The Hottest Ticket in Town? Your Own Private Family History Film

How Paul Hurley and Eve Poppleton, the creative leads at Family History Films, have crafted once-in-a-lifetime experiences for families around the world. 

As you watch your children grow up, odds are that memories of your own childhood will come flooding back. You’ll remember stories of the challenges your grandparents faced in their generation. You’ll remember how hard your parents worked to give you the opportunities to succeed. You’ll remember dear relatives who passed away before your children had the chance to know them. And in the midst of all these memories, you might feel an urge to preserve your unique family story, so that it doesn’t get lost with the passage of time; so that your children can understand that the life they enjoy would not have been possible without those who came before them. 

Now there is a company whose purpose is to satisfy this fundamental need: Family History Films. 

“One of the top three life experiences you have to do.”

Founded by Paul Hurley and Jon Bell in 2017, for the last five years the company has created bespoke films documenting family histories. Each film tells the multigenerational story of an individual family, preserving anecdotes and making new discoveries, all supplemented by in-depth research — a personal Ken Burns film for your own family. Indeed, previous clients have said they were “overwhelmed by the depth of the scholarship, the attention to detail and PBS quality of the film you made us.” One client called the process of making the film “one of the top three life experiences you have to do.”

Family History Film’s young, dedicated team of Oxbridge-educated researchers — led by the Head of Research and Stories, Eve Poppleton — typically works on as many as fifteen projects at once, often in multiple countries, supported by a worldwide network of genealogists and historians. They have made family films all over the world, from Stoke-On-Trent, England to Palm Beach, Florida, from Paris to New York City, Nice to New Delhi, Norway to East Africa. As each project varies depending on the wishes of the family, they each have their own set, unique budgets agreed to from the outset.

“This is a bespoke project,” says Jon Bell, the Commercial Director. “The exact budget's going to depend on where we film, how many family lines we're looking into…So when we arrive at a budget, that will be it.  We will have considered many variables, so that everything is clear upfront.  Any client-driven changes can be accommodated but will be run by the client first. The integrity of the budget is crucial’.

“A joyous experience.”

Each project starts with a conversation with the client, asking three overarching questions: What do the families know? What don’t the families know? What would the families like to know? Those discussions form the basis for the rest of the film — who will be interviewed and where, what stories the film will tell, and what mysteries will be solved. 

Of course, there are many genealogical services out there that will help to create a family tree and answer a few questions. Anyone can take out their phone and film an interview with a grandparent. So what does Family History Films offer that makes it special?

To begin with, the team finds and starts to develop the stories - each one being thoroughly and professionally researched and then presented as an abstract to the client who will decide which stories he or she wants included.

“Early on, I thought I can’t do all this research myself,” Paul remembers. “No human can. That very first important person to come on board was Eve.”

Eve joined the company soon after graduating from Oxford University. She quickly set the gold standard for the company’s research, making sure that they find answers for anything the families want to know, no matter how obscure — from pencil-making in 1890s Belarus to factory life in 1950s Detroit, as well as often tracking down the world's leading experts on such niche topics as the architecture of Nice's promenade in the 1860s or the South Asian experience in colonial Mozambique

The research is not intended to produce a list of historical facts. It's purpose is to create engaging stories that provide context. As Paul says, “We’re not making dry, historical films.” The families themselves are involved in the process. If they have a nagging question about their own family, the team will incorporate the reveal of the answer into the interviews themselves (with the family’s permission). 

“One client was very interested to know about her Norwegian ancestors who left the family in the 1920s,” Paul remembers. “We found cousins thriving and living in Norway and brought them in on Zoom. They had a really cool time.”

Another family had a grandmother who’d survived the Holocaust. She’d always told her children that she spent the war years hiding in Germany. The team’s research revealed that she had in fact spent those years in Auschwitz. She had told her family a different story in order to move on from that traumatic time in her life. The new knowledge deepened the family’s appreciation for their grandmother and the experiences that formed their shared history. 

A Family History Film is not, however, only about challenges. It is designed to be a joyous experience. One aspect that families have delighted in most over the years is what has become known as the Memory Lane Trip. The team will take one or more family members, along with a small camera crew, to places of personal importance so that they can relive treasured memories. These are as grand or as humble as the clients would like them to be. For one film, they took a former Ohio State football player back to his alma mater, renting out the full stadium for the occasion. Another client wanted to go to rural Ireland to see the shack where his family lived in the 19th Century. In each case, the client had deeply enjoyed re-connecting to these places and, through the completed film, sharing the experience with the rest of their family.

“You got us.”

The team inevitably develops close relationships with the families over the process of making the film. That, for them, is the most personally rewarding part of the job. 

“Every project is special to us,” Paul says. “We get to know them [the families] so well and we want to make them happy.”

Eve also emphasizes “the level of trust and familiarity you get so quickly because of what the families share with you and what you share with them. I think that comes very organically from the product that we offer. That has never felt difficult or forced.”

She remembers an early filming experience which left a lasting emotional impact on her. The client was born in Uganda and fled to England with her family in the 1970s. Her father made the effort to set the family up in a modest home in Leicester. He passed away soon after their arrival. While making the family film, the client - who had found great success in the UK - wanted to go back with her siblings to that first home. She asked Eve to interview them there. 

“I was crying when I was asking the questions,” Eve remembers. “It just really brought home how far the family had come, what they attributed to their dad and how proud he would be of where they are now. People don’t often have the time or opportunity to remember those moments and make those connections. It’s really only at weddings and funerals that you take the time to do that. To give this family that opportunity was…it was powerful.”

That, above all, is what Family History Films offers that no genealogical service can. It’s not just the professionalism of their research or the quality of their storytelling. It’s the personal nature of the process, so that the families are left with a film that does more than honor their legacy: It reflects the collective heart of their family. That’s why, on more than one occasion, when a family finishes watching their film, they say these same three words: You got us.

“I wanted to create something that would create joy,” Paul says. “And that’s fundamentally what we’re doing.”