‘I don’t think there’s going to be any money or royalty in my past,‘ observes stand-up comedian and TV presenter Chris Ramsay at the start of his episode in the 2023 series of Who Do You Think You Are?, ‘I think it’s just going to be tough.’

Chris also presents a hugely successful podcast with his wife Rosie and like several other participants of this series of WDYTYA, has also been a star of Strictly Come Dancing. He says he feels he has a charmed and lucky life and wonders if his ancestors were so fortunate. There are certainly some adventures to be discovered!

Chris comes from a working-class family in north-east England. ‘I think South Shields is definitely in my blood,‘ he says, and certainly we can corroborate that straight away at TheGenealogist. His birth in 1986 was registered in the South Shields district and we can use the site’s SmartSearch to reveal his parents’ marriage in the same area in 1977:

The show kicks off with Chris visiting Bill and Anne at home in the north-east, and from them he learns a few family stories about the wartime adventures of his paternal great-grandfather Dryden Gordon Young and of his maternal grandfather Alf Lawson. He starts by investigating Dryden. Again we can use TheGenealogist to gain useful details of vital events in Dryden’s life. For example, we can see that he died in 1967:

And this gives us his age at death, meaning we can estimate his birth to have been in 1895 or 1896. And sure enough, here is his birth record at the site:

This lifespan enables us to link Dryden to the censuses, too. Here he is as a five-year-old in Durham, 1901, and we learn his father – another Dryden – was a stoker on a steam ship, along with the ‘shock’ revelation that Dryden senior actually came from… North Shields, on the other bank of the Tyne!

And ten years later, the next census shows the family still at the same address, although we learn Dryden senior has died, and Dryden junior, 15, is now working as a driver at a local coal mine. All of this certainly corroborates Chris’s expectation that his forebears had tough lives.

Having been born in 1895 and of working age in 1911, it’s no surprise to learn that Dryden saw service in World War One, and Chris heads to Blandford Camp in Dorset in Dorset on the trail of a family story that Dryden had fought at Gallipoli, one of the deadliest campaigns of the war which spanned most of 1915. It turns out that Dryden was one of very few members of the Collingwood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division (naval reserves serving with the army) to survive at Gallipoli. We can bring the events to life easily thanks to the extensive collection of WW1 newspapers at TheGenealogist (the Image Archive also has many pictures from the same Dardanelles campaign).

After surviving Gallipoli, Dryden’s luck took a different turn as he avoided fighting on the Western Front due to the mixed blessing of a nasty case of scabies and, after being captured he became a prisoner of war in Germany. Despite being involved in some of the most dangerous events of the war, incredibly Dryden survived to continue the family line.

Chris discovers more good fortune in his family when he learns about his maternal grandad Alfred Lawson, a great character who Chris remembers fondly. Alf served with the Navy in WW2 and we can see from TheGenealogist’s transcription of the 1939 Register that before the war he worked in a shipyard at… South Shields:

A trip to HMS Belfast for Chris reveals the freezing and dangerous conditions that Alf endured during his work on the Arctic convoys, aboard the similar ship HMS Ulster Queen, transporting vital supplies from Britain to Russia via the Arctic Ocean. After surviving German bombers and sub-zero temperatures, Alf later became one of the first British servicemen to witness the devastating aftermath of atomic warfare in Japan.

By tracing his family further back, Chris discovers his lucky streak goes back centuries with the curious story of his 5x-great-grandparents Gabriel and Ann Davies’ experiences at London’s British Lying-In Hospital. One of the few places where poorer women could give birth in safer and more sanitary conditions, it was extremely difficult to secure a place there. In the late 18th century when his 5x-great-grandmother Ann (née Billingsley) was pregnant, only those lucky enough to pass a rigorous interview and then win a lottery were able to give birth there and help ensure their children a better start in life.

By the end of his journey, Chris’s sense of good fortune is firmer than ever. He’s here because of a long line of brave and determined ancestors, up against tough challenges and all helped along by a healthy dose of good luck in what Chris calls the ‘lottery of life’.