I too have been watching both Blood Ties and Breaking the Seal avidly, not least
because Warwickshire CRO did appear briefly in the latter as the repository
which houses the Shirley family papers. While I would probably agree that
neither series has achieved all I would have hoped, I find that Blood Ties has
been the worst offender, given that viewers who have tuned in hoping to pick up
tips on how to go about starting off their family tree will have gone away
thinking that it is simply a question of picking someone interesting or famous,
then looking through photograph albums and comparing facial features to prove
the link! I agree that it might be more constructive for the profession as a
whole to respond along the lines that we welcome the opportunity to draw
attention to our collections and services, but we can also help improve the
quality of the programme content in a number of ways. The website information
for Breaking the Seal would also benefit from professional archive input. It
currently cites HMC as "a huge repository of UK archives and documents", for
instance. My own view would be that the profession should be trying to identify
ways of providing constructive criticism to TV companies on how they can improve
TV presentation of the work we do, while recognising that they play an important
role in helping us to publicise and popularise our services. Any consensus on
how best to do that?
Caroline Sampson
Principal Archives Officer; Warwickshire CRO
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