tracing your family tree has long been a popular hobby but now a new website
called kindred Britain promises to make the job a lot easier
I'm Tom Wainwright home page editor and with me is anna hogan wanna Bob written
correspondence
and could we maybe start by talking a bit more about how this website works is
called contrib written it's got
30,000 dot names on there how how can you
trace have these people mucho well it was started by this
English professor quickly strengthens at Stanford University
when he is looking into his own family tree and then that is WH auden
a British packed and basically the website now
is very clearly laid out you click on certain
dots which were absent people you can trace links between
and said search for your name of that famous people's names
a it's a dove it shows the background to these people incorporates data from the
ok said
picture National Biography and do you can serve link between them in and and
see the massive
on the family tree on their own all links between
very distant in seemingly unrelated people
so it shows how people the related viruses a family tree at the time with
an idiot with
in some senses it is quite familiar and that you can see he's related to
him but they've also try to surf twisters a bit
and that they've included illegitimate children on that favorited same-sex
couples
and include a bigmouth so it's not a sort of traditional family tree
in that sense and so is there any examples ive how people related that we
might not have
expected if you had a play with this website yes and be there some fantastic
and link that have been made and granite Paltrow
the American actress link through marriage to a six-member
the Victorian Pat vandyck and Lucian Freud based paint its can be linked
together
two writers Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf
also linked through their descendants they will save said if added quite a few
interesting
oppositions and that they seen whether you can see
with antagonise only to each other so
oliver cromwell and tells the fact have
distant relatives in common do you find out other particular city
trends so dynasties if you like do you find one type the person
tends to be related to to someone else or is it very random
I me i i think within that the data which obviously could be
seem to be quite and in there are some interesting trends that
that do a pair and that poets for example a far more likely to be related
to each other
so if 3 three dynasties whereas
novelists related to match which has a interesting question of whether poets a
unit tended to be more asked critic they could afford to be poets whereas
novelists where
citing middle class and their relatives who like it
me marry their way and society Brian right it sounds like the people who
trace their family trees this is gonna be
fantastic does it have wider applications in academia do you think
this is gonna be used in other ways to
with every I think the most important thing about this project is that it's a
great example the digital humanities switches anyway that academics
a with you makin every subject accessible
to to the everyday every person those other examples of this
and at Stanford University as well they've they've put together this
project which can map
said how many letters gala where right each year
all where it's at Spanish scientists and 17th and 18th century where they were
located so you can see that the 17th century
them or jesuits who scientists and eighteenth-century more
1x been able of its and they've also
and about the missive recreated jane austen's and
exhibition at an Austin went to in 1812 we can see all the paintings and
bit more about them great well and I thank you very much thank you