Media work
Presenter/genealogist for “W” TV series The Secrets in my Family (Freemantle/UKTV, transmission 28 Nov & 4 Dec 2017).
Pre-recorded expert contributor for Who Do You Think You Are: Emma Willis (series 14, Wall to Wall/BBC1 aired 3 Aug 2017).
Pre-recorded expert contributor for Who Do You Think You Are: Warwick Davis (series 13, Wall to Wall/BBC1 aired 15 Feb 2017).
Pre-recorded expert contributor for Who Do You Think You Are: Ricky Tomlinson (series 13, Wall to Wall/BBC1 aired 22 Dec 2016).
Pre-recorded expert contributor for Who Do You Think You Are: Rachel Griffiths (series 8, Warner Bros/SBS One (Australia) aired 11 Oct 2016).
2016: produced and edited a series of Oxford University podcasts for Women in Oxford’s History, launched 20 Oct 2016.
15 Aug 2016: ‘Future of Carnival Events‘. Live studio interview on BBC Radio Oxford Breakfast Show as Oxford University expert on local working class leisure.
2016: Media training by BBC journalist Claire Bolderson and Caroline Finnigan through Oxford University TORCH training programme including mock live interview to camera.
2015: Two on-location shoots and expert contributor Who Do You Think You Are: Frank Gardner (series 12, Wall to Wall/BBC1 aired 24 September 2015).
Expertise
I am always delighted to be invited to talk about my research or expert knowledge of genealogy and family history. Please feel free to contact me for any radio, television or print media requests. I can also be contacted via the University of Oxford’s Media Unit: Find an Expert, and my genealogical research service can be found at ancestories.co.uk.
Specialisms:
- Genealogy/family history
- Migrant women
- 19th century Oxford
- Working class leisure
Talks, events, activities
Apr-Jun 2024: The Data Science of Family History. Delivering a 10-week online course for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education (postponed)
2018: ‘Part of the family? South Asian ayahs in Britain c.1870-1939’. Lecture and roundtable discussant at the British Asian Histories Day School, Oxford University Department for Continuing Education.
2017: Paper at the Long 19th Century Seminar, Oxford, on the theme of service. “‘While seeking a situation’: cross-cultural experiences of out-of-work foreign domestics in London, c.1880–1930”.
2017: public lecture for the Diwali event at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, on Hindu travelling ayahs.
2017: launch of new online GCSE resource for AQA History: ‘Ayahs, memsahibs and their children: empire migrants‘.
Sep 2017: Paper at Beyond the Home conference, “‘While seeking a situation’: cross-cultural experiences of out-of-work foreign domestics in London, c.1880–1930”.
2017: Paper at the IHR Women’s History Seminar: “Travelling Ayahs: Navigating Victimhood and Agency.”
2017: Paper at the European Research Commission project Servants’ Past conference, Delhi, India: “‘Nurses of our Ocean Highways’: Ayahs, Amahs and the Navigation of Gender, Race and Empire in the Early Twentieth Century.”
2016: Official launch event for the Women in Oxford’s History podcast series, at TORCH, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Oxford. More info here.
2016: Paper at QMUL/Geffrye Museum’s Invisible Hands: Domestic workers from the seventeenth century to the present day: Tracing and placing foreign-born female domestic servants in London, 1881-1911.
2016: Paper at Oxford University Graduate and Early Career Workshop on Gender and Race: The travelling ayahs and amahs of Asia: navigating gender, race and empire in the early twentieth century.
2016: Poster session at Social History Society 40th anniversary conference, Lancaster. ‘Out of sight and over here: foreign female domestic servants in London 1880–1939’ (awarded 1st prize).
2016 International Women’s Day: featured on Oxford/TORCH website promoting women who study women.
2016: Invited critic at Meet the Author event for Linda McDowell, Migrant Women’s Voices (London, 2016) at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford
Dr. Olivia Robinson 