Episode 3 - Guests

Sandra Smith

Our final guest this week is Sandra Smith - the seventh generation of Deaf person in her family! Does this mean that she has the largest Deaf family in the UK? She has over 80 Deaf members of her family and this is a number that is still growing as Sandra is a proud mum of 5 children and grandmother of 3 so far with another one on the way due in May 2010. Imagine 80 Deaf people - that's enough members to open their own Deaf Club!

Sandra has traced her family tree right back to the 19th Century and developed a keen interest in Genealogy (the study of your family tree) and has spent many hours researching this topic. Has she uncovered any interesting secrets from her past? She'll reveal to us a story about a family member.

If you are interested in researching your own family tree, there is help and advice available on these websites:

www.bbc.co.uk/familyhistory

www.ukcensusonline.com

Sandra is also a passionate activist and campaigner about improving the education of Deaf children. She currently works for the University of Bristol as a Lecturer and Researcher. She has been a Researcher on a wide variety of projects including working with Dr Susan Gregory on her research about Bilingualism in the Education of Deaf Children. If you'd like to know more about this, you can visit:

www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/000000306.htm

Sandra is proud to be born and bred in Bristol and holds the 1960s as the best decade for her because of the fashions and funky hairstyles! We're looking forward to finding out more about this lady from the South West as she joins us on the sofa for some more chat on 'Under the Lamp with Julian'.