Researching your house history – Deborah Sugg Ryan and Melanie Backe-Hansen in conversation with Nick Barratt

Join A House Through Time experts Deborah Sugg Ryan and Melanie Backe-Hansen as they provide advice and tips for anyone wanting to research their house history.

Have you ever thought to yourself ‘who lived in my house before me?’ Are you curious to know if your house is concealing secrets? Or hiding any original features? In this online event Deborah and Melanie will discuss the resources you can access (many for free), the best place to start and what you can accomplish with those special finds and discoveries when researching the history of your home.

There will be a Q&A at the end of the event and we welcome your questions.

Professor Deborah Sugg Ryan is a design historian, author of Ideal homes: Uncovering the history and design of the interwar house and consultant and contributor for BBC Two’s A House Through Time. A former V&A curator, she is a specialist in the history of housing, interiors, products and everyday life. Deborah is Professor of Design History and Theory and Associate Dean Research at University of Portsmouth.

Melanie Backe-Hansen is an independent historian, writer, and speaker, specialising in the social history of houses across the United Kingdom. The main focus of Melanie’s work involves original research for homeowners and corporate clients to provide bespoke house history books and research reports. Melanie is a research consultant for A House Through Time (BBC Two) and to accompany the popular series, Melanie has co-written A House Through Time (Picador, 2020) with historian David Olusoga.

Dr Nick Barratt is an author, broadcaster and historian best known for his work on BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are. He is an honorary associate professor of public history at the University of Nottingham, the Director of Learner and Discovery at the Open University, a teaching fellow at the University of Dundee and President of the Federation of Family History Societies.