Genealogy Research for the Media

Media Consultancy

With a broad people-finding remit, we have advised on a wide variety of projects – from conducting genealogical research for the TV documentary series A House Through Time and the BBC’s flagship television series Who Do You Think You Are? to tracing family members for The Secret History of My Family and identifying and tracking down the evacuees in a 1941 photograph for the Royal Mail. Our most recent television appearance was on Channel 4’s Key To A Fortune, a property show with an added genealogy twist.

Our staff are used to working with documentary makers and film crews, and liaising with producers and directors. They can advise on possible approaches and resources, undertake whatever research is necessary and help to interpret genealogical and biographical data within a historical context.

Archive researchers and paleographers

Whatever your field of enquiry, our team has an in-depth knowledge of the available archival resources and can quickly locate, and extract evidence from, the records you need to support your investigation. We also employ a number of expert paleographers to transcribe, and help you interpret, older documents.

Why choose Anglia Research?

 

Coming from a background in the exacting and competitive probate genealogy industry, our researchers pride themselves first and foremost on their speed and accuracy.

 

• We employ some of the most highly qualified genealogists in the UK today* and liaise with a global network of over 200 agents.
• We equip our staff with the most up-to-date digital resources, as well as a traditional 8,000 volume in-house library.
• We always ensure that our expertise comes with an affordable price tag. To find out what we can do for you, contact us for a free initial consultation.

Learn more about our work

The researcher had always been fascinated by the history of Liverpool, once considered the ‘second city of the British Empire’.

Liverpool’s growth parallels the rise of empire, maritime adventure, commerce and the transatlantic slave trade, now commemorated in the city’s International Slavery Museum. Its story is one of rapid economic growth and prosperity and then a slow decline to the nadir of the Toxteth Riots in the 1980s, followed by rebirth and regeneration. Today it is one of the top tourist attractions in the UK.

Liverpool’s history is very much reflected in the stories we discovered about one house in the city’s Georgian Quarter in the shadow of the imposing Anglican cathedral on Upper Duke Street.

We helped TV production company Twenty Twenty with its research on 62 Falkner Street – the focus of a BBC documentary A House Through Time presented by historian David Olusoga, an alumnus of the University of Liverpool.

Twenty Twenty Television approached Anglia Research at the end of 2016 to see if we could help identify a street or a house around which they could build a historical documentary, looking at the lives of its inhabitants over the years.

We suggested looking at properties in Falkner Street which was built in the 1830s and first inhabited in the 1840s. It reflects the rise, decline and regeneration of the city over the decades – from solid middle-class gentility in the 1840s to slum squalor in the post-war years, through to gentrification in the 1990s.

A House Through Time traces the fortunes of the families who lived in 62 Falkner Street in Liverpool.

Twenty Twenty Television chose 62 Falkner Street in the heart of the city’s Georgian Quarter and asked us, along with other researchers, to look into the lives of the families who had lived there, from the first resident Richard Glenton, a clerk for HM Customs at Liverpool’s Custom House, to today’s current owner Gaynor Evans.

We spent a lot of time in the archives and family history section of Liverpool Central Library sifting through hundreds of records, creating a timeline of all those who had lived in the house and then delving further into their lives. The research involved hours of trawling through documents, some of which are over 100 years old – when you are hoping to find one scrawled entry amongst thousands of entries you just need to keep looking.

At Anglia Research we have helped research several historical documentaries, but this project was particularly special. The work was fascinating. Tracing families is what we do on a daily basis, but this had an extra dimension to it because it gave us an opportunity to step into the lives and the stories of the people who called Liverpool their home.

If you are a media agency requiring reliable historical research, get in touch to find out if we can help you.