S10.E02: Forever Young [Valerie Bertinelli & Brendan Fraser]

[shapeshifter]

Quote

Valerie Bertinelli & Brendan Fraser discover ancestors who paved the way for their success

Episode premiere on PBS: 8 p.m. ET, January 9, 2024
Preview: https://www.pbs.org/video/forever-young-preview/

Edited January 11 by shapeshifter

[Dirge]

I realized that the "DNA relatives" reveal is one of my favorite parts, because I was disappointed when it didn't happen tonight. With both Brendan and Valerie having ancestors who worked in the PA coal mines, I even wondered if they might be related. 

Glad to have this show back. 

[shapeshifter]

Brendan Fraser's verbal responses were some of the most thoughtful and nuanced I've heard on the series. 
But I hope when he tells his family about the occupations of his ancestors, he also tells them about his great-grandfather's military evaluation of being "calm and ernest."

 

I wonder if Valerie Bertanelli will contact descendants of her father's half-sibling? 

[One Imaginary Girl]

They wouldn't show up as DNA matches, but when Valerie Bertinelli was on Who Do You Think You Are?, they traced her line to an English king way back (Edward something) who also was a remote ancestor of Cindy Crawford.  Maybe England could have had Queen Valerie succeeded by King Wolfgang Van Halen.  (I kid.)

Since her grandfather kept his son's letters, I wonder if he ever wrote back.  Such a sad story for the abandoned wife and son.

 

[Suzn]

12 hours ago, Dirge said:

I realized that the "DNA relatives" reveal is one of my favorite parts, because I was disappointed when it didn't happen tonight. With both Brendan and Valerie having ancestors who worked in the PA coal mines, I even wondered if they might be related. 

Glad to have this show back. 

I was disappointed too!  There is at least one previous guest that I'm pretty sure is a distant cousin of mine and it's fun to see the interconnectedness of so many people.

I also had ancestors who worked in the PA coal mines.  Mine were miners from England's Black Country and went to Pennsylvania before moving on (and up) to Illinois.

5 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Brendan Fraser's verbal responses were some of the most thoughtful and nuanced I've heard on the series. 
But I hope when he tells his family about the occupations of his ancestors, he also tells them about his great-grandfather's military evaluation of being "calm and ernest."

Brendan Fraser was an excellent guest.  He had obviously done some research on his own and had intelligent responses rather than the common "that's insane" exclamation.

Edited January 10 by Suzn

[ShelleySue]

I really thought that they were going to find that Brendan's Austrian ancestor fought against Valerie's Italian ancestor in WWI.

1 hour ago, One Imaginary Girl said:

Since her grandfather kept his son's letters, I wonder if he ever wrote back.  Such a sad story for the abandoned wife and son.

I wonder if Valerie had those letters before the show. If she did, did she know who wrote them? She was very surprised at the whole grandfather having two wives and a secret son thing that I thought she knew nothing about the son.

[PRgal]

3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Brendan Fraser's verbal responses were some of the most thoughtful and nuanced I've heard on the series. 
But I hope when he tells his family about the occupations of his ancestors, he also tells them about his great-grandfather's military evaluation of being "calm and ernest."

 

I wonder if Valerie Bertanelli will contact descendants of her father's half-sibling? 

One thing I noticed was that the first marriage was likely a shotgun marriage because the baby was born SEVEN MONTHS after he left.  Or he married her because she was pregnant and the baby isn't his.  

[ProudMary]

1 hour ago, ShelleySue said:

I really thought that they were going to find that Brendan's Austrian ancestor fought against Valerie's Italian ancestor in WWI.

I thought there might at least have been some comment to that effect in the narration. 

I wonder if Valerie's father was aware that he had a half-brother in Italy. Doubtful, as his father was a bigamist. 

[carrps]

2 hours ago, Suzn said:

I also had ancestors who worked in the PA coal mines. 

My grandfather and great-grandfather worked in the Ohio coal mines. My great-grandfather was killed in a pickaxe accident as it was described -- something I only found out recently and sounds odd to me.

 

[Mermaid Under]

Quote

Brendan Fraser's verbal responses were some of the most thoughtful and nuanced I've heard on the series. 

He took his time answering, he was quiet and he was verbose, but I didn't understand what he was trying to say with most of his answers.  Of all the guests in recent memory, he certainly had the most wide-ranging answers to the Gates variations on "how does that make you feel".

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, ShelleySue said:

I wonder if Valerie had those letters before the show. If she did, did she know who wrote them? She was very surprised at the whole grandfather having two wives and a secret son thing that I thought she knew nothing about the son.

At about the 23:23 mark, Valerie says, "I know that he[her grandfather] had some secrets that he left in Italy because we saw some letters after my Dad passed that were in Italian" (pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/extras/forever-young).
The show doesn't tell us much about the letters except that they are from the son of Domenica, who Valerie's grandfather married 2 weeks before he took a boat to the U.S., listed as "single." Valerie's great-grandfather was present at the baby's birth. 
Maybe the researchers found more information that was not shared for reasons of time or privacy or whatever, but with the information we were given, I can't help wondering:

• if maybe the baby was fathered by Valerie's great-grandfather and her grandfather just married Domenica so the baby would not be illegitimate…
• or, if maybe her grandfather was listed as "single" on the boat passage records because of a misunderstanding, such as her grandfather thinking he was being asked if his wife was accompanying him.
• Also, maybe Domenica did not live very long after he left Italy. Valerie's grandfather did not remarry for 8 years. 

[Yeah No]

10 hours ago, PRgal said:

One thing I noticed was that the first marriage was likely a shotgun marriage because the baby was born SEVEN MONTHS after he left.  Or he married her because she was pregnant and the baby isn't his.  

I thought the same thing.  I wonder why that possibility wasn't discussed as it seemed like the obvious conclusion.  There's also the possibility that he left because he thought she might have cheated on him and wasn't sure the baby was his.  

[shapeshifter]

3 hours ago, Yeah No said:

There's also the possibility that he left because he thought she might have cheated on him and wasn't sure the baby was his.  

I considered this scenario too.

There are a lot of possibilities.

I guess the editors decided Valerie Bertinelli’s positive spin was enough speculation?

A variation on my speculation above that

9 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

the baby was fathered by Valerie's great-grandfather and her grandfather just married Domenica so the baby would not be illegitimate…

could be that Valerie’s great-grandfather only claimed the baby as his son’s (since his son was married to the mother) to protect the son’s and the family’s reputation.

Even if it was possible to obtain DNA from children of the baby who HLG Jr refers to as VB’s grandfather’s half-brother, the relationships could not be entirely unraveled unless maybe there was something definitive in the letters.

But the letters could only reflect the beliefs and understandings of the writer, which may be in part why their contents was not included in the episode.🤷🏻‍♀️

[buckboard]

Another thing that I miss in most of the recent episodes is the DNA breakdown at the end of the show.  It's flashed in a tiny shot at the end, but too small to make out.  

As has been mentioned by others, I'd love to know when a guest has followed up and contacted relatives that hadn't known about.  I recall we've learned when this was done a few times in the past.  Did Valerie, for example, contact her half-relatives?

 

[Dehumidifier]

I watched this episode last night. Valerie's grandfather died leaving the letters behind. They never had them translated or even bought a dictionary and worked it out themselves?

What did the letters say? Did they mention the relationship or were they just very ambiguous, so it seemed as though the writer was just a friend?

I suspect the grandfather was forced to marry Domenica because he impregnated her and planned to take off as soon as possible, never to return, as he even said in his reply to immigration -- "always."

 

[Mollywolly555]

On 1/10/2024 at 11:02 PM, Yeah No said:

I thought the same thing.  I wonder why that possibility wasn't discussed as it seemed like the obvious conclusion.  There's also the possibility that he left because he thought she might have cheated on him and wasn't sure the baby was his.  

I have been researching my husband's southern italian genealogy.  Most immigrants were single young men traveling alone... to find jobs,  make money to send back to Italy,  and eventually move back themselves, or bring families over.  It was not unusual to leave families in Italy for years  before moving back or bringing them over or, yes,   abandoning them.  The women were called "white widows", when their spouses went away. 

2 hours ago, Dehumidifier said:

I watched this episode last night. Valerie's grandfather died leaving the letters behind. They never had them translated or even bought a dictionary and worked it out themselves?

What did the letters say? Did they mention the relationship or were they just very ambiguous, so it seemed as though the writer was just a friend?

I suspect the grandfather was forced to marry Domenica because he impregnated her and planned to take off as soon as possible, never to return, as he even said in his reply to immigration -- "always."

 

The are easy to use, free translation online sites. I used them for letters in German my father received in the 60s. 

[Yeah No]

3 minutes ago, Mollywolly555 said:

I have been researching my husband's southern italian genealogy.  Most immigrants were single young men traveling alone... to find jobs,  make money to send back to Italy,  and eventually move back themselves, or bring families over.  It was not unusual to leave families in Italy for years  before moving back or bringing them over or, yes,   abandoning them.  The women were called "white widows", when their spouses went away. 

That's interesting and I wasn't really aware of that although I knew a lot of single men came here.  If that was a possibility it would have been nice if the show presented it.  My Sicilian great grandparents came here already married with children so that wasn't my experience.  The extended family all came together in a few groups.  They actually lived in Tunis for a few years before coming here and some of them got married there.  I know some of them came here solo but if any of them were previously married I wouldn't know about it. 

[Dehumidifier]

Not just Italians did it that way. My Slovak grandparents married in 1899, he came in 1900 and she came to join him in 1903. He was also a miner in the Scranton area. I was hoping they would mention the town Valerie's family lived in but they didn't.

[iMonrey]

5 hours ago, Dehumidifier said:

I watched this episode last night. Valerie's grandfather died leaving the letters behind. They never had them translated or even bought a dictionary and worked it out themselves?

What did the letters say? Did they mention the relationship or were they just very ambiguous, so it seemed as though the writer was just a friend?

There was definitely more to the story than they were telling us. Obviously Valerie already knew her grandfather had another son since she made a vague reference to some "secrets" they found out from the letters. 

On 1/10/2024 at 5:51 PM, shapeshifter said:

if maybe the baby was fathered by Valerie's great-grandfather and her grandfather just married Domenica so the baby would not be illegitimate…

This seems like the most likely scenario to me. There are some telling clues. Great-grandpa was with Domenica at the time of the birth, and his testimony that his son was "away for business" wasn't quite accurate. Interesting that the grandfather left for America only one week after the wedding and claimed to be single on the passenger list. It seems like there was definitely some sort of arrangement here where great-grandpa could take in and care for Domenica and her baby and Valerie's grandfather could go on with his life elsewhere. 

Also interesting that the grandfather kept those letters, since they probably would reveal whether he ever answered any of them. If his father was really the bio-dad of Domenica's baby then the baby was actually his brother, not his son. Whether or not Domenica's son ever knew that is in question but it seems like those letters would have answered that question.

[Dehumidifier]

In my first apartment eons ago I had a landlady whose parents were poor immigrants from Italy. Somehow she knew that one of her ancestors had been listed on records there as a "child of the hospital." She (or her family, I don't know who decided this) had a story that the unnamed father of the child was a count. Landlady actually had stationary with "Countess So and So" printed on it.