It is a good point - once you've done some digging into your own family tree there are often resonances with our own family stories, so we get added value from the show!
There is quite a bit of bed-hopping and naughtiness on my wife's English side (there is probably something similar on our Irish Catholic sides we haven't unearthed because it is all covered up) - we still don't know who [John William Ash my wife's paternal grandfather]'s Dad was (an eighth of her ancestry, 1/16th of our kids) and her [Sampson Malbon g-g-grandfather] had three children by two different women (the first two children to each being born in the same year), neither of whom were his wife (in his defence this happened before he got married, although he never did the right thing by the women, but he did include them in his will). The latter character is the link back to a Norman baron for which there is a book on the family, so if he'd not appeared on any paperwork, like the other mystery father, we'd have struggled to make the link. We are doing DNA tests aimed at solving the missing eighth issue but it might have struggled to pick up the other one as he spread his DNA around but not an obvious name that would have been picked up.
On the carters: The history of the docks and adjacent has always been of interest as my father was a dock gateman when he retired from his career as a sailor. Everyone worked hard but life was often tough and cut short. One g-grandfather, [Moses Ryan Moses Ryan] was a corn porter, hauling sacks of corn around a warehouse (presumably to be loaded onto carts) and he died when the floor collapsed. My maternal grandfather, [Robert Comerford Robert Comerford] worked a stationary engine in the Vauxhall Brewery and fell into it no long after my mother had brought him his lunch. Another g-grandfather, [John Brady John Brady], worked in the various small steel foundries around Glasgow and Liverpool and died of TB, which is much higher in foundry workers. It wasn't even safe at sea, as another g-grandfather, [Thomas Barnes Thomas Barnes], was a stoker on a steam ship that hit an iceberg on the return journey from Nova Scotia, but he and a lot of those who died might have survived if the ship's owners hadn't cut corners on safety equipment (according to a paper that had been investigating this issue before the sinking). So all little snapshots into the Victorian Industrial Revolution and how it was largely fuelled by the blood and bones of the working class.
There is a reconstruction of the courts in the Museum of Liverpool:
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/visit/galleries/peoples/cour...
Who are working with the owners of that last court to preserve it and open it up to the public:
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpools-last-...
