The family affair that's hooking more and more

As senior information manager for local studies at Bradford Central Library, she helps people find out about their family history, and says this postChristmas period is the busiest time of the year.

"There's a steady stream of people coming in after Christmas wanting to find out more about their family, " says Carol. "Over Christmas we meet older relatives at family parties and talk about the past. A man came in this morning who discovered over Christmas that his grandfather had won a war medal, he wanted to find out more."

Carol helped Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman trace his family history in Bradford.

The hard-nosed journalist was moved to tears learning about the appalling circumstances in which his ancestors lived and died here. He was in Bradford last summer for BBC2's Who Do You Think You Are? , following TV personalities' quests to uncover their family history.

Using records at the Central Library and Bradford Register Office, he traced his family back to the city's textile mills and discovered that his great-grandparents, Thomas and Mary Paxman of Girlington, died of tuberculosis in their 30s in the 1880s.

"Hundreds of thousands of people must have lived and died like this, " says Jeremy on the programme. Wiping away tears while speaking of his grandfather, Arthur Paxman, he adds: "He lost both his parents by the time he was ten, both to TB and exhaustion. He got a job by the time he was 12 in a woollen mill. A very hard life."

Paxman's case shows that uncovering family history sparks emotions in even the most cynical among us. And with the internet opening new doors - researching a family tree is the third most popular internet pursuit, behind porn and personal finance - genealogy is booming.

"The internet has made records more accessible, " says Carol.

"The last series of Who Do You Think You Are? sparked lots of interest in family trees. We have an urge to find out about our roots.

"It's mainly middle-aged and retired people taking it up, people with more time on their hands who want to know how their families fit in with their past."

Part of the appeal is the riveting prospect of discovering skeletons and black sheep - but unearthing uncomfortable facts can be disturbing.

"When it's your relatives it makes it more real, " says Carol. "Jeremy knew that children worked in mills and people died of TB, but discovering his own relatives were among them made him very emotional. He said his children don't know how lucky they are."

The Paxman family came to the north from Suffolk, seeking work.

Thomas Paxman, Jeremy's greatgreat-great grandfather, brought his family to Bradford to work in mills.

The presenter is proud of how they worked to better themselves: "They made moral and practical judgements and got themselves out of the hole they were in. I admire them for that."

Genealogy can change your view of life, says Dan Waddell, author of the Who Do You Think You Are? book accompanying the TV series.

"It's humbling to know you come from a long line of people who struggled to overcome difficult circumstances. It influences where you are and how you came to be there, " he says. "It's not just about tracing your family back to William the Conqueror and developing an ornate family tree. One of the things that attracts people is the idea of discovering a family secret, it brings ancestors to life.

"You can see who were the movers and shakers, those who altered the family's path. In the 1850 perhaps your family was living in abject poverty in a slum, yet you might be in a different part of the country in a different economic class. How did that happen?"

Death certificates are vital sources of information because telling us how people died often shows how they lived too.

"If someone died of TB or during a flu epidemic in their 30s you get a sense of how they lived. It brings them to life, " says Dan.

Tracing his own family tree for research, Dan discovered a secret - his good Catholic grandmother was five months' pregnant on her wedding day.

"Few of our ancestors left much of a paper trail unless they stepped outside society's norms and were recognised by authorities and institutions such as the criminal justice system, asylums, prisons, orphanages and the workhouse, " says Dan.

People should be able to trace their family back to the early 19th century at least, says Carol, because of the civil registration of births, deaths and marriages in 1837 when records were kept by the state.

"You can learn a lot from the Census, the kind of house your family lived in and whether they had servants, " says Carol. "These are real places that may still be there. There were Census returns with names and addresses every 10 years from 1842 listing everyone in the house, their relationships, ages, occupations, where they were born.

"Bradford Central Library holds the general register index for births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales from 1837 to 1980 on microfiche, as well as a wealth of background information for research.

"Censuses are kept confidential for 100 years. When the 1901 Census went on the internet a few years ago there was so much interest it crashed.

Many Bradford people went to live in America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada and I get e-mails from people over there wanting to find out about their ancestors. People come over and spend their holidays researching family trees."

Carol advises anyone tracing their family tree to try and acquire photographs or birth, death or marriage certificates in the family.

"Certificates tucked away in drawers help us to understand ancestors' lives, occupations, socio-economic groups and cause of death. Old photographs are useful for names, dates and places listed on the back, and books may have details written inside.

"Work backwards from what you know and decide which direction of your family you want to research."

Carol's recommended sources for local history are the Bradford and Yorkshire collections at the Central Library. These include: an oral history collection of more than 800 taped interviews with local people on areas such as textiles, health, war and immigration; books, periodicals and articles on family history, (many back numbers are kept); local newspapers, including the Telegraph & Argus from 1868 and the Bradford (later Yorkshire) Observer 1834-1956; ordnance survey maps; Bradford Council documents, including electoral registers from 1848; indexed illustrations and photographs of Bradford, its buildings and people; microfilm/fiche copies of 1841-1901 Censuses; General Register Office Index to Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales, 1837 to 1980; trade directories from 1792; parish and noncomformist register copies; monumental inscriptions covering churchyards; 19th century pamphlet collections; For more information ring the library on (01274) 433688/433661 or email local. studies@bradford. gov. uk.

Who Do You Think You Are? is on BBC2 on Wednesday, January 11. Who Do You Think You Are? Discovering The Heroes And Villains In Your Family, by Dan Waddell and Nick Barratt, is published by HarperCollins, priced £14.99, and available in bookstores from today.