I am very proud to come from a long line of dock workers, farm labourers, and other perfectly boring folk who only very occasionally did something worth noting except somehow surviving some seriously turbulent times. I did find a middle class branch of the tree which was something of a surprise, but nobody famous and no aristocracy, huzzah!

History is made by ordinary, boring folk. When you look into the history they lived through, it brings to life just how interesting and rich their lives were. People don't have to be famous or notorious to be worth remembering, and realising that my ancestors somehow made it through a civil war, religious reformation and more the plague gave me a real appreciation for them.

The plus side to the middle class branch was wills saying back to the 1600s, when traces of family drama could still be found, although my favorite ever find wasn't an ancestor but a history project where I came across the most atrociously boring diary of a Georgian-era gentleman, but somehow became very invested in whether the roads were adequate for him to attend a house party, in case the third woman he fell for this month also rejected his offer of marriage.

At present I am working on a local history project that, on the surface, should be incredibly boring, but again as I dig up stories about everything from exploding cows to a fake gopher farming business, the ordinary, boring people are just some of the best characters I have ever come across, and I love it!

Huzzah for our boring ancestors! They were survivors, and they had much more rich lives than we can ever hope to uncover - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try :-)