Who Do You Think You Are - Katherine Ryan 19th Aug
 

On BBC1 at 9 p.m. and repeated on Thursday night at 11:20 p.m.

This the first episode I've watched in a very long time - lured by the idea of research in Newfoundland. I'm finding it difficult to say anything positive about the programme. Though you could tell that the researchers all knew their stuff.

Katherine Ryan was born in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, but she now lives in England, and her daughter Violet was born here. Katherine started by visiting her mother in Canada, as she already knew that all her father's side of the family originated in Ireland. Her mother had done some work on her family tree already, and showed Katherine photos of her parents (i.e. Katherine's grandparents), Ted McCarthy and Dorothy Knight. Dorothy was born in Toronto, the daughter of Frederick Carr Knight and Beatrice Adelia Sill, who was born in Montreal. Beatrice's parents were Edgar Sill and Clarissa Richey, the daughter of James Armenius Richey and Emma Louise Nicolson.

Katherine did an online search for James Armenius Richey and found that he had written books of his poetry. She went to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto where she saw one of his books, published in 1857 when he was 20 years old. One of the poems was to his mother. The library had a portrait of James (born in Nova Scotia, the second of seven children), and also a letter which he wrote to his mother (Louisa M Nicholls) in 1855 saying that he was considering applying for an army commission if his parents would put up the money. His father was referred to as Dr Richey - he was Matthew Richey, DD, a Methodist minister. James didn't join the army in the end, but followed in his father's footsteps.

Katherine then went to Victoria College, part of the University of Toronto, to see portraits of Matthew and Louisa, who married on the 31st Jul 1825. The caption on Matthew's portrait said that he was the first Principal of Upper Canada Academy, which later became Victoria College. He was also mentioned in a history of the Methodist Church of Canada. Katherine then went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and met an historian at the Presbyterian Church of St David's on Grafton Street in the city centre. This was built on the site of an old Methodist Church, and a record showed that the Rev Richey preached there when he was a travelling preacher, away from home for long periods of time. Katherine went to Nova Scotia Archives where she was shown a scrapbook which Louisa had put together of letters and poems written to her by Matthew when he was travelling, including one dated 1825 in which he asked her to marry him. The United Church Archive had a letter from 1840 in which Matthew said that he was born at Ramelton, Co Donegal, in Ireland. Louisa was born in New York.

Katherine then found out about her 5x-grandparents on Frederick Carr Knight's branch of the tree, Giles Hosier and Grace Newell of Bonavista, Newfoundland. She went to Bonavista and was shown a document about the Newell Room, a "fishing room" passed on to Giles and Grace by Grace's family. A fishing room was a place used by fishermen to store and process their catches. Katherine visited the site where Giles and Grace's house used to stand and where they raised seven children. She was shown a book extract which said that one of their sons, William, died when his ship was lost with all hands, and that they had no insurance so this meant ruin for the Hosier family. Giles died a few weeks later "of a broken heart", and their other son died soon after. Katherine visited his grave at Christchurch Anglican Church in Bonavista. The gravestone commemorated Giles, William, and Giles jr, who all died in 1812. The newspaper notice of Giles's death said that he came from Poole, Dorset.

Katherine returned to England and went to Poole Museum where she met an historian who told her that Giles came from quite a wealthy family and went to Newfoundland as the agent for a merchant. He showed Katherine the wills of Elizabeth Hosier which mentioned "my grandson Giles Hosier, son of William Hosier, and of Nicholas Cobb of Corfe Castle (a village), which mentioned "my daughter Elizabeth Hosier".

Katherine then went to Corfe Castle and was shown a document from 1701 saying that Nicholas Cobb was accused of libel by two magistrates and was bailed. Another look at his will found that he mentioned his furnace and mashing tub, which suggested that he was a brewer. This was confirmed by an indenture whereby he sublet "The Ship" in Corfe Castle. An old map of Corfe Castle showed that "The Ship" was a pub now known as the Bankes Arms, and that Nicholas Cobb's house was just across the road from it. Katherine had a look at the house.

I wasn't quite sure why the fact that Louisa Nicholls was born in New York meant they had to give up on finding English ancestry on that line? Though I guess maybe they just couldn't trace that line back any further. I found it annoying that Katherine seemed to feel that she had to do comedy the whole way through, much like Jack Whitehall did a few weeks ago. Surely there have been plenty of comedians on before who have managed to act normal!

I fell asleep. I missed the last half hour but don't seem to have missed much.

I usually like her but I found her irritating.

I really enjoyed it and didn't find Katherine Ryan at all irritating, unlike some of the other subjects this series. I think the programme makers probably do research on more lines than the ones we see and then choose which ones will make the best programme. It must sometimes be hard to choose what to include, given they only have an hour to tell the story.

Apparently it's on Wednesday next week (Paul Merton).

Exactly my experience Gwynne, right down to falling asleep for the last half

hour.

I also missed part of it, due to falling asleep.