Wherefore art thou?

[author_by_night]

fernwithy discussed a show called Who Do You Think You Are?, a show about celebrities (the first one being Sarah Jessica Parker) seeking their ancestry. I gave it a try myself to see what she was talking about.

I do feel like this show has an interesting premise: history is not irrelevant. SJP's ancestors were ordinary people, sure, but they endured horrible, extraordinary things. I think that's true of all of us... we all have someone interesting in our roots. (Sidenote: I can't believe when SJP found out an ancestor was accused of being a witch, she didn't mentioned that she played one and that her brother works on Wicked. Or that she, too, went to California with a dream. Those are coincidences that may actually explain a lot.)

One of my big issues was that it was less realistic for people who aren't SJP and can't pull money out of the bank and roam all over America. I'm so interested in ancestry, but... those resources are harder for me to find. I guess I'd just like to see how an everyday person with a more typical budget and schedule could do it.

It has definitely re-sparked my interest in genealogy - I've always had more than most people, but it seems to come and go in phases. Now I just want to know more again. The thing with me too is that I'd like to dig deeper with the information that I do have (and beyond) so I can really get a feel for who my ancestors were. I did find out really neat things about one great grandmother (she was one tough lady), but there's still dead ends there.  I'd also like to find surviving kin... particularly on my Scottish side, because they always wrote to my great grandfather, but we've since lost touch. I'd love to find them again.

Oh, and also, I'd love to be able trace back even further than they did in the show.  



Comments

[nore-fortuna.livejournal.com]

My Mum's family had a family tree complied by a historian in the family back in 1911 (or thereabouts) so we used that as a springboard for Ancestry.com. We managed to trace to family back before the Battle of Hastings. (Being descended from royalty's illegitimate children has its advantages. :) )

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Neat!

[kennytrent.livejournal.com]

Well...theres always Ancestry.com. My wife and I used it and went back as far as it would let us. Ancestry.com does something interesting, it uses other trees to attempt to discover links 'cause in the long run, we're all related somewhere down the line. I however couldn't go any farther on my grandfathers side than his father because his father was from Ireland. The imigrant records were not very good when he came over. My wife however was able to go pretty far. It's a good first step if your curious.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I've been, but like you, I wasn't able to get too far. Part of the problem is that my family immigrated fairly recently for immigrants - I think the earliest came in the mid 1850s. I know that's hardly recent, but that was still not even 200 years ago. It was hard enough getting anything from my Canadian side - there's a separate site for Canada, ancestry.ca, but it still kept bringing up people in New York and Illinois. Trying to find anything not in North America was like pulling teeth, so I gave up. :/

[kennytrent.livejournal.com]

Yeah, totally understand. We gave it a year. Since my wife's family was almost entirely American, she was easy. But mine being part native American and listed on teh census...awkwardly and as I said, Ireland for my great grandad and Scotland for my great grandma well...we cancelled it LOL

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

The thing with SJP is that she was lucky enough to have face to face contact with experts, as opposed to relying on an online database. You can't really ask ancestry.com specific questions. And when you're not an expert in genealogy, you also don't have the resources to look any further.

[kennytrent.livejournal.com]

heh...yep. And of course as you said SJP has...well...SJP monies! LOL

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Hey, I saw this... two years later, I've indeed gotten VERY far thanks to ancestry.com. I'm glad you encouraged me not to give up on it. :)

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

My father's family came over really recently - probably the 1920s or 1930s - and although we know where they came from in Italy (our last name is very uncommon and restricted to a particular area) we probably wouldn't be able to find anything about them before their immigration. :( Still, I'm thinking of getting a trial subscription to Ancestry.com and seeing what it can do.

[scarlett71177.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a really emotional show. You could tell she got quite choked up in the goings on.

I discussed the concept with my family too, and why it can't be ordinary joes that get to trace their roots. *I* could find out I'm related to SJP or Brooke Shields and there's your celebrity in. But then we decided you can't trust regular folks and probably some would find out they were related to celebs and want something from them. That's unfortunate.

I love genealogy too.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

I've seen the original version - the British one - and it was quite neat; the ones I saw were about a Jordanian-descended TV presenter, who went back to Jordan to talk to her relatives there, and another woman whose family were Polish Jews, and either barely escaped or mostly didn't survive the Warsaw Ghetto (I don't remember which).

Of course, the interest really lies in watching people realise their ancestors were people like them, who had lives and loves and difficulties, even though they lived in different times and sometimes countries. I think people often forget that history, especially history before the early twentieth century, isn't just something that happened to dead people; it's something that they're connected to; this show is good for bringing that to mind.

[secondmezzanine.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally, I just read an article about this show today. Lisa Kudrow's sounds particularly interesting, though it will probably be one of the more tragic stories since a bunch of her family was murdered in the Holocaust. Looks like an interesting show.

[vifetoile.livejournal.com]

The National Geographic Human Genographic project:

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html

Buy a Kit (just $99.95)
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/lan/en/participate.html

My parents both did this - just send in a cheek swab and answer whether you're male or female, and the database will get back to you telling you what was the track that your ancestors took from Africa across the world - or, if like me, you have ancestors who went from Africa to the Mid-East and stayed there, where the rest of your family went. If you can get your father or a brother to do the same test, then you'll know both sides of your family tree for their ancient footsteps. Totally awesome, and a great conversation piece too.