S10.E06: Far and Away [Sunny Hostin & actor Jesse Williams]

[iMonrey]

Well at least they got away from war stories this time. 

It continues to confound and frustrate me that this show seems so reticent, or at least so uninterested, in showing the exact lineage to whatever ancestor they want to tell a story about. We heard about Jesse's great great grandmother, but how was his mother descended from her? Mother's mother? Mother's father? Why don't they think that's important? For someone like me who is very interested in genealogy (why else would I be watching this show?) they really skim over the details.

How did Sunny's grandmother get from Puerto Rico to New York? That seemed like important information they either didn't know or didn't care about. 

[shapeshifter]

Episode premiered on PBS: 8 p.m. ET, Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Quote

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores the extraordinarily diverse roots of journalist Sunny Hostin and actor Jesse Williams—telling long-lost stories of African and European ancestry that compel his guests to rethink their own identities.

https://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/episodes/far-and-away

[sempervivum]

I never watched Grey's Anatomy, so was unfamiliar with Jesse. He seemed very thoughtful and intelligent. I was amazed that apparently the story of his great grandmother's performing career had been forgotten. Also would have been interested in finding out where that Salem Witch trial guy came from, since it seemed the Swedish relative was the first immigrant to America- maybe it was through her husband? The show is really mining the witch trials for all they're worth, though!

Sunny Hostin is very well-preserved.

 

[shapeshifter]

It hurt and angered me to learn that "Sunny" had to change her name from Asunción to Sunny because her employer couldn't be bothered spend a few seconds mastering the pronunciation. 
But then Sunny attributed her success to the change. 
So what do I know? 

 

2 hours ago, sempervivum said:

I never watched Grey's Anatomy, so was unfamiliar with Jesse.

I knew Jesse Williams from Season 3 of ‘Only Murders in the Building.’ 

2 hours ago, sempervivum said:

He seemed very thoughtful and intelligent.

Yes.

Here are their DNA admixture graphics. 
If anyone knows an easier way to access these (and maybe clearer images) please post! 
Sunny's was so complex that I had to do a lot of copying and pasting because of credit text overlaps as the images move across the screen (starting at about the 52 minute mark at pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/episodes/far-and-away).

Also, because files would be illegible if I made them any smaller, Jesse's is going to be in a separate post.
And click the image to see it larger:

 

Edited February 7 by shapeshifter

[shapeshifter]

Here's Jesse Williams' DNA admixture graphic
(as it appeared after the 52 minute mark at pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/episodes/far-and-away).
Click the image to see it larger:

His is not as complex as Sunny Hostin's, but it's still very interesting.

It's great that they can differentiate the various people groups across and within Europe and Africa. I don't think that was possible a decade ago, before the commercial DNA companies were formed.
But that's just speculation on my part.

My graphic would just be a solid, single color circle. 
Maybe in a few more decades it could be broken down too.

Edited February 7 by shapeshifter

[carrps]

If I'm not misunderstanding, the more people they get who contribute their DNA the more accurate in finer detail the percentages can be. I did a DNA test with a Canadian company, and because a very high number of their participants were from the UK (where 95% of my dad's ancestry is from ) I had better breakdowns than just simply Scottish or English. I found out I'm 5% Cornish -- I love Cornwall!

 

[iMonrey]

21 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

It hurt and angered me to learn that "Sunny" had to change her name from Asunción to Sunny because her employer couldn't be bothered spend a few seconds mastering the pronunciation. 

Especially when said employer is Nancy Grace. Ugh.

[PRgal]

On 2/7/2024 at 2:57 PM, shapeshifter said:

Here's Jesse Williams' DNA admixture graphic
(as it appeared after the 52 minute mark at pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/episodes/far-and-away).
Click the image to see it larger:

His is not as complex as Sunny Hostin's, but it's still very interesting.

It's great that they can differentiate the various people groups across and within Europe and Africa. I don't think that was possible a decade ago, before the commercial DNA companies were formed.
But that's just speculation on my part.

My graphic would just be a solid, single color circle. 
Maybe in a few more decades it could be broken down too.

They can differentiate between regions within one country for some places.  I also had Ancestry done and they were able to tell which parts of China my ancestors are from (I'm mostly southern/southeastern, but also have elements of people from the central region (my maiden name traces back to that area) as well as a non-Han ethnic group).  I honestly was NOT surprised that I had non-Han ancestry (since people always mistaken me for other Asian ethnicities), but was expecting Thai, Vietnam or the Philippines.

[Yeah No]

On 2/7/2024 at 1:05 PM, sempervivum said:

The show is really mining the witch trials for all they're worth, though!

I know, when this show is not focusing on the witch trials it's mining the Civil War for all it's worth.  I was wondering about what other relatives he had that may have had more interesting stories for the show to highlight.  Instead all we hear about are the same things over and over again.  And what gets me is that I just found out that the witch trial hysteria actually began here in CT first but it was smaller and somehow it wasn't discovered until after the Salem trials had already become a big deal so it never got any publicity.

On 2/7/2024 at 2:51 PM, shapeshifter said:

I knew Jesse Williams from Season 3 of ‘Only Murders in the Building.’ 

As you already know, me too.  I never knew what beautiful blue eyes he had until now, though, and what a thoughtful person he is.  That was nice to find out.  

On 2/7/2024 at 2:57 PM, shapeshifter said:

His is not as complex as Sunny Hostin's, but it's still very interesting.

It's great that they can differentiate the various people groups across and within Europe and Africa. I don't think that was possible a decade ago, before the commercial DNA companies were formed.
But that's just speculation on my part.

My graphic would just be a solid, single color circle. 
Maybe in a few more decades it could be broken down too.

Until Sunny's I had never seen an admixture pie chart with that many ethnicities represented.  I thought I had quite a few but hers is way more complicated than mine is.

Under my Ashkenazi Jewish side (of which I am 21%) it breaks it down to "Central European and Western Ukranian Jews".  Interesting as I never knew that level of detail.

Also my Italian side (48%) was narrowed down to "Southeastern Sicily and Malta".  Wow, you can't get any more specific (or accurate) than that!

It's also telling me now that I am 19% French and German, and narrowed down the French part to around Paris, but it couldn't narrow down the region in Germany.  I knew my French relatives lived in Bordeaux before coming here but never knew the Paris connection.   I never knew I had that much French or German in me and this actually conflicts with Ancestry.com's admixture which gives me a higher percentage of British ancestry than 23andMe does.

[shapeshifter]

On 2/10/2024 at 2:20 AM, Yeah No said:

Under my Ashkenazi Jewish side (of which I am 21%) it breaks it down to "Central European and Western Ukranian Jews".  Interesting as I never knew that level of detail.

Mine would be 100%, like Sarah Silverman and Iliza Shlesinger.
But I think if there were a lot of Russian nationals and citizens of various countries of the Middle East contributing to the DNA databases, our mono-colored pies could be broken down similarly to the way those with African American roots can see different areas of their white ancestors, and now (perhaps thanks in part to Finding Your Roots) different areas of their African ancestors.
Maybe HLG Jr. will get a Nobel Prize some day (posthumously?) for his contribution to world peace.
— by having helped people see that they are descended from both oppressors and the oppressed.

Edited February 11 by shapeshifter

[Driad]

5 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Maybe HLG Jr. will get a Nobel Prize some day (posthumously?) for his contribution to world peace.

Nobel prizes are not awarded posthumously.

[Lugal]

The thing to keep in mind with the pie charts is its based on samples they take from people currently living in the areas and may not take into account past migrations and since each company has their own samples, it can account for differences between the tests.  I don't know if they take Ancient DNA into account.  They're also always updating their samples so it can lead to results changing.

I tested with FTDNA and when I first got the results it showed:

British Isles, 47%

Western and Central Europe 19%

Scandinavia 19%

Southern Europe 6%

Asia Minor 8%

Now, this broadly matches with what I had in the family tree, as pretty much all my ancestors came from from the British Isles, Switzerland and Germany.  No paper trail to Scandinavia, but they could have been Vikings who settled in England in Medieval times.  I never traced ancestry back to Southern Europe or Asia Minor, but maybe a Roman Legionnaire on the Rhine frontier married a local girl and settled down 1500 years ago?  Who knows?

But a few years later when they updated their samples, it changed to British Isles 58%, Eastern Europe 24%, Scandinavia 7% Asia Minor 8% with trace results (<2%) from Western and Central Europe and The East Middle East.

When I checked again recently, the results changed again to 95% British Isles, with trace results from the Italian Peninsula (<2%) with less than 1% each from Malta, Greece& the Balkans, The Baltic, Anatolia/Armenia/Mesopotamia, and the Arabian Peninsula.

So long story short, take the pie charts with a grain of salt.

[PRgal]

They also can’t tell without a paper trail for DNA you didn’t get from your parents.  That’s why siblings can have different results.  

[Yeah No]

11 hours ago, Lugal said:

So long story short, take the pie charts with a grain of salt.

I do.  I haven't kept track, but since I've had my DNA tested going back almost 20 years now the admixture has changed several times and is slightly different on each site (23andMe, FTDNA and Ancestry.com).

One good thing is that my father had his DNA tested on these sites before he died which I have linked to my accounts so I have extra information on where I inherited what.

[iMonrey]

23 hours ago, Lugal said:

When I checked again recently, the results changed again to 95% British Isles, with trace results from the Italian Peninsula (<2%) with less than 1% each from Malta, Greece& the Balkans, The Baltic, Anatolia/Armenia/Mesopotamia, and the Arabian Peninsula.

So long story short, take the pie charts with a grain of salt.

Same. First time I got my results the top match was western Europe. Now it's Wales. WTF. There used to be Irish in there too and now there isn't. Make up your minds!

[Yeah No]

13 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Same. First time I got my results the top match was western Europe. Now it's Wales. WTF. There used to be Irish in there too and now there isn't. Make up your minds!

The same happened to me.  My Western European keeps changing percentages among French, German, British and Irish.  Last time I was a lot more British/Irish and less French/German.  Now it's the other way around.  It's been all over the map.  My other ethnicities haven't changed nearly as much.

[shapeshifter]

53 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

The same happened to me.  My Western European keeps changing percentages among French, German, British and Irish.  Last time I was a lot more British/Irish and less French/German.  Now it's the other way around.  It's been all over the map.  My other ethnicities haven't changed nearly as much.

So the changes seem to be corrections as more data = more accuracy?

[Yeah No]

5 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

So the changes seem to be corrections as more data = more accuracy?

That's what they tell us.  But it also underlines how borders were mostly meaningless in Europe for a very long time relatively speaking and there was a lot of moving around before any of today's borders existed.  It makes it harder to pinpoint exactly where someone's history lies because certain DNA strains exist in more than one country.  I have a good idea where my ancestors were from based on several generations of family tree so right now I probably have a better idea of what my percentages are than the DNA results are able to provide.  Right now Ancestry.com's admixture resembles my family tree more than 23 and Me's does.  But it fluctuates.

[iMonrey]

4 hours ago, Yeah No said:

That's what they tell us.  But it also underlines how borders were mostly meaningless in Europe for a very long time relatively speaking and there was a lot of moving around before any of today's borders existed.  It makes it harder to pinpoint exactly where someone's history lies because certain DNA strains exist in more than one country.  I have a good idea where my ancestors were from based on several generations of family tree so right now I probably have a better idea of what my percentages are than the DNA results are able to provide. 

Agreed, the methodology is flawed in concept, IMO. At the very least it makes assumptions it cannot guarantee. I knew the roots of my Native American ancestor, and I remember in grade school a teacher asking me which tribe. When I told her she said that was wrong because it was the wrong part of the country. She simply assumed my family had always live in the state we were currently residing in and therefore it must have been a different tribe!

When one considers the shifting borders and migration of historical Europe, I'd say the DNA findings become even more meaningless.

[PRgal]

8 hours ago, Yeah No said:

That's what they tell us.  But it also underlines how borders were mostly meaningless in Europe for a very long time relatively speaking and there was a lot of moving around before any of today's borders existed.  It makes it harder to pinpoint exactly where someone's history lies because certain DNA strains exist in more than one country.  I have a good idea where my ancestors were from based on several generations of family tree so right now I probably have a better idea of what my percentages are than the DNA results are able to provide.  Right now Ancestry.com's admixture resembles my family tree more than 23 and Me's does.  But it fluctuates.

Lots of countries being taken over by other countries as well.  And that's pretty much global.  Wars happen.  Empires happen.  Some of my ancestors are from an ethnic group that eventually settled in places like Myanmar and Laos.  That's actually far from where most of my ancestors are from (southeast coastal regions of China).  And my maiden name traces back to a duke from the central region of the country.  And yeah, my Ancestry test does say I have roots in "central China."  

[meep.meep]

On 2/9/2024 at 11:20 PM, Yeah No said:

Until Sunny's I had never seen an admixture pie chart with that many ethnicities represented.  I thought I had quite a few but hers is way more complicated than mine is.

Jessica Alba's was that complicated and that was a few years ago during the "Northern European" designations.

Both Sunny and Jesse's charts were also broken into two separate pies:  one for African descent and one for White/Caucasian/European.

[bybrandy]

With those names and places in Georgia I was waiting to learn my family owned Jesse’s family.  And while I didn’t it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that later. 

[shapeshifter]

At the beginning of the episodes this disclaimer is shown:

I thought of the comments above about changes over time in the percentages and makeup of your ancestries as evaluated by commercial DNA collectors, especially “The discovery of additional sources or interpretations may affect the conclusions.”