As a former Local Studies and Family History Librarian, I can confirm that most of us came from nothing special, in spite of what the telly would have you believe.
I used to look into the eyes of Western Front lads who'd been machine-gunned to ribbons, as printed in the weekly gazette or the evening chronicle, in order to give people a first glimpse of their heroic great grandads. I'd trawl through the War Diaries of the DLI and the Northumberland Fusiliers, hoping to find for them some heroic deed attached to their names. Mostly they'd be lumped into a weekly figure, like goals conceded. A tally on a balance sheet.
The modern fetish for genealogy is a money pit. It's a slog, it's expensive and if you're Irish, forget about it because the records were all burned many years ago.
