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I really love this episode! I was tearing up when Una started talking about how she was inspired at seeing the Starfleet crew of all types and species working together when she was a child. Then, I got a quick thrill of recognition when the judge said that they were going to concentrate on Una’s case individually, and not address the civil rights case at its heart. You see, my great-great-grandmother had a panel of judges tell her the exact same thing 101 years ago next month, when she and her attorney were trying to get the appellate court judges in Oklahoma to rule on whether Spiritualism was a religion. She had been arrested for illegal fortune telling, and in their opinion, the judges said that they wouldn’t touch the bigger topic with a ten foot pole, but would address her case only (they ruled against her).

Big thumbs up to what Annber03 said re: solitary confinement. That noise was just horrific. I look forward to what Disney’s lawyers will do to LWT after this episode. Their protection of their copyrights is second to none, followed very closely by Tolkien’s estate’s attorneys. I actually included the latter in a library school paper I wrote about fanfiction and its use by school librarians and teachers to encourage ESL and slow/non-readers. I went into the subject of fair use and examples of lawyers going after fanfic writers who tried to monetize some of their writing. (I’m still bummed I missed out on the t-shirt that was designed like a concert t but was Frodo and Sam’s journey to Mordor, with the dates from the book.)

My grandparents married much later—she was 29, he a year younger—and had their first child six months after the wedding. They told their children that they had married in March 1929 and were only caught out in the lie when that eldest daughter started planning their 25th anniversary party and one of her aunts broke the news that it would be in 1955, not in ‘54. She was utterly scandalized to find out she had been conceived before marriage! My cousin told me she still didn’t like discussing it in the 1990s.

I was just rewatching the first ep, and I realized that, in addition to having Tricki-Woo as her witness, Mrs. Pumphrey also provided her car and chauffeur as transport for the bridal party to get to the church. That was very sweet of her! I loved that little moment when Mrs. Hall asked Siegfried’s opinion on her hat choice, and when he pointed at one, she immediately went with the other. If they are going with an eventual hookup between them, I wouldn’t be mad—they are really delightful together.

If you are a contributor, the PBS app has the entirety of Season 3 now available. I just finished with episode 1, and I thought it was the perfect wedding for these two. Even better, though, was the constant threat of the war in the background, from the very beginning of the hour. I was wondering how they would handle the buildup to September 1st, and they answered that right away. Loved the scene between Mrs. Hall and Helen before the wedding. That was well written, with the memories and the fears of the future both included. Also loved Helen winding her dad up!

It seems that floating islands are very popular with professional bakers/chefs. Not only Paul and Prue, but Julia Child called it her favorite dessert. I think if Kevin had been higher in the technical, he might have squeaked out ahead of Janusz, but he was just too middle-of-the-pack this week other than the flavors in his showstopper. And Janusz does have a history of excellence that Kevin didn’t. As soon as Sandro revealed the ice cream maker, I thought that was an excellent custard technical choice. Frozen custard is a big thing in Wisconsin, where I was introduced to it in college back in the ‘80s, and the richness and mouth feel of it is incomparable. Oh, and also—anyone else not surprised by Janusz’s drip decoration? I did like the triple color piping—that was lovely. Sandro’s cake was gorgeous. Finally, Matt’s puns were cracking me up this week. I love a good bad pun, always have. It’s the lowest hanging fruit on the humor tree, but what can I say?

I have to admit, when they said “masks” for the showstopper challenge, my mind went to “How are you going to make pandemic masks interesting?!” Then they started talking about Carnival and I went “Ooooooh…” I feel sheepish now. As soon as Maisam said she was keeping her mask relatively simple, I had her pegged for going home. I figured Rebs had saved herself with the Technical win.

I named my cat Nellie after one of my childhood heroines Nellie Bly, who was the subject of one of those biographies. When I brought her home from the shelter, instead of hiding, she explored everything. I thought, “Around the apartment in 72 minutes,” and Nellie she was.

Lots of topics covered here! First, in researching my family, I have found so many large families. My maternal grandmother was one of twelve. One of her sisters died at age 11, but the rest survived to adulthood—in fact, when her youngest brother died at age 76, it was a shock because he was so young! My great-grandfather in Sweden was one of fourteen, two died in infancy, and the boy who was born after his brother Erik Robert died was also named Erik Robert. Second, as a huge history buff all my life (my favorite books at my elementary school library were the biographies of historical figures written for my age group), I was thrilled to discover X-number great grandfathers who fought in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. The saddest story I’ve discovered so far was my third great grandmother Nettie’s younger brother Julius who died of typhoid fever ten days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. He had gotten sick in the trenches at Petersburg in the last week or so before the siege broke. He was just sixteen. Three years later, Nettie named her first child (my great great grandfather) Julius. For me, what makes history fascinating are the stories of people. Unfortunately, the stories most often studied in school are the ones that are easiest to relate and test—the names, dates, and places (the when where and who), not the why and the how, which is what is interesting. Those first three things give context to the latter two, but most teachers have to stop there because they don’t have the time to linger.

Wow, this latest episode had me making even more connections to his family past, just like the two earlier episodes. My third great grandmother Antoinette “Nettie” Crispell Carson divorced my third great grandfather John Carson in 1887 for drunkenness and cruelty. I hope for my great grandmother Alida’s sake that their son Julius didn’t inherit those traits, but I am not disposed to think well of him. (Zachary is better than me for his willingness to forgive his ancestors.) After his wife died of appendicitis at age 31 when they had five children, Julius sent the three eldest girls to live with his in-laws, took the youngest girl with him when he moved hundreds of miles away from the rest of his children to live near his father, and when no one was willing to take in his only son (including himself), he put the 8 year old boy Bill into a Chicago orphanage. Alida never talked about her parents to her daughters, and I found after connecting with Bill’s granddaughter through a genealogy website, that he never forgave his father, bricking up all of his family photos behind his fireplace wall so he would never have to see his father’s face again. He told his kids that he would someday love to pay someone $10 to research his family tree, then pay them $50 to burn it all. (Bill lied about his age to join the navy and got out of the orphanage when he was just 14.) That cycle does seem to have been broken with Alida and Bill’s generation, though, at least with their children and descendants. Then, the show went to Connecticut and followed witchcraft, and my family has connections there, too! First, what the genealogist said about Stamford having the only other witchcraft accusations outside of Salem wasn’t correct. One of my 10th great grandfathers Hugh Rowe in Gloucester, MA, had several daughters and daughters-in-law accused in 1692 and some were tossed into jail to await trial. But, it appears to have been a political move against Hugh, because none of them ever went to court and they were released after several weeks. The other connection was that the 1692 Connecticut case was not the first witchcraft trial in that area. Another 10th great grandfather Thomas Bassett is believed to have had a first wife only known in the records as Goody (short for Goodwife) Bassett who was executed in 1651 in Stamford for being a witch. He remarried several years later to a young widow and had a son who is my ancestor. But, Goody Bassett is still remembered in Stamford for supposed hauntings as well as a local ice cream parlor that is named after her. I sort of hoped that the show would have ended with Zachary getting a cone there, but that would have been too lighthearted for such a potentially tragic story.

The people at Ancestry are looking for that personal connection and specifically ask the subjects about it, much like Gates does on his show. I’ve mentioned this on that thread, but I’ve worked with them for a commercial and social media content about my great great grandmother and they asked that same personal connection question a few times, obviously looking for something they could use in the video or commercial. I hated to disappoint them!

I just finished watching Allison’s ep, and that was riveting! I was on the edge of my seat during Peacock’s forced ad breaks. I understand her thrill of finding that colonial connection. My dad’s mother’s tree has over 85% of the lines arriving in North America in the 1600s, and several of them came in the Great Migration before 1650. I can’t definitely prove that my 5th great grandmother Abigail Bradford was descended from William Bradford, so I had to delete the Mayflower from the tree (there is an Abigail born around the same time also in Rhode Island who is descended from him, but I can’t prove my Abigail is her). My New England lines were from 1630 and later, mostly in Maine, but the New York lines go back to my 12th great grandmother Christine de la Vigne, whose family was on one of the first two ships to arrive in Manhattan in early 1624. The Maine lines have a few ancestors with detailed inventories with their wills, and those are fascinating reading! And a family as deeply rooted in colonial America as Allison’s is sure to have multiple interesting stories to share. I accompanied Grandma’s tree with a Word doc of the stories I thought were of note, and so far, it has nearly 50 people on it. (One is my 5th great grandmother Ammedilla Turner, whom I included just for the great women’s names—Ammedilla, daughter of Freelove Tirell, granddaughter of Zerviah Canfield, sister of Zarababbel!)

Today was just fun! Wout going totally nuts from the beginning, ending up third for the stage with the potential to have ended up with both the green jersey AND the polka dots!! That lovely moment after Tadej crashed and Jonas slowed down for him to catch up—I’m guessing he had utter confidence that he would drop Tadej on the next climb, which he did, with the help of Sepp Kuss and Wout. And that moment when Tadej just couldn’t keep up and Jumbo Visma pulled away. I really thought about ten days ago that Tadej had this in the bag—it’s nice to be surprised!

I’ll message her and see if she found that out. I am sure she would have been curious—if I can ever hire a professional staff of researchers to break through some of my own brick walls, I’d want to know every step they took in their investigation.

Nick’s episode was amazing for me, and for more reasons than I thought before watching. I actually first learned that it was being filmed last summer when I reconnected with his Aunt Micki, whom I knew as Michelle when I worked with her at the Minooka library back in 1992. I saw her name on Ancestry and messaged her. I don’t think I ever knew she was related to Nick before she told me about the first round of filming in Minooka and that they were going to New York in a few months to wrap it up, but she didn’t know then what they had found. My mom grew up just down the road from the Offerman’s farm (not his parents’ place, but probably originally his great grandparents) and knew the family in passing, including his Grandma El. In researching Mom’s family a few weeks ago, I saw the Offerman’s 1900 census entry on the next page from my great grandfather. In fact, we just drove past that water tower near his farm last Wednesday on our way to the cemetery. I also loved this episode for all of the upstate New York connections. Part of my dad’s mother’s family is also from the Hudson River Valley (closer to NYC) and I am very familiar with Dutch Reformed Church marriage records. My 6th great grandfather who was a Revolutionary War vet also got land for his service in Ulster County, which is why he relocated from Maine. Further back in the 1600s in my family tree, just about every woman had a name ending with “je”—Annetje, Marietje, Grietje, etc. Heck, our family histories are so similar that the Maine family also had shady dealings with the local tribes there, especially during King Philip’s War. Also, they mentioned the three English ships that took over Albany in 1664–my 11th great grandfather Jean Johannes De La Montaigne was the one who surrendered as the final Vice Director of New Netherland.

Well, that was fun!! I always love the cobblestone stages, and this was a good one. The breakaway stayed away and ended with a sprinter’s throw of the bike by Simon Clark, who didn’t have a contract for months after his former team dissolved at the end of 2021 and had never won a TdF stage in his 30-something years. Yank Nelson Powliss is in second to Van Aert who managed to keep his yellow jersey even after crashing. I thought Pogacar would catch up to the leaders, but he ended up in 4th in the GC rank. The big surprise for me was Van Der Poel lagging not due to a mechanical or crash, but he just couldn’t stay with the head of the peloton. I spent the first few minutes of my viewing researching the day’s route. When I saw they started in Lille, I had to see if they went past my 10th great grandfather’s village of Wicres, but it’s to the west of Lille and they went east.

A stage where Phil and Bob were marveling at the lack of crashes but worrying about crosswinds ends with multiple crashes but remarkably little wind impact on the final stand. That shoving between Jacobsen and Sagan before the line was standard for sprinters, especially Sagan, so I was pleased to see Jacobsen shove back. I loved seeing Magnus Cort celebrating that final point in mid-race. He was so damn happy!

We’re back!! And not just the race, but Phil and Bob are back in France. Yay for a small dose of normality! And I love Bob’s white goatee/mustache, it makes him look very distinguished, if about fifteen years older. I’ve spent this year soaking up pro cycling race recap videos on YouTube, as well as some excellent analysis from channels like GCN and Chris Horner’s rather cantankerous/uninhibited takes on the day’s races, especially when team tactics don’t go with how he would have done it. So, I am more familiar with the new racers as well as the current potential of returning riders than I have been in previous TdFs. It’ll be interesting to see how Covid impacts this year, especially after what happened at Tour de Suisse, where one day’s test results took out 29 riders! I was rather shocked to see the utter lack of masks in the tightly packed crowds in Copenhagen today. (I had my hair cut at the salon yesterday, and I was the only one wearing a mask in the place.) I had heard it was more prevalent in Europe than here, especially in France. Keeping my fingers crossed that they don’t lose too many riders this year, either to Covid or to crashes. I was worried the loss of NBC Sports Channel would impact the coverage, but it looks like USA Network is doing a good job providing live coverage, even though they are not offering an edited evening broadcast. In today’s world of DVRs and streaming, though, I guess that later showing isn’t really necessary. I can’t wait for the rest of the race!

I was getting the Chamberlain from The Dark Crystal, only not as evil.

I liked that the Crimson Guard were actual Red Shirts!

When I saw the episode description on Paramount, I just cringed, remembering Q-pid from TNG. But, this really worked! Loved the scenery chewing from Mount, Chong, and Gooding, especially Christina Chong—she had me rolling. I actually liked that they brought grown-up Rukiya back so quickly. I was really concerned how they had it end with having the child make such an important decision. On the one hand, yay agency. On the other, she is still a little kid. So, I was really ambivalent until she returned to reassure her father (and us) that it was the right choice. I think if this was a network show with 22 episodes in a season they could have spread it out a bit longer, but that’s not the case. As for Hemmer he wasn’t unaffected. If he had been, he would have remembered those five hours. It looks like Rukiya turned Castor into a meta-aware character to accompany her father like she adjusted the Huntress and Sir Addy’s relationship. Btw, loved the gender-blind casting for Addy! I’m going to have to rewatch later tonight. Someone in a YT comment said that the book had been written by Benny Russell, which, if so, well, that’s just perfect!!

I thought this was the best episode yet! I loves me a great space pirate villain, and Aspen/Angel was perfect, so much so that I was cheering when they beamed away to crime again another day. Loved their chemistry with Spock. The Pike stuff with the pirate crew was equally fun. Btw, I cannot wait for the Ortegas episode, because she is rapidly becoming one of my favorite regulars, even before we learn more about her.

This is finally available US Netflix, and I just finished watching. Really excellent, and it took twists and turns in the last half that I hadn’t expected! Loved that it showed where Fleming got some of Bond inspiration (M, Q, crazy drivers who miss their beloved cars), yet keeps Fleming himself in the background. I was a bit worried when I saw the romantic relationship begin, but it didn’t take over the plot in an egregious way. I do appreciate that they kept the focus on the military objectives, as well as constantly reminding us that Major Martin wasn’t just a construct, but had been a real man with a tragic story of his own. The cast is uniformly terrific, especially the main four of Colin Firth, Matthew MacFadyen, Kelly MacDonald, and Penelope Wilton. Highly recommended viewing!!

That’s one of the main things I love about this show and genealogy in general! I’m a lifelong history buff, so doing my research and finding links to different aspects of history has been wonderful. (I’m considering starting a YouTube channel for videos tying in my ancestors to stories in history, such as slave ship captains, Barbary coast corsairs, the Dutch surrender of New Netherland to the Brits, the Shakers, Indian Mounds, and early 20th century spiritualism.) Learning new stories of history on this show and tying it to personal connections is a great example of what teachers could do to get students hooked on history. I wish that companies like Ancestry would have teacher accounts so that students can start researching their own families. It would teach them researching techniques and the importance of primary sources. If they don’t want to research their families, something as simple as assigning an edition of a historical newspaper and having them analyze the content, highlighting interesting stories and advertisements. All of this shows that history isn’t just names and dates, but it’s people and their lives.

Thanks for the info! New Paltz, Hurley, Rochester, and Kingston is where my family is from, too. I’ll probably see names I recognize from my research as well. I’ll have to check out that historic district when I get there!