with tension. How did a childhood shaped by loss prepare him for the catastrop...

One family faces famine, fear and exile — and forges a future that spanned oceans. 

The Great Famine cast a long shadow across Ireland, hollowing out towns, devastating families, and driving thousands to the brink. It’s a familiar tale, but one not often told. Follow the story of Archibald MacKenzie, a man whose life veered from riot to imprisonment, and then across the sea to smoke and furnaces. Across three episodes, host and gen...

Why do women rarely appear in WW2 records?

Many wartime women left no diaries or letters, only the sparse traces of addresses, occupations, and brief entries in civil records.

In this bonus episode, host and expert genealogist Jen Baldwin explores how those small clues — a line in the 1939 Register, a registrar‑office marriage, a maternity home address — can reveal the pressures shaping a woman’s life during war. By placing each ...

Lucy Worsley returns to discover the next part of her grandmother's story - during the Birmingham Blitz.

In 1942, Edna Bourne becomes a mother during the Birmingham Blitz. Amid blackouts, bombing raids and disrupted maternity care, she endures grief with little space to rest or speak of it. Through death registers, wartime diaries and Mass Observation accounts, genealogist Jen Baldwin and her guest, historian Lucy Worsley, explore ...

Lucy Worsley returns to discover her grandmother's dramatic Second World War secrets...

By 1939, Edna Bourne is a young working woman in a Britain preparing for war once again. Her days in a Birmingham boot shop unfold against air‑raid drills, rationing, and uncertainty. But behind the everyday routines lie private complexities: a whirlwind marriage, a pregnancy under the pressures of wartime morality, and a truth hidden in the mar...

Historian Lucy Worsley joins host and genealogist Jen Baldwin to discover how two world wars shaped one woman’s life – and the generations that followed.​

Edna Bourne takes her first breath in Birmingham, 1911, as Europe braces for war. With her father working to feed the munitions machine and her mother navigating rationing queues and civic duty, Edna's earliest memories are shaped by a city under pressure.

Join Jen and Lucy - Edna'...

Ordinary lives told through extraordinary moments.

Findmypast's genealogist and research specialist Jen Baldwin is joined by guests to unravel remarkable family tales uncovered in the archives.

Each month, one moment in history is explored through a single true family story, unfolding several interconnected episodes. Human, empathetic, and driven by real stories, A Family History Of.. reveals how defining British and Irish moments sh...