The Family Histories Podcast

The Family Histories Podcast is an independent British genealogy podcast series, hosted by family historian Andrew Martin. It is aired internationally via podcast platforms in a series format, with each series commonly consisting of a podcast trailer, seven guest-led episodes, and a bonus episode. The podcast began with a trailer released on March 29, 2021, and has since charted repeatedly within Apple Podcast's 'Top Shows' History chart within Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand.
Whilst the podcast's tone is kept light-hearted with occasional humour, guests often discuss their relative's life within the context of complex societal topics, including colonialism, slavery, war, antisemitism, , emigration, death, alcoholism, crime, LGBTQ+ history, and indigenous communities.
Format
Each episode consists of host Andrew Martin interviewing a guest who has explored their own family history. The guest is then asked to share a life story of one of their most fascinatingly good, bad, or just plain ugly relatives that they have researched before then sharing one of their current research dead-ends (a 'brick wall'), in the hope that a listener may contact them with a clue or research idea that helps them solve it.
Each episode ends with a short scripted sequence, complete with foley, in which the guest is lured by Martin to his garage, where he 'rewards' them with a trip in a secret time machine. It is intended that the guest will time travel to the date and location of their research 'brick wall' so that they can solve it for themselves, but the time machine does not always work as planned. The scene allows both the host and guest to exchange humorous dialogue, often littered with sci-fi references, or references to real-world historical people and events.
Historical characters are occasionally portrayed within the closing garage scene, including Anne Boleyn, Doctor Samuel Johnson's cat Hodge, and Father Christmas. The series also regularly features 19th Century Hungarian poet and revolutionary as Martin's assistant, living in the 21st Century, played by Hungarian children's author and illustrator, John Spike.
Production
The podcast is independently produced and is not part of a podcast network. Unlike many independent podcasts, it does not request funding from listeners, and it also does not incorporate advertising within its episodes.
The podcast uses a series format; consisting of one trailer, seven episodes, and a bonus episode. To date, it has delivered each series of weekly episodes at six month intervals, with the bonus episodes aired weeks later and acting as a resolve to the cliff-hanger ending heard in each series' seventh episode.
Reception
On 28 Oct, 2021, podcast platform Podchaser included the podcast in its list of "The 60 Best Podcasts to Discover in November".
In Dec 2021, the companion magazine to the UK edition of the Who Do You Think You Are? genealogy TV series, selected the podcast as its "Digital Pick" for January 2022.

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