Season Two Talk

[SistaLadybug]

I had one done recently through Ancestry.com and I found it meaningful, particularly in doing what Dr. Gates does on the show - confirming (or not) the stories that have been passed down through the family about our lineage.  I am one of the vast majority of African Americans who were led to believe that they had Native ancestry only to find that I am 0% Native according to the test results.  It threw my grandfather for a loop, as he'd always been told that his grandmother had Native blood, only to find out that her dark straight hair and light skin were because she was more White than Black.

[Enigma X]

pasdetrois, it depends on what you are trying to do. I have taken test from all three of the companies offering autosomal results and the one from the National Geographic Project II. For what I am trying to do, accurately populate my family tree, the autosomal tests are perfect for what I am trying to do. The Geographic Project test is more about anthropology than recent ancestry and connecting with relatives in a genealogucal timeframe. You can read about the test differences here: http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA

[kassa]

I think Gates worked with 23 and Me in other specials.  

[AuntiePam]

I was getting annoyed by the moving back and forth between stories but then decided they did it so people wouldn't just stop watching after the major one they are interested in was done. 

 

 

 

Oh yes.  I was only interested in Stephen King but ended up fascinated by the other two stories -- Reuben and Vance. 

 

It's weird, isn't it, how our ancestors affect us.  We feel pride or shame over something we have absolutely no control over. 

[Milz]

A few comments on the last show (Ken Burns, Anderson Cooper, and Anna Deavere Smith).

 

I can understand Burns and Cooper's family wanting to hide slave owners in the family, because that's an embarrassment. But Anna Deavere Smith's family not passing down that her great-great grandfather was a veterinarian, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and a prominent man in Gettysburg is just puzzling to me. He's a role model for the generations that follow and his life, his accomplishments should be handed down. Ditto for Derek Jetter's great-great-grandfather.

[captain1]

I missed the first season of this show - loving it now, however.  I have a question as to how they select the guests and combine the segments.  My theory is that the solicited a bunch of "interesting" people, got permission to study their family trees, and then decided whose stories would juxtapose nicely with who else's.  Does anybody know for sure?

[Rickster]

I missed the first season of this show - loving it now, however.  I have a question as to how they select the guests and combine the segments.  My theory is that the solicited a bunch of "interesting" people, got permission to study their family trees, and then decided whose stories would juxtapose nicely with who else's.  Does anybody know for sure?

That could be true for a couple of people, like how Khandi Alexander ended up in last night's show. On the other hand, it seems to me they also tried to do themed episodes, like the sports one and the upcoming ones on "ethnic" chefs and people with Jewish and Greek backgrounds, where I'd guess they went out to get people who fit the theme.

Last night, I'd think Affleck's mother's background, which he already knew, was why they matched him up with Ben Jealous, not because of information they found out along the way.

[attica]

That photo they found of the ancestor looked like a cousin of Jack Skellington. Hee!

 

I liked every single story told on last night's show. So interesting, and every subject reacted as I imagine I would to that kind of info.  I thought Peter G Morgan and Jealous resembled each other pretty strongly.

 

Not even a little surprised Ben & Matt are cousins. Cute.

[Blergh]

Quite a moving plea from Ben Jealous's ancestor Peter G. Morgan declaring his wife and children who had been legally his slaves to henceforth be free. I was not only moved emotionally by the passion and force of the plea itself but by how verbose and meticulous the content was -especially considering how it had been illegal to teach slaves literacy AND even as a freedman cobbler, there would not have been much motivation on others' part to have wanted him to have been educated so he must have had extra determination to have somehow overcome this to be educated.  Somehow this reminded me of how shocked Huck Finn was when Jim confessed that it was HIS dream that once he was free, he'd be able to go back and PURCHASE his family- and I can't help but wonder if this may have been based on an incident from those times that had happened to Mark Twain himself as a youth.

 

       Miss Alexander's great-grandfather's death was quite ghastly and I can see why his widow and children would have tried to keep it quiet. Still, he did accomplish a great deal at a young age for that time and place [ though, that may have contributed to why he may have been targetted]. I wonder if it wasn't just white Southerners who dissed Miss Alexander's mother for have a more noticably darker complexion than Miss Alexander's father. Could it have been other African- Americans including Mr. Alexander's own family who were furious re the union - and that may be why she had little if anything to do with them?

 

    Interesting account of Ben Affeck's Revolutionary War ancestor who lived to resemble a very ancient toadstool- and I always thought he and Matt Damon were cousins but didn't think they were so distant.  LOL

[AuntiePam]

I raised eyebrows at Khandi Alexander's cousins saying that the rosin plant explosion and fire wasn't an accident.  It was explained that this was an extremely dangerous job.  How could such an accident be staged?  And wouldn't it endanger more than just one man?  The whole place could have been destroyed and everyone could have lost their jobs, or their lives.  It was sad enough that he died so horribly, not necessary to make more out of it. 

 

Maybe it's just because I don't like Khandi Alexander.  To me she seems artificial, not natural or spontaneous, overly dramatic, studied in her reactions, one of those people who are always "on".  Or maybe it's because I didn't like her character in Treme.

[TheRealWendy]

 

To me she seems artificial, not natural or spontaneous, overly dramatic, studied in her reactions, one of those people who are always "on".

 

I agree with you about her seeming kind of fake. However, I do think she is a wonderful actress. 

 

I have colonial-era ancestors all over the place, and so I recognized a name last night and can say I am Ben Affleck's 10th cousin. 

[hjmugillecuty]

I have colonial-era ancestors all over the place, and so I recognized a name last night and can say I am Ben Affleck's 10th cousin.

Cool. Mine fought on Lexington Green with Ben Jealous'.

I really like this format for a genealogy show. I just wish Professor Gates wasn't reading everything while talking to the celebs. I'd like some more informality I guess.

[Milz]

Ben Jealous bears such an incredibly strong resemblance to Peter Morgan, I was thinking "wow!"

 

Quite a moving plea from Ben Jealous's ancestor Peter G. Morgan declaring his wife and children who had been legally his slaves to henceforth be free. I was not only moved emotionally by the passion and force of the plea itself but by how verbose and meticulous the content was -especially considering how it had been illegal to teach slaves literacy AND even as a freedman cobbler, there would not have been much motivation on others' part to have wanted him to have been educated so he must have had extra determination to have somehow overcome this to be educated.  Somehow this reminded me of how shocked Huck Finn was when Jim confessed that it was HIS dream that once he was free, he'd be able to go back and PURCHASE his family- and I can't help but wonder if this may have been based on an incident from those times that had happened to Mark Twain himself as a youth.

 

I've read literature and other documents from the 1850s-1870s----it's pretty verbose and, at times, overly flowery, so I think it was the style of writing.

 

Freemen did buy their families according to this: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/emancipation/text1/text1read.htm 

[pasdetrois]

I can't stand Khandi for the reasons cited above.

 

I'm a jaded reality TV watcher, because so many participants trot out the drama and seek out that camera, but I had a few little sobs along with Jealous. To see a human being listed as just a number - no name - for eternity is heartbreaking.

 

I love it when Gates steps away from his dignified professorial demeanor and slips into his wry joking tone. He would be so much fun to dine with.

[kassa]

I can understand Burns and Cooper's family wanting to hide slave owners in the family, because that's an embarrassment. But Anna Deavere Smith's family not passing down that her great-great grandfather was a veterinarian, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and a prominent man in Gettysburg is just puzzling to me. He's a role model for the generations that follow and his life, his accomplishments should be handed down. Ditto for Derek Jetter's great-great-grandfather.

 

 

I always wonder the same thing about people with royal connections.  When does it NOT become worthy of mention that your gggg grandfather was King ____?  At the 6th generation?  The 7th?

 

Occasionally I can see where the younger son of a younger son might end up alienated from the family, or a daughter make a bad marriage, etc., but it seems pretty universal for these relationships to get lost within a couple of hundred years.  And I've never understood it.  Maybe a sense of shame of having fallen so far?

 

 

I suppose it also could be with so many unstable governments you might not want to advertise a connection with an ousted monarch, or the "wrong" branch of the royal family tree, for fear they'd come after you.  

[Snarklepuss]

Interesting account of Ben Affeck's Revolutionary War ancestor who lived to resemble a very ancient toadstool- and I always thought he and Matt Damon were cousins but didn't think they were so distant.  LOL

 

Yeah, I thought they would be closer too.  After studying the trees of several people with New England ancestry going way back, I am convinced that any two people with roots extending back to that time and place would have to be at the very least 10th cousins because the population was so much smaller and closer geographically.  When Gates did Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, didn't he find out they were 7th cousins?  Geesh, I'm probably more closely related to either of them than that!  When Ancestry.com used to have its "find famous relatives" feature it told me I was 5th cousins with George Bush and his mother, etc. through the Pierce line which also makes me cousins with Franklin Pierce, the president.  That was the tip of the iceberg, though as I also turned up cousins with a slew of famous and historical figures including Julia Child and Katharine Hepburn.  I know that feature was considered unreliable and was eventually dropped but in my case I cross-referenced all of them with my tree and know they checked out with what appears in established genealogies.  So it's really not all that "amazing" to have those relationships if you have New England roots going back almost 400 years.  And yet it is kind of amazing anyway.

[Kromm]

Maybe it's just because I don't like Khandi Alexander.  To me she seems artificial, not natural or spontaneous, overly dramatic, studied in her reactions, one of those people who are always "on".  Or maybe it's because I didn't like her character in Treme.

Maybe. But she gets HUGE points for NewsRadio.

 

Then again... CSI: Miami.  Bleccccch!

[Bella]

I was part of a group that toured the New England Historic Genealogical Society main library in May, and they told us that someone with New England roots will have an easier time of tracing their family history than people from other parts of the country, based strictly on the migration patterns into and out of that region. Essentially, both are limited.

 

That's another reason I'm surprised that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck weren't closer.

[Milz]

I always wonder the same thing about people with royal connections.  When does it NOT become worthy of mention that your gggg grandfather was King ____?  At the 6th generation?  The 7th?

 

Occasionally I can see where the younger son of a younger son might end up alienated from the family, or a daughter make a bad marriage, etc., but it seems pretty universal for these relationships to get lost within a couple of hundred years.  And I've never understood it.  Maybe a sense of shame of having fallen so far?

 

 

I suppose it also could be with so many unstable governments you might not want to advertise a connection with an ousted monarch, or the "wrong" branch of the royal family tree, for fear they'd come after you.  

 

Good point about the shame of having fallen so far, but I would think that even 1 person in the family would remember it and pass it down.

[AuntiePam]

Ancestry that can be traced to 2700 B.C.?  Excellent.

[attica]

Emperor Ming! So freaking cool. See what nerdly record-keeping gets you? (Also: Ming: hotter than a diner's griddle.)

 

You know, we've seen in a few of the DNA analyses the slice of the pie that says 'unknown'. I'm wondering if that's, like, Neanderthal genome left over. Or maybe some other primate that got busy with a past hominid. I get why that's not the point of these shows, but I for one wouldn't mind a minute or two sussing that out.

[sadtvjunkie]

Yea finally an episode where we don't have to explore the Civil War or slavery. Or ask dumb questions "How does that make you feel to know they owned slaves?"  Guess what? I wouldn't feel any different because it's history, nothing I can do to change that.

 

Super cool about the lineage going back to his 116th? grandfather. I'm struggling to get past 1700 in Europe right now.

[Milz]

Ancestry that can be traced to 2700 B.C.?  Excellent.

 

I worked with a lady who was a quarter Chinese. Anyhow, she said that her Chinese family goes back to Xia Dynasty. I didn't know that the Communists destroyed all the genealogies, because other programs I've watched have said the Communists destroyed the genealogies of certain families.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Milz

[BusyOctober]

I knew very little about the cultural revolution. It is gobsmacking how the fear or ignorance of a handful of power hungry people can erase entire generations of people, history, art, literature, knowledge, etc.

[Driad]

 

Yes.  But the closed captions were gibberish.

[pasdetrois]

I'm tiring of the Civil War and slave stories, although I'm glad for the recipients of those stories.

 

I found myself fast forwarding through much of this latest episode.

[Enigma X]

I am not tiring of the slave stories at all. After all, it is a huge part of this country's history. I am tiring of Gates and his dramatics. Let the celebrity have the reaction they want to have--even if that is no reaction at all.

 

I am not a Gates fan and never have been. Which is funny, because, of all the genealogy shows, I like this one best because they do use DNA (the litmus test for accuracy). 

[kassa]

I have no problem with the slave stories.  They provide a lot more interesting history lessons than most.  For such a central issue in American History, we really tend to have the vaguest knowledge of exactly what it meant for individual people.  It was only through these genealogy shows that I learned that freed slaves had to leave Virginia within a certain amount of time, for example... meaning that some people would "own" their own relatives rather than free them because if they freed them they'd have to go away. And like in this past episode, being free at certain times put you at great risk of being enslaved or reenslaved.   I've also been inspired by the number of reconstruction era African American politicians and social activists they've identified - going from enslavement to being a popular preacher or university graduate or architect or state representative... that's pretty dramatic stuff!

 

I'm of Irish descent and just discovered yesterday that my gg grandfather was a gamekeeper in Ireland.  It was very exciting to not just have found the village, but an occupation!  And then it dawned on me what that might have meant during the famine years -- turning in your neighbors for poaching knowing they would be killed or transported just for taking a bird on the lord's property to feed their kids? If I'm grappling with that,  I can't IMAGINE what it would be like to be handed photographs of people who owned my great grandparents, or had children by them, and all that might mean.  

 

I kind of feel honored to learn the names and stories of these people who got screwed over in life.   

[AuntiePam]

I'm learning a lot from the slave stories too, but would like it more if they were spread out a bit. Pointing out the contrast in the experience between immigrants who came to the US for freedom and people brought as property is very effective. 

[stormy]

I'm bored with this season's shows.  It's the same thing every week.

I think I really don't care about these people because I'm not familiar with most of them and their stories really aren't that different.

Also, he jumps around so much between the guests, that I can't keep up with what's going on in anyone's family.

The most interesting thing, for me has been, that when a guest has a really cool ancestor, like one that was involved in the Underground Rail Road or burying soldiers that died at Gettysburg, that history got lost over the years, that it wasn't kept alive even as an old wives tale in the family.

Heck, my husband's great aunt always insisted they were related to Shakespeare's wife and maybe they are!

[kassa]

My grandfather always said "we're descended from kings!" and we always agreed, laughing.  But who knows - people might have been "joking" about it for 700 years. 

[BusyOctober]

My grandfather always said "we're descended from kings!" and we always agreed, laughing.  But who knows - people might have been "joking" about it for 700 years. 

 

My Sicilian grandmother always told me her father's family were cardinals and high ranked buddy-buddies with the Popes for centuries. Her mother's people were wealthy land owners/nobility in the same caliber as the Medici's.  She did her genealogy & got back into the 1300's for both parents. She discovered her mom's stories were pretty close to the truth, so that's cool. But her exalted dad's side?  Many of the men did hold religious offices but were often accused/tried & even convicted for various crimes (embezzlement, murder).  One guy- a priest- had 20+ illegitimate children scattered around Sicily.  Nana wasn't so inclined to brag after these little nuggets were uncovered.

[ShelleySue]

Maybe it's my fault.  Maybe my expectations were too high.  I was really looking forward to last night's episode because I'm Jewish and wanted to see stories similar to my story.  Well I guess that that's exactly what I got.  I know how my grandparents/great-grandparents got here.  I know that everyone left behind was killed in the Holocaust.  I know all of that.  I wanted more.  As I said, maybe I expected too much.  I had wanted hints on finding genealogy in the old country.  If Skip can't do it, no one can.  Ugh!  

 

PS  Why no DNA results?  I guess that when there is no chance of finding Native American in your background it isn't even worth doing the test. (For what it's worth I've done 23andMe and am 93.3% Ashkenazi).

Edited November 5, 2014 by ShelleySue

[stormy]

ShellySue,  my story is the same as yours and Carole's. 

Unlike Alan and Tony in that none of my relatives hung around long enough to get killed by the hands of the Nazi's. Tony was clearly overcome to find out what had happened to some of this ancestors although I'm surprised that it wasn't known and passed on to his generation by his grandparents and parents.

I, like Alan, grew up knowing adults that survived the camps and had numbers tattooed on their wrists.

As far as the DNA testing, that was odd, especially given that last year he found out some cool information about Maggie Gyllenhall's Jewish  roots.

[Milz]

Maybe it's my fault.  Maybe my expectations were too high.  I was really looking forward to last night's episode because I'm Jewish and wanted to see stories similar to my story.  Well I guess that that's exactly what I got.  I know how my grandparents/great-grandparents got here.  I know that everyone left behind was killed in the Holocaust.  I know all of that.  I wanted more.  As I said, maybe I expected too much.  I had wanted hints on finding genealogy in the old country.  If Skip can't do it, no one can.  Ugh!  

 

PS  Why no DNA results?  I guess that when there is no chance of finding Native American in your background it isn't even worth doing the test. (For what it's worth I've done 23andMe and am 93.3% Ashkenazi).

 

I found the omission of DNA results odd too. Maybe DNA was done but disclosed off-screen????

 

Anyhow, I found it interesting when Gates told Carole King that the stories that clerks at Ellis Island changed family names was a myth because a childhood friend of mine's name was shortened by the clerks at Ellis Island. Her relatives across the Atlantic have the full version of the name.

[editorgrrl]

I found it interesting when Gates told Carole King that the stories that clerks at Ellis Island changed family names was a myth because a childhood friend of mine's name was shortened by the clerks at Ellis Island. Her relatives across the Atlantic have the full version of the name.

 

According to the New York Public Library:

nspectors never wrote down the names of incoming immigrants. The only list of names came from the manifests of steamships, filled out by ship officials in Europe.… mmigrants would change their names themselves when they had arrived in the United States.

 

[Milz]

Thanks for that. Well, I guess my friend's family history is incorrect (or incorrectly remembered.)

[pasdetrois]

I liked hearing about Jews in the south, because every southern town I lived in growing up had Jewish communities, yet people think otherwise. It tickled me to know that Tony K. lived in Lake Charles the same time I did. Sometimes people's comments about atrocities such as the Holocaust and slavery sound trite (because there are no words that capture the horror), but Tony's little soliloquy as he tried to make sense of what he was learning was beautiful.

[ShelleySue]

nspectors never wrote down the names of incoming immigrants. The only list of names came from the manifests of steamships, filled out by ship officials in Europe.… mmigrants would change their names themselves when they had arrived in the United States.

 

 

Yes, it may be a myth that it was done at Ellis Island, but it was done somewhere.  My family came here not knowing how to read or write in English.  They even used a different alphabet (Hebrew), so I know that someone else filled in their papers.  It might have been when they left Russia.  It might have been somewhere in England (where they caught the ship to Canada).   I have a friend whose father came over with his two brothers.  Once they arrived in NY they realized that their paperwork had three different last names (Horwitz, Horowitz and Herowitz).  No one knows how it happened or when it happened, but brothers did not make the changes themselves.

[attica]

I've heard stories from descendants of immigrants who admitted changing their names while standing in the line to board the ships. They heard someone ahead of them mentioning a town, liked the sound of it, and adopted a version of the town's name as their own.  

 

Anybody interested in learning more about Carole King's various marriages might want to read Girls Like Us, which covers Carole, Joni, & Carly. It's pretty dishy.  Kushner's show Caroline, or Change is, iirc, supposed to be somewhat autobiographical of his boyhood (although I doubt his maid broke into song after putting laundry away....)

[Milz]

I've heard stories from descendants of immigrants who admitted changing their names while standing in the line to board the ships. They heard someone ahead of them mentioning a town, liked the sound of it, and adopted a version of the town's name as their own.  

 

 

 

I, too, heard stories of immigrants "Americanizing" or "Anglicizing" their names (given and surnames). But again, I've also heard stories of their names being Americanized/Anglicized  or  shortened for them too.

[editorgrrl]

According to the New York Public Library:

nspectors never wrote down the names of incoming immigrants. The only list of names came from the manifests of steamships, filled out by ship officials in Europe.… mmigrants would change their names themselves when they had arrived in the United States.

 

Thanks for that. Well, I guess my friend's family history is incorrect (or incorrectly remembered.)

 

The NYPL article quotes Marian L. Smith's essay American Names: Declaring Independence:

Ellis Island was not only immigrant processing, it was finding one's way around the city, learning to speak English, getting one's first job or apartment, going to school, and adjusting one's name to a new spelling or pronunciation. All these experiences, for the first few years, were the "Ellis Island experience." When recalling their immigration decades before, many immigrants referred to the entire experience as "Ellis Island."

[Bella]

Someone I once worked with had a funny story about her Lithuanian grandfather. He had intended to come to America, but only got as far as Ireland. He worked there for several years, became fluent in English, earned some money, and finally set sail across the Atlantic. Some of his Irish buddies convinced him that he'd be better off in America if he could pass himself off as Irish. So he presented himself as Jacob Mc[Lithuanian surname]. I don't remember the exact name, but it sounded pretty odd.

[kassa]

Even native English speakers often have different spellings on different documents, depending on who wrote them down, or their preference at any given time.  Many of our ancestors came from the laboring classes - they only saw their names (if they even did) on religious and legal documents, and how often was that?  If the priest or rabbi spelled it one way at birth and the census taker spelled it another way 10 years later, and the guy selling the boat ticket wrote it a third way... which one is "real"?

 

My grandfather was a Donahue.  HIS father took out his US naturalization papers as Donohue, but his birth certificate in Canada and marriage certificate in the US said Donohoe.  And he COULD read and write!   There wasn't any evil, immigrant-hating, real- name-stealing villainy behind it -- they just weren't consistent.  

[Vandy10]

Ugh. Nothing makes me sob like a Holocaust story. The story about Tony's ancestors who were taken out into the woods and murdered along with the rest of the town was very similar to the story of Lisa Kudrow's ancestors on WDYTYA. But I can't remember the name of the town from Kudrow's episode. Was it the same town, or was this just a very common atrocity?

[pasdetrois]

The mass shootings were very common and not limited to one town or country.

[kassa]

As hard as they are to watch, those stories are important to tell.  It's horrifying to look to those images and think of the children of the people doing the rounding up and shooting going about their daily lives, assuming and asserting that their father was just a regular soldier, not involved in much of anything in particular.  It's way too easy to blame the evil at the top of the system -- we need to remember all the little foot soldiers who carried out the plan.  There were way more of them than there were leaders coming up with the ideas.

[Kromm]

Ugh. Nothing makes me sob like a Holocaust story. The story about Tony's ancestors who were taken out into the woods and murdered along with the rest of the town was very similar to the story of Lisa Kudrow's ancestors on WDYTYA. But I can't remember the name of the town from Kudrow's episode. Was it the same town, or was this just a very common atrocity?

Those aren't always Holocaust stories.  A lot of the reality of why Jews came to America was that the locals in ALL of the European countries would attempt to murder them whenever any kind of scapegoating was needed for anything.  This went on for hundreds of years.  Russia, Poland, Spain, Italy, they all had big long histories where murdering any random Jew was considered the thing to do if you wanted to shift blame.  Just say they're taking all the money (because they work hard and save money aggressively for a rainy day), or that they're stealing babies because they are minions of Satan, or whatever random excuse is on the top of your head.  That's the reality of Jewish history in Europe, and the Holocaust was just the endgame, not some aberration. In fact, the sole reason so many Jews survived the Holocaust was that a big migration to the US had already occurred a generation before, when they were fleeing from Russia (although it was a slightly different community of Jews).

[pasdetrois]

 

we need to remember all the little foot soldiers who carried out the plan.  There were way more of them than there were leaders coming up with the ideas.

Nothing brings this home to me in relatively current times more than the Shoah documentary. Made in 1985, it shows how casually but determinedly hateful some Polish people still are about the Jews. And in the south, the KKK hated Jews and Catholics along with black people.

Edited November 8, 2014 by pasdetrois

[Trini]

One thing that I found interesting, that I had never heard before, was how the Jewish migration to the Americas was facilitated by rabbis permitting ocean travel on sabbath*. (Of course, they were other Jews who made the transatlantic trip before then.)

 

*I might be wording that wrong