Ancestral Tourism

Family history

Although there have been genealogists around for centuries (just think of the 'begats' in the Bible), it is only since the late 1960s that family history has become a popular leisure pursuit. The reasons for this growth can be debated, but there are certainly clear links to increased leisure time and longevity, together with a sense of nostalgia for the past.

It is part of the phenomenon which has seen the growth of heritage attractions, such as steam railways and industrial museums, over the past few decades. No figures exist for the numbers of family historians in Britain, but it is likely that at least half a million people have undertaken some research into their ancestry and, perhaps, another million or two million have considered taking up the pursuit.

Family history is not just popular in the United Kingdom, it is avidly pursued by millions in the Irish Republic, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where most researchers have ancestral links to England. It is perhaps no coincidence that the largest overseas market for visits to the UK in 2001 was the United States, the Irish Republic was fourth, and Australia had the fifth largest spend (IPS). [1]

Although no formal market research into the genealogical market has been undertaken, a close personal involvement of the author with the sector over many years suggests that most family historians are:

• Retired or semi-retired
• In social groups BC1
• Have reasonable amounts of disposable income
• Are enthusiastic users of computers, and the Internet in particular.

From the point of the travel trade, family historians, whether British or overseas, have many advantages:

• They are not necessarily attracted to London and the other major tourist centres, as their ancestors came from all over Britain.
• They often visit archives in places which have little tourist trade. People with Yorkshire ancestors, for example, may well have to visit the West Yorkshire Archives Service in Wakefield.
• Family history research can take place at any time of the year. Indeed, as many family historians have a limited budget they often prefer to travel off-season.

The major disadvantage is that everybody's family history is different, so there are no patterns to people's research or obvious places (apart from perhaps the main archival centres in London) for people to visit.

Some 100,000 family historians are members of local family history societies (approximately 10% of members are from overseas). Each county has one or two such societies, often with local branches (in total there are approximately 60 family history societies in England). They organise monthly meetings, quarterly journals, and a few run a permanent research centre. There are also a number of societies devoted to a single surname, many of which organise irregular reunions. [2]

Most societies are members of the Federation of Family History Societies, which seeks to represent their interests in negotiations with archives and other bodies and to publicise the hobby in general. In addition, there are two other national bodies:

• the Society of Genealogists, which has one of the world's best genealogical libraries as well as 15,000 members,
• and the quasi-academic Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies in Canterbury.

Archives

An archive (or record office) is where original documents of an historic nature are stored and made available to researchers. Family historians visit these places to check for their ancestors in the records. There are at least 1,500 archives in Britain, varying in size from the National Archives (formerly known as the Public Record Office) in London, which has millions of records in its care and tens of thousands of visitors each year, down to small numbers of historic records kept by a school, business or charity.

In partnership with the Office for National Statistics, the National Archives runs the Family Records Centre in Clerkenwell, North London, which has the largest collection of genealogical material and 150,000 visitors each year.

The body representing the archival community is the National Council on Archives. There is also a network of regional archive councils for the regions of England, Wales and Scotland. The strategic body working with, and for, museums, archives and libraries, tapping the potential for collaboration between them, is Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries.

According to Resource, some two million people a year visit a local record office, including 100,000 people visiting the Public Record Office. The vast majority of these visits are to undertake research into family history. According to the last National Survey of Visitors to British Archives, in February 2001, 83% of researchers are there because of 'personal interest or hobby'. [3]

Perhaps the most interesting questions in the Survey relate to the contribution made by archives to the local community. It found that:

Many archivists are aware of the heritage potential of their archives, but few have exploited this resource in conjunction with local museums or libraries, let alone heritage attractions or the tourism industry in general. Archive managers are increasingly aware of the government's social inclusion agenda and the need to encourage young people and ethnic minorities to use archival resources.

To this end, much effort and money (often from the Lottery) has been spent in making catalogues and selected digitised records available online, so that they can be used by a much wider audience than those who would normally visit a record office. This has also led Resource, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, to establish an Archives Task Force 'to carry out an indepth analysis and review of the state of the UK's unique and diverse archives'. [5] Another aspect will be the first National Archival Awareness Week in September 2003, which will attempt to reach out to people who do not normally visit record offices.

Genealogical tourism today

Genealogical tourism in England is still in its infancy, unlike in Ireland and particularly Scotland. There are cultural and historical reasons for this. English emigrants easily merged into the host population – the only exception being countries, such as Argentina, where the English were not in the majority anyway. Irish and Scottish (and to a lesser extent Welsh) emigrants tended to maintain some feelings for their homelands, which were passed on to their children, and which has led in recent years to something which Tim Coles, at Exeter University, has called 'Diaspora Tourism'. [6] The Cornish ('Cousin Jacks' as they were known) are the only exception within England, but the local culture was closer to the other countries in the 'Celtic Fringe' than to that found across the Tamar.

Irish interest in ancestry

The Irish Tourist Board has long been encouraging an estimated 100m people of Irish descent around the world to visit the Emerald Island. Paradoxically, researching Irish ancestry is actually much more difficult than elsewhere in the British Isles, because so many unique records were lost during the Four Courts Fire in 1922.

Even so, virtually every Irish county, both south and north, has a heritage centre which can help visitors trace their family history for a fee. To encourage visitors to start their research, the Board have produced a handsome booklet and all their brochures include something about genealogy and where to start. Moreover, the Ulster-American Folk Park near Omagh has unique resources for people tracing their emigrant ancestors. [7]

Scottish interest

The Scots, however, are now very much in the lead, in a unique partnership between the tourism industry and the heritage and archive worlds. According to VisitScotland, 20% of Americans visiting Scotland are doing so because they have Scottish roots, and 10% say that genealogy is a prime reason to visit the country. With 28m people worldwide who claim Scottish ancestry, this is potentially a very large market. At the beginning of 2002, VisitScotland launched an ambitious marketing plan to attract people with Scottish ancestry to visit the country.

At the heart of this was a website to help potential visitors trace their roots. In September 2002, as Scotland's Deputy Justice Minister, Richard Simpson, launched a website to put all the essential Scottish genealogical sources online (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), Jacqueline Hampson, the Genealogy Promotions Manager at VisitScotland, said "We can now sell Scotland as a destination which takes its ancestry seriously and recognises the immense economic benefit to Scotland from it." [8] More recently, an Ancestral Tourism Initiative was established to identify the market, and assess the experience of existing genealogical visitors and map out the potential benefits. It is due to report in April 2003. [9]

English interest

Unfortunately, the attitude elsewhere in the British Isles is not so encouraging.

The British Tourist Authority seems curiously unenthusiastic about encouraging people to come to England to trace their ancestors. Several of BTA websites contain pages devoted to genealogy in the UK, but they are not well sign-posted, and, therefore, difficult to find for an interested family historian. Also despite the publication of a Fact Sheet on this subject for 2002/2003, this issue still have a very low profile in the BTA.

The overall impression is that ancestral tourism is not important, yet there must be millions of North Americans and Australasians with English ancestry for whom, with a little encouragement, a visit to their ancestral home might become a very real reason for wanting to visit England.

Within England there seems to be almost no organised ancestral tourism at all, let alone any official support. It comes as no surprise that there is no mention of genealogy on either the ETB's or any of the regional tourist boards' websites. The one exception seems to be Cornwall online. [10]

Several hotel groups organise family history weekends in their hotels during the quiet season. One of these is Corus, who, in association with the American organisation ElderHostel and the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies in Canterbury, is organising several research weekends at the Falstaff Hotel in Canterbury. [11] Less formally, Geoffrey Townsend organises, from his office in East London, custom-built tours for Americans which include visits to places with ancestral links. [12] A few organised small groups of genealogists also come to England each year, perhaps half a dozen.

However, there are some signs that things are beginning to change slowly. Following the author's article in BBC History Magazine, [13] a meeting of the Tourism Society on ancestral tourism was held in Dorchester in November 2002. Speakers came from the archives, genealogical and tourism worlds, and the event was considered to be very successful.

In May 2002, Falmouth hosted a Dehwelans, or homecoming, where thousands of people of Cornish descent came together to celebrate their ancestry and culture. The event was a great success and brought much needed tourist pounds into a depressed part of Cornwall. A second event is being planned for 2004. At the opposite end of the country, Berwick-upon-Tweed is organising the 'Eastern Marches Tryst' in early April 2003 (a four-day event bringing together descendants of families from the Borderlands), with the family historian very much in mind. [14]

Perhaps more importantly, the economic benefits of genealogical tourism are beginning to be recognised.

• At the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough they are considering establishing a centre, provisionally known as Family History World, which they hope will entice visitors to a depressed part of the North East. [15]
• In rural Dorset, a Centre for Migration Studies and genealogical resource centre at Bridport is an integral part of a regeneration scheme for the town.

The way forward

It seems clear that ancestral tourism has considerable potential, although, of course, it will never be more than a niche market. It could, however, be an additional hook to encourage overseas visitors to visit England. Domestic genealogists are perhaps a harder market to crack, but more publicity and skilfully-marketed special events might attract a reasonable minority of enthusiasts.

The most important step would undoubtedly be the establishment of an ancestral tourism working party, along the lines of the Scottish Ancestral Tourism Initiative, made up of representatives from the tourism industry, genealogical organisations and archives to discuss ways of working together and exploiting the potential of genealogical tourism.

At a minimum, the new national tourism body needs to provide an up-to-date genealogical section on its relevant websites, and the English regions need to include some information on their sites. Perhaps there could be a dedicated ancestral tourism website, along the lines of the Ancestral Scotland one.

TICs should have details of local record offices to hand, as well as other genealogical attractions (such as the parish church and the workhouse). Perhaps a short briefing note could be prepared for the TIC staff on the basics of family history research and available sources.

In turn, family history societies need to examine the resources that TICs and regional boards have to offer in publicising family history events, and organising conferences and family reunions. In the long term, they should be trying to organise regular festivals to attract descendents of former residents, as well as local people today, along the lines of the Famouth and Berwick initiatives.

Conclusion

Although ancestral, or genealogical, tourism is never going to be more than a niche market, it is clear that it has considerable potential in attracting overseas visitors to England and encouraging domestic family historians to visit parts of the country which they might not have otherwise done. The next step forward has to be to work out the synergies between the tourist trade and the family history community, and how the two sides can work together for mutual benefit.

Useful contacts

Genealogical

Maggie Loughran, Federation of Family History Societies, PO Box 2425, Coventry CV5 6YX, tel: 024 7667 7798, website: www.ffhs.org.uk

Dr Jeremy Palmer, Registrar, Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, 79-82 Northgate, Canterbury CT1 1BA, tel: 01227-768664, website: www.ihgs.ac.uk

Else Churchill, Genealogy Officer, Society of Genealogists, 14 Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Rd, London EC1M 7BA, tel: 020-7251 8799, website: www.sog.org.uk

Archives

National Council on Archives, c/o Elizabeth Shepherd, Press Officer, School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, website: http://nca.archives.org.uk/index.htm

Samantha Evans, Head of Marketing, Public Record Office (National Archives from April 2003), Ruskin Avenue, Kew, Richmond TW9 4DU, tel: 020-8876 3444, website: www.pro.gov.uk

Justin Frost, Archives Advisor, Resource, 16 Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1H 9AA, tel: 020-7273 1444, website: www.resource.gov.uk

Academic

Tim Coles, Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ, tel: 01392 263341, email: t.e.coles@Exeter.ac.uk

Tourism and economic development

Derek Sharman, 50 Dean Drive, Tweedmouth, Berwick-upon-Tweed TD15 2DQ, tel: 01289 330218, website: www.union-of-the-crowns.co.uk

Paul Mayes, Smart Valley Project, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough TS1 3BA, email: paul.mayes.ac.uk

Janet Ferentzi-Shepard, Somerset and Dorset Family History Society, West Dorset Research Centre, 45 West Street, Bridport DT6 3QW, tel: 01308 458061

Mike Perry, Project Co-ordinator, Bridport Market and Coastal Town Initiative, Bridport Regeneration Centre, Mountfield, Bridport DT6 3JP, tel: 01308 456722

References

1. See ‘Market Information’ at www.tourismtrade.org.uk
2. Such as the Tyrrell Family History Society at www.tyrrellfhs.org.uk
3. Geoff Pick, National Survey of Visitors to British Archives February 2001 (NCA, 2002), p3. A more recent survey was conducted in November 2002, but the results have yet to be published. Copies of the 2001 report and other papers can be downloaded at www.pro.gov.uk/archives/psqg
4. National Survey, p2
5. For more information see: www.resource.gov.uk
6. For a short abstract about disapora tourism see: http://convention.allacademic.com/aag2003/view_paper_info.html?pub_id=1677
7. For more information about the Park and its Centre for Migration Studies, visit www.folkpark.com
8. www.ancestralscotland.com
9. For more details visit www.scotsexchange.net/ancestraltourism
10. www.cornwall-online.co.uk
11. Yet even here there is no mention of the weekends on the group’s website www.corushotels.co.uk. Details of the American organisation can be found at www.elderhostel.org
12. For more details visit www.combstravel.com/cdh/
13. Simon Fowler, ‘ Back to your Roots’, BBC History Magazine History To Go Section (Spring 2002), pp22-23
14. For details visit www.union-of-the-crowns.co.uk.
15. For more about this proposal, see a news item in Family History Monthly (February 2003), p11
16. ‘Haggis and Press Sneers Fail to Stop Tough Scot’, The Guardian, 27 January 2003

About the author

Simon Fowler is editor of Family History Monthly. For many years previously he worked at the Public Record Office, where he was involved in outreach and publicity. He can be contacted on tel: 020-8392 8764 or by email: sfowler@sfowler.force9.co.uk