S11.E8: The Butterfly Effect (Debra Messing & Melanie Lynskey)

[Yeah No]

Quote

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. introduces actors Debra Messing & Melanie Lynskey to ancestors who made bold decisions that forever reshaped their family trees. Moving from shtetls in Eastern Europe to a fruit stand in NY City to the wilds of New Zealand, Gates introduces his guests to relatives who took great risks, overcame enormous hardships—and unwittingly transformed the lives of their descendants.

I'm really surprised that no one posted a thread for this episode - anyone can do it. I was away on vacation for a while and couldn't do it. I thought it was a great episode. More on that later.

This episode aired on 2/25/2025

Edited March 8 by Yeah No

[iMonrey]

Melanie's story was the kind I like best - finding long lost parents, grandparents, etc. through DNA. Sad her grandfather spent his whole life trying to find his birth parents unsuccessfully, and bittersweet this show was able to find out through DNA. That's a great mystery put to rest.

There used to be a show on TLC called Long Lost Family and this reminded me of that.

Debra's story was just so-so.

[Yeah No]

I've always liked Melanie and had no idea she was a Kiwi until this episode. Hearing her real accent was delightful! I first saw her on "Two and a Half Men" as Charlie's "stalker" next door, but they didn't mention that role here. I think her grandfather was probably better off not knowing what a scoundrel his father was, although it's sad that he searched for his parents his whole life with no success.

This story touched me because my own mother married a man during WWII that unbeknownst to her was a bigamist. Her army chaplain found out he was already married and gave her an annulment. She was devastated and didn't get married again until she was 30 to my father, a really great guy.

Debra's story actually touched me as well as I'm 1/4 Jewish on my Dad's side and I've always wondered if any of our relatives stayed in Poland/Russia. I know a lot of them left earlier than Debra's family in the 1880's and lived in the East End of London until the turn of the 20th century when they came to NYC. I keep finding evidence of more of them in the U.S. But I still don't know if any stayed behind and what might have happened to them. It would be chilling to find out my great grandparents had siblings or cousins that died in the Holocaust. If that was the case my father and I never heard about it.