Until recently, I was a columnist for the In-depth Genealogist Magazine and also wrote for their blog. Now the magazine is sadly no more, contributors have been invited to re-post their blog material elsewhere so that it is preserved. This is a post that I wrote in October 2016. Comments in {} are new additions.

We are probably all familiar with the concept of Method Acting, where the actor attempts to fully identify with a part by living as their character lived, or sharing experiences but method genealogy? As diligent family historians, it is something that we should all be practising. We need our ancestors to be as fully rounded as possible, to lift them from the two-dimensional pedigree and to understand what their lives would have been like. When I wrote my book Coffers, Clysters, Comfrey and Coifs, about seventeenth century social history, I said, “Our seventeenth century ancestors may be people that we can identify, or they may be lurking, nameless, waiting to be discovered. In either case they existed, therefore we owe it to them to find out more about their way of life.” The same is true of more recent inhabitants of our family tree. {Incidentally, if you would like to contribute to the campaign to make room for me to publish more books – copies can be obtained from me}.

I recently discovered this beautiful photograph of a member of a family that I am researching. It isn’t actually my own ancestry but she will one day I hope be part of a novel based on incidents in her family’s life, so this could be my cover photo. She has bare feet. She lived on a cobbled street. What is it like to walk that street barefoot? I don’t know but I need to. Ok, I’ll be honest, I’m probably going to wait for better weather but I will be trying this. {Yes I wrote the book and yes I tried it – but not for long. And yes – another opportunity to relieve me of book stock and increase the free space in my house}.

Part of my life is spent as an historical interpreter, so I do get to dress in period costume. Have you any idea how difficult it is to go upstairs in a full length skirt? What about household tasks? That bucket you need to fetch from the well could weigh four stone (30kg), oh and you probably need eight bucketfuls of water a day. What is a home like without electricity? I get to try this in my 400 year old cottage when our power fails.

Reality television has often attempted to get people to turn back time. In some cases they go back to their centrally heated homes and twenty-first century luxuries every night. Even if it is a more sustained experiment, the participants know it is only temporary but such experiences are the closest we may get to the lives of our ancestors. What is it like to carve a homestead from virgin forest, to clear, to plough, to plant and to hope for an eventual harvest? How does it feel to set off on a six week sea voyage, knowing  that you will never again see those you have left behind?

If we are physically capable, we need to enter the realms of experimental archaeology to find out what processes were involved in the occupations of an ancestor. If we know they walked a certain route to school, to work, or to migrate, then can we walk it too (if only virtually with the aid of Google Earth)? What was the terrain like? What marks on the natural or built landscape may they have passed?

Family History is not just about following shaky leaves {and believe me, ‘shaky’ is an appropriate description for many} and amassing the largest family tree in the world. It is about getting under the skin of those we have discovered and doing the best we can to gain an insight into their ways of life. {Oooh, opportunity for another advertisement – if you would like to add depth to the deaths of your ancestors, join me on my Pharos Tutors online course ‘In Sickness and in Death: researching the ill-health and deaths of our ancestors’ – starts on Tuesday folks!}.