'Who Do I Think You Were?' A Victorian's inheritance

Anxiety. Addiction. Depression. We often think of these experiences as distinctly modern, yet their roots often stretch back to previous generations. In A Victorian’s Inheritance, Helen Parker-Drabble sheds light on how such conditions may have shaped different branches of our family.

Using her Victorian grandfather’s life as an example, Helen Parker-Drabble constructs a vivid portrait of daily life for her working-class ancestors. But she goes beyond recreating the past by drawing on theories of psychology, epigenetics and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. What psychological inheritance did her grandfather Walter receive from his parents and their forebears?

Blending social, local and family history with insights from modern science, Helen Parker-Drabble offers genealogists and family historians an innovative lens through which to view their ancestry. Her work invites us to reflect not only on the lives of those who came before us, but on our families’ psychological inheritance and the legacies that are passed on.