Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr. - General Discussion

[Blergh]

I found it sad that Miss Packnett Cunningham evidently  refused to believe that her many times great-uncles could have chosen to have enlisted in the Union Army by their own free wills and might have done so due to wanting to provide for their newly freed family and/or wanting to free other slaves (and at least in part out of possible gratitude to the Union for having been freed from slavery). She seemed to hold onto the belief (despite no evidence whatsoever to support this) that they had somehow been forced against their wills to join and were somehow still slaves via being in the Union Army  . ONLY when Dr. Gates pointed out that their family DID get survivors' pensions from the US government for their services (which had ended when they each tragically died in Confederate captivity) was she willing to consider   that anything remotely positive had been wrought from their experiences. 

[Mermaid Under]

Okay, this week's episode is Kathryn Hahn (who I am familiar with, but the reason for her popularity escapes me) and Pamela Adlon who I don't know, which is more typically the case with the participants this season.   

Is it me - I'm not young, avoid the news, don't listen to music, haven't gone to the movies in years,  and I only have the most basic TV channels. 

Or is HLG picking folks that he wants to promote, regardless of whether they are familiar to his wider audience.

And I just read (on a non-PBS website) that André Leon Talley is one of this season's guests?  Him I know, and if it is true, his recent death means it will be the last episode of the season.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Mermaid Under

[deirdra]

I wouldn't mind if HLG featured complete "nobodies" as long as their genealogical history was interesting and took some digging to get to the results.  I loved Genealogy Roadshow on PBS.

[HelenBaby]

He had been working on Adlon’s for five years? I guess to find her mom’s sister? 
 

I looked at her Wikipedia page. And she is mostly a voice actor. Pam Segall. She was so excited that her mom found a sibling. Being on the receiving end of a similar situation, it’s not “cool”. I’ve been contacted by two people who were my father’s children in the last 15 years and my dad has been dead for 30 years. It is not cool. It’s upsetting. 

[Dehumidifier]

2 hours ago, HelenBaby said:

He had been working on Adlon’s for five years? I guess to find her mom’s sister? 
 

I looked at her Wikipedia page. And she is mostly a voice actor. Pam Segall. She was so excited that her mom found a sibling. Being on the receiving end of a similar situation, it’s not “cool”. I’ve been contacted by two people who were my father’s children in the last 15 years and my dad has been dead for 30 years. It is not cool. It’s upsetting. 

Performers don't think like normal people.

[Mermaid Under]

I am not familiar with Adlon or her work, but of the two guests, I found her more appealing, and slightly more natural.

 

Quote

Being on the receiving end of a similar situation, it’s not “cool”

Although it is especially true of the DNA investigations that they do, I think is is true of a lot of the things they find out or assume on this show, but don't really follow up on.  

[sempervivum]

1 hour ago, Dehumidifier said:

Performers don't think like normal people.

To be fair, I thought Pamela was reacting to the newly-discovered aunt having said 'Isn't that wonderful' when she was told about her half-sister. I got the impression she was touched by the old lady being so open-minded.

Nothing very interesting with these two, although I'm impressed by (and jealous of) Katherine Hahn's glorious hair. 

[buckboard]

4 hours ago, HelenBaby said:

She was so excited that her mom found a sibling. Being on the receiving end of a similar situation, it’s not “cool”. I’ve been contacted by two people who were my father’s children in the last 15 years and my dad has been dead for 30 years. It is not cool. It’s upsetting. 

One size does not fit all.  Because your situation was upsetting doesn't mean this one was.

The newly found half-sister of her mother was excited to find out this information and said she was looking forward to meeting her.

[ShelleySue]

4 hours ago, HelenBaby said:

I looked at her Wikipedia page. And she is mostly a voice actor. Pam Segall. She was so excited that her mom found a sibling. Being on the receiving end of a similar situation, it’s not “cool”. I’ve been contacted by two people who were my father’s children in the last 15 years and my dad has been dead for 30 years. It is not cool. It’s upsetting. 

Our family has welcomed a newly discovered half-sibling with open arms.  Pre-covid we had plans for a large family reunion so that everyone could meet him.  Plans were changed and we have done it through zoom and text messaging groups.  It was upsetting to know that my father-in-law cheated on my mother-in-law (they later divorced and both are now dead), but it was not the fault of my husband's half-brother and has not put any hostility in the relationship among my my husband, his siblings, his other half-siblings (my father-in-law's children with his second wife) and the "new" half-brother.

[deirdra]

Our family has welcomed a newly discovered half-aunt with open arms. She was thrilled to learn at age 78 that our grandfather, not the abusive man who raised her, was her biological father. She knew him as her neighbour as a child and always loved him. My father & his brother and parents were not alive to be embarrassed by the revelation and we learned more about our grandfather who died before most of us were born.

Edited January 26, 2022 by deirdra

[pasdetrois]

I love Adlon and Hahn so I enjoyed this episode. I don't watch the big networks' episodic TV and I seek out other stuff, such as the series and movies these two have been in. They are not Hollywood-fame-seekers, they just get on with the work, so they are not as well known as others.

Edited January 26, 2022 by pasdetrois

[Dehumidifier]

Both women were unfamiliar to me. I found them similar looking and was getting their stories mixed up.

[Crs97]

7 hours ago, buckboard said:

She was so excited that her mom found a sibling. Being on the receiving end of a similar situation, it’s not “cool”.

What bothered me most was watching them erase the name of the man who raised her and put in his place the new person.  I thought that was not cool either.  I’m sorry that happened to you.

Has anyone ever answered his questions with, “I have no idea how I feel about that tidbit of information you just gave me because I’m still processing it!”  I hate all the “how does that make you feel?” after every singe revelation.

[iMonrey]

Quote

He had been working on Adlon’s for five years? I guess to find her mom’s sister? 

I'd like to hear more about that. Has Pamela Adlon really been waiting in the wings for five whole years until this show was able to dig up her story? That's pretty impressive if true - on both her part and that of the show's. Especially since she's not particularly famous.

Quote

I’ve been contacted by two people who were my father’s children in the last 15 years and my dad has been dead for 30 years. It is not cool. It’s upsetting. 

I'm sorry if that was upsetting for you but personally I'd be thrilled. I grew up with just one sibling and we never got along. Our parents are both gone now. I'd love to discover a long-lost family member I never knew about.

[Cherpumple]

I liked Katherine Hahn's story, even though I got a little confused keeping all the people straight. Her German great-great grandfather sounded despicable for abandoning his young children, leaving them to forever wonder where he was and if he was alive or dead.

I know that Pamela Adlon had heard a rumor about her mom's paternity issue, but I'm curious about who actually knew what. I think there was a brief mention of her grandparents not having a great marriage, but I wonder if that was because he knew about her cheating and knew he was raising another man's child, or if he didn't know at all and the marriage was bad for other reasons. Pamela didn't really go into any specifics about her mother's relationship with the man that she always thought was her father.

Regarding the five years of work they did on Pamela's story, I wonder if that time was mostly spent waiting for someone in her paternal line to take DNA tests and have the results available online. Until that puzzle piece was available, they didn't have much of a story to tell.

Also, for those who remember the show King of the Hill, Pamela voiced the teenaged son Bobby. It blew my mind when I first learned that, but now I hear it every time I hear her voice!

[carrps]

I'm a huge fan of Better Things and Pamela Adlon. I highly recommend the show. Celia Imrie is awesome as her coocoopants Brit mom.

I can imagine how finally knowing some things that were only rumor before can be quite emotional. A cousin (first or second) found me through DNA, but another cousin (the only other one who seems interested in genealogy) and I couldn't figure out exactly how she was related to us. DNA don't lie, but people do. I'm wondering if whoever fathered her (I'm assuming a father because a mother would have a much more difficult time hiding a wrong side of the blanket kid) even knew about her. It'll probably stay a mystery until perhaps some other family member gets their DNA online. My other cousin and I were both excited to find her.

But what stayed with me most from this episode is the woman in Ukraine who turned in her own grandchildren to the Nazis. That's cold.

 

[Suzn]

1 hour ago, carrps said:

But what stayed with me most from this episode is the woman in Ukraine who turned in her own grandchildren to the Nazis. That's cold.

 

That was so heinous that I was surprised that Pamela wasn't more outraged and shocked.  It's hard to imagine that someone would be so despicable as to turn in her daughter-in-law, much less her own grandchildren.

[shapeshifter]

On 1/26/2022 at 9:13 AM, HelenBaby said:

I’ve been contacted by two people who were my father’s children in the last 15 years and my dad has been dead for 30 years. It is not cool. It’s upsetting. 

I've heard of similar situations. I wanted to put my DNA in the Ancestry database after I learned one of my daughters had sold her eggs, because I had no grandchildren, and wanted to "be there" should the adult child ever want to find me. My daughter talked me out of it, based upon the story of her friend's Ancestry "gift" that resulted in the apparently unhappy revelation of a child born before her friend's father met the woman who would become wife and mother of his other, now-adult children. Plus, my youngest daughter's grandmother-in-law was sought out by the child she had given up for adoption when she was a teen in the 1950s; I gather it was very awkward. 
Anyway, my oldest daughter did the Ancestry swab, so our genes are swimming in the pool, albeit a bit more dilute than mine would be.
And my youngest daughter just had a baby, so I am a grandma anyway. 
And, I already gave my DNA up for medical reasons (cancer, Parkinson's, which revealed that I will not be passing on cancer genes). Although that DNA information is supposed to be only for those explicit uses, who knows what might happen in the future?

Edited January 27, 2022 by shapeshifter

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, carrps said:

But what stayed with me most from this episode is the woman in Ukraine who turned in her own grandchildren to the Nazis. That's cold.

Do we really know if the mother-in-law of Pamela Aldon's ancestors was responsible for turning over her Jewish daughter-in-law and grandchildren to the Nazis? Isn't it possible a neighbor sold the information for some money or bread? Is it possible the daughter-in-law begged the Nazis to spare her Gentile Ukrainian mother-in-law, who had taken them in?

My mother's mother's parents came to the US in the late 19th century from Germany because (my mother said) "they saw the handwriting on the wall" (quote from Hebrew scriptures that my mother never studied). She would get very dark and silent when I would ask for more information. I don't know if it was because of what she knew or because of what she feared, but there are no records of her family in Germany that I know of.

Edited January 27, 2022 by shapeshifter

[carrps]

You're right. Could be. But who told the neighbors that the daughter-in-law was Jewish? It sounds like the son moved his family to the village when he was conscripted, but they hadn't lived there before then.

 

[blueray]

12 hours ago, carrps said:

But what stayed with me most from this episode is the woman in Ukraine who turned in her own grandchildren to the Nazis. That's cold.

 

This was depictable and it is hard to except that someone would be that evil :(. Especially to her own grandchildren who were under 3. 

[shapeshifter]

16 hours ago, carrps said:

You're right. Could be. But who told the neighbors that the daughter-in-law was Jewish? It sounds like the son moved his family to the village when he was conscripted, but they hadn't lived there before then.

I don't think we can know for sure.
Possibly just gossipy neighbors who were guessing.
Or the Nazis were doing a house-to-house search and Aldon's ancestors just didn't have the right papers.

It's possible the mother-in-law did "sell them out" but if there was anything that definitively indicated that, I missed it. Was there?

[Blergh]

I tend to believe that Dr. Gates would have been willing to have given the Ukrainian mother-in-law the benefit of the doubt that  either some unknown person turned in her Jewish daughter-in-law and granddaughters OR her hand had been forced if he had NOT found irrefutable evidence that the MIL had INDEED sold out her own family for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver. IOW, I believe that  he likely would have phrased it as ' it appears that, despite her best efforts to hide them, the daughter-in-law and grandkids got betrayed to the NAZI's' instead  of ' she betrayed them to the NAZIs'. Yes, I would have liked to have heard what evidence he evidently had found to reach that conclusion but that omission alone doesn't mean he didn't find it. I also would have like to have found out whether either the MIL's own son (the grandkid's father) and/or the MIL herself survived WWII- and if via the snowball's chance, they both did, did he confront and excoriate his female DNA Donor for having so heartlessly betrayed and helped destroy HIS family? Alas, we got no answers. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by Blergh

[Yeah No]

On 1/26/2022 at 1:18 PM, buckboard said:

The newly found half-sister of her mother was excited to find out this information and said she was looking forward to meeting her.

I think it can be upsetting when it's a a shock involving a close relationship and cheating was involved.  In this case it was grandparents that were already passed on, plus there was already suspicion so I presume they had already come to terms with it.

Thanks to Ancestry DNA I have found a half cousin, a child of one of my mother's first male cousins.  Her father had a relationship with her mother before either was married and she was the result.  I don't think he ever knew about her, and she didn't know who her father was until the DNA match.  She knew she had a father out there but not his identity and her mother was either unable or unwilling to give her any info. on him.  No one in my family knew about her.  And I only just found out about her several months ago, of course after everyone is dead.  She is a lovely woman in her late '60s who was born and lives in Canada.  We have shared photos and emails.  She also got in touch with one of his children, a daughter who I met years ago who lives in Florida.  She has also accepted her with open arms.  I don't think they've met either because of the pandemic and the distance.

I also found full first cousins of my father's on his Jewish side via DNA that he never knew because his uncle died when they were very little and their mother remarried and moved and didn't stay in touch with my father's family. I was matched with them on Ancestry about 10 years ago and since they were in NJ and my Dad was alive then, we met them once.  I enjoyed them very much because I didn't know many people from my father's family, only his father and an uncle.  I know they were in touch with my Dad for a while via email and phone, but other than sending me condolences on his death on Facebook I have not heard from them.  I wrote to them a couple of times a few years ago but never heard back.  Oh well.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Yeah No

[carrps]

5 hours ago, Blergh said:

IOW, I believe that  he likely would have phrased it as ' it appears that, despite her best efforts to hide them, the daughter-in-law and grandkids got betrayed to the NAZI's' instead  of ' she betrayed them to the NAZIs'.

Yeah, the show was on in the background yesterday, so I listened for this part, and he definitely says the mom turned them in. I don't think he would have said this if they didn't have strong evidence it was true.

 

[shapeshifter]

34 minutes ago, carrps said:

Yeah, the show was on in the background yesterday, so I listened for this part, and he definitely says the mom turned them in. I don't think he would have said this if they didn't have strong evidence it was true.

Yes, about 35 minutes in, HLG does definitively say that the mother-in-law was the only one who knew they were Jewish and that she turned them in (pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/episodes/things-we-dont-discuss). 
The only way I can imagine him being able to say that is if there was a diary that they did not have permission to mention. 

At the beginning of the episode(s) there is a screen with this somewhat cryptic (to me) disclaimer:

• "The findings presented in this series are based on professional guidance and research. 
  The discovery of additional sources or interpretations may affect the conclusions."

[Mediocre Gatsby]

On 1/26/2022 at 9:47 AM, sempervivum said:

Nothing very interesting with these two, although I'm impressed by (and jealous of) Katherine Hahn's glorious hair. 

During the whole episode I was channeling my grandmother and saying "Get your hair out of your face!" 

With Pamela I wanted her to keep her glasses off or on. 

The grandmother turning in her daughter-in-law and grandchildren was heinous. 

Andy Samberg's episode, where he said that he asked his mother if she'd like him to do the show, was the first time I'd heard that some people decline to be on the show. That was interesting. I guess I'd been thinking that people asked to be on the show, not that they were recruited in some way. 

[deirdra]

11 hours ago, Mediocre Gatsby said:

Andy Samberg's episode, where he said that he asked his mother if she'd like him to do the show, was the first time I'd heard that some people decline to be on the show. That was interesting. I guess I'd been thinking that people asked to be on the show, not that they were recruited in some way. 

I expect that people interested in being on the show contact the show, then the show tells them what permissions they would need from living relatives, etc. If Andy's mother weren't OK with her side of the family's 'scandals' being investigated and discussed, he probably would not have been on the show if the other side of his family's type of story has already been covered multiple times.  The show probably also approaches people with interesting backgrounds and countries of origin to see if they would be interested in appearing on the show.

[Cherpumple]

On 1/30/2022 at 10:15 AM, Blergh said:

I tend to believe that Dr. Gates would have been willing to have given the Ukrainian mother-in-law the benefit of the doubt that  either some unknown person turned in her Jewish daughter-in-law and granddaughters OR her hand had been forced if he had NOT found irrefutable evidence that the MIL had INDEED sold out her own family for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver.

I just rewatched that section of the show, and Gates says that "a family friend" is the source of information about the fate of the daughter-in-law and two children (they were lined up and executed outside of Kiev). I'm not sure if the show's researchers talked to that person directly, or if they found their testimony in a document of some kind.

Not to excuse the mother-in-law from this terrible action, but the Germans invaded the USSR fairly early in the war (summer of 1941), and it's unclear what fate the mother-in-law thought she was sending her family to at that point. She may have thought they would be sent to a ghetto/prison/labor camp, rather than immediate death. And we don't know what kind of pressure she was subjected to before giving them up. There are still a lot of unknowns to this awful story.

[BusyOctober]

Although I don’t watch anything Mario Lopez has done, I found him very charming.  He learned some disturbing info about his family, and handled it really well IMO.  He (and I) was shocked to find out the US government freely used the term “wetback” in their attempt to deport Mexicans in the ‘50s.  Horrifying and hurtful to know your family faced such first hand racism. Then a while later he discovers his European ancestors were involved in the slave trade, silver mining, and aiding in the dehumanizing of indigenous peoples. 

The biggest lesson I’ve taken away from watching this show is that most humans have complex histories.  We all have some unpleasant or even despicable characters in our family trees.  They don’t have to define who we are any more than having genealogical ties to Charlemagne or Florence Nightingale determines how “good” or successful we are.  I hate it when the celebrities on this show try to run away from the negative discoveries, but fully embrace the ancient, tangential link to European royalty. You can’t pluck the perfect plum off the tree without acknowledging it came from a gnarly branch.  Like a wise person once said, “You take the good, you take the bad.  You take them both and there you have the facts of life.”

[deirdra]

That chart of the 16 different racial classes of Mexicans and how to distinguish them that HLG showed Mario was interesting in light of Whoopi Goldberg's latest ignorant statements. Hopefully FYR will enlighten people on the history of racism around the world. 

Edited February 2, 2022 by deirdra

[Chippings]

We know it's standard procedure for Dr. Gates (and, actually, for anybody studying up a row of ancestors) to stop and study the interesting stories.  He took a very long and sketchy path to the 11th great-grandfather.  (How sure are they of the lineage through the 7th, 8th and 9th generations??)   But because there was a vivid and shocking story at the 11th great-grandfather he of course focused on that and, as usual, wanted Mario Lopez to have a very personal connection with the usual "how do you feel about.." question.

He really needs to remember, and let his guests know in these cases, the basic math of this.  I keep a chart at my desk showing the contribution that each generation of grandparents has in our makeup.  We each have four grandparents, so  that's one quarter; the numbers grow quickly, and an 11th great-grandparent has contributed 1/8,192nd of our DNA / our selves.  At that same level for Mr. Lopez there were 8,181 other people contributing.  (Or fewer, I know, because of intermarrying &c)

I wish Dr. Gates would acknowledge this just once in a while.  

[Mermaid Under]

Quote

Although I don’t watch anything Mario Lopez has done, I found him very charming. 

When he said he wanted to be the Latino Dick Clark, I thought, yup, he is on his way.

Quote

We all have some unpleasant or even despicable characters in our family trees.  They don’t have to define who we are any more than having genealogical ties to Charlemagne or Florence Nightingale determines how “good” or successful we are. 

This is probably the main thing makes genealogy programs boring and repetitive is that everyone wants to trace themselves back to Cleopatra, and no one wants to trace themselves back to Cleopatra's butt wiper*.  There was one Cleopatra, and probably a whole lot of butt wipers.  They have to cater to the ego of the guest.  We are always the hero of our own story, and we almost unconsciously cherry pick the facts that match that story, and ignore or explain away the ones that don't.  If they didn't present the "facts" in a way that guests could accept, they wouldn't have any guests.

That and the fact that every program ties every guest to slavery, on one side or the other, so that that story is repeated in every single program.  I think only Ming Tsai emerged unscathed there.

* no, I don't know if Cleopatra in actual fact had a butt wiper.  I've heard that British royalty did, so I made a leap here to make the point.

[sempervivum]

Is it possible that Melissa Villasenor was unfamiliar with the ugly history of the Spanish conquistadors? I didn't really understand why HLG spent a good five minutes 'explaining' the whole sad story or why Melissa kind of acted shocked- this was 6th grade World History stuff when I was a student (admittedly long ago). 

Mario Lopez is cute as a button, but I was turned off a bit by his dimpling and chuckling his way through his gnarly family tree. He does seem to have drunk at the fountain of youth, though.

[deirdra]

Mario's alleged 11th gr-grandfather looked like a child in that portrait.

I did like that Dr. Gates told Melissa Villaseñor that she is not responsible for the actions of her ancestors.  One thing I'd wish he'd also point out is that mixed race children were not only the result of love or rape; it was quite common for indigenous fathers in the Americas to sell or gift their chattel daughters to higher-ranking indigenous or white men . 

I couldn't help but think that both of them would have been eligible for scholarships and grants if they had known they were 1/2 and 1/3 indigenous.

Edited February 2, 2022 by deirdra

[Mediocre Gatsby]

It seemed to me that this episode was light on actual relatives and (maybe out of necessity) very heavy on history in general. I wasn't as interested as I usually am. Maybe each of these two people should have been paired with someone whose story took up a little more time. 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Mediocre Gatsby

[Mermaid Under]

Quote

I did like that Dr. Gates told Melissa Villaseñor that she is not responsible for the actions of her ancestors.

Have we ever heard him say that to any other guest who had an ancestor that owned slaves?

Quote

I wasn't as interested as I usually am.

Despite the fact that both guests seemed pleasant, I wasn't that interested either.

And I'm getting a bit confused about the various types of DNA tests that they run, depending on what they are looking for. 

 

[deirdra]

2 hours ago, Mermaid Under said:

Have we ever heard him say that to any other guest who had an ancestor that owned slaves?

I don't recall him ever saying it before, which is why I mentioned it.

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, deirdra said:

I did like that Dr. Gates told Melissa Villaseñor that she is not responsible for the actions of her ancestors.

3 hours ago, Mermaid Under said:

Have we ever heard him say that to any other guest who had an ancestor that owned slaves?

1 hour ago, deirdra said:

I don't recall him ever saying it before, which is why I mentioned it.

It will be interesting to see if, in the future, HLG is going to be frequently pointing out that individuals are not responsible for injustices of their ancestors. I think it's implicit that the corollary to this remark is that we are all responsible for righting the wrongs of the past to the best of our abilities. But I neither think most viewers will segue to that concept, nor can I imagine HLG being preachy enough to say it.

It was interesting to me that both Mario Lopez and Melissa Villaseñor had DNA that included African roots.
My high school boyfriend's family was from Mexico. Because of his coloring and hair texture, his family teasingly called him the N word.

 

6 hours ago, sempervivum said:

Mario Lopez is cute as a button, but I was turned off a bit by his dimpling and chuckling his way through his gnarly family tree. He does seem to have drunk at the fountain of youth, though.

Yes. Now I want to see Mario Lopez and Rob Lowe do a project together.

I agree that Mario Lopez's inappropriate smiling was disturbing, but sometimes I do that when talking to my therapist, and my best friend in high school used to laugh instead of crying when she was upset. So I don't hold Mario's annoying smiling at horrifying revelations against him as a person–—but he is a professional used to being on live camera, so it surprised me. I guess this setting was more like therapy than an interview for him.

[Cherpumple]

14 hours ago, sempervivum said:

Mario Lopez is cute as a button, but I was turned off a bit by his dimpling and chuckling his way through his gnarly family tree. He does seem to have drunk at the fountain of youth, though.

Yeah, he strikes me as someone who's always "on" which was a little off-putting during some of the more shocking revelations (I do love his dimples, though). I enjoyed him the most when he was talking about his childhood and family, because that's when he seemed the most sincere and real.

I would have liked to hear more about the indigenous roots of these two guests, but understand that it might have been difficult to find anything concrete.

It never fails to amaze me how this show finds so many great photographs - sometimes ones that are more than a century old - of their guests' ancestors. The photo of Mario's extended family during one of their earlier stints in the US (with the couple holding the ukulele and cello) was particularly fascinating, as were some of the ones of Pamela's Jewish ancestors from last week's episode.

[deirdra]

14 hours ago, Cherpumple said:

It never fails to amaze me how this show finds so many great photographs - sometimes ones that are more than a century old - of their guests' ancestors. The photo of Mario's extended family during one of their earlier stints in the US (with the couple holding the ukulele and cello) was particularly fascinating, as were some of the ones of Pamela's Jewish ancestors from last week's episode.

Those were great.  I think many of them come from new-found relatives who don't want to be on the show, but will share photos, especially if the guest's ancestors are in them. My mother grew up in an orphanage and it was not until she was 42 and the building was being cleaned out to be sold that the owners started contacting former "inmates" (as the kids were called in the 1930 census) to return their records and belongings. That was the first time my mother had seen photos of her parents & grandparents. 

[ShelleySue]

I recognized Terry Crews but I was not familiar with his whole backstory. If only a fraction of what said last night (being a janitor, etc) was true, I am very impressed.  Am I the only person who assumed that Terry Sr (Terry's father) was dead?  There was so much negative talk about him that I couldn't imagine it was being said about someone who was still alive.  I was surprised when Terry said he was going to sit down with his father and go through the book with him.

I was very moved by Tony Danza's remarks.  He said that what he had accomplished was nothing compared to what his ancestors had gone through (paraphrasing what he said).  Most of the time people seem to acknowledge the struggles of ancestors but consider themselves to be the pinnacle of those struggles.  I have no I idea what he is like in real life, but on the show he seemed to be very humble.

[iMonrey]

Quote

It never fails to amaze me how this show finds so many great photographs - sometimes ones that are more than a century old - of their guests' ancestors. The photo of Mario's extended family during one of their earlier stints in the US (with the couple holding the ukulele and cello) was particularly fascinating, as were some of the ones of Pamela's Jewish ancestors from last week's episode.

Most of those photos are illustrative rather than biographical. I don't think the photo they showed of Italian immigrants was actually Tony's ancestors. It was just a generic photo of Italian immigrants for the sake of visual accompaniment. Same with the slaves sitting in front of the cabin during Terry's story. When they do have actual photos of the ancestors they highlight the ancestor in particular, so you can always tell the difference. 

Tony Danza looks terrible with hair that long at his age. 

I love Terry Crewes. 

[12catcrazy]

I really enjoyed this episode although I had no idea who Terry Crewes is.  And I also assumed that his father was dead from the way they talked about him and also happy to see that his grandmother is still alive.   At my age, it's beginning to give me pause when I see people on the show whose GRANDPARENTS were younger than my parents (both deceased).  

And I agree 100% with iMoney above about Tony Danza's hair!  I kept saying, "Guy, it's not 1975 any more - get a freakin' haircut!".  It just looks bad - not flattering at all.  

[sempervivum]

Tony and Terry seem like really nice guys, and their reactions came across as more genuine than a lot of the guests on this show.  It is kind of weird to see/hear Tony turning into an Italian grandpa, he's only 70.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I really enjoyed this episode although I had no idea who Terry Crewes is.

I know him from several things but most notably we was on Brooklyn 99 and his character's name was Terry, and he always referred to himself in the third person. Occasionally they would have flashbacks to his childhood and he would refer to himself as "Little Terry." So I laughed when they showed a photo of himself as a child because it was like "Hey it's Little Terry!"

[Mediocre Gatsby]

I was really disappointed that Dr. Gates was one of the dozens of people who (1) signed the letter supporting the Harvard professor accused of sexually harassing students, and (2) retracted their support after finding out more facts. It seems to me that an historian should have done his own research before blindly supporting a colleague who has a history of harassing women. 

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/2/10/comaroff-faculty-letter-retraction/

Edited February 10, 2022 by Mediocre Gatsby

[Mermaid Under]

Quote

I was surprised when Terry said he was going to sit down with his father and go through the book with him.

Didn't he say he was going to have a therapist on speaker phone when he did it, or something like that.  From Crew's first sentence (My father was addicted to alcohol, and my mother was addicted to religion) I assumed both parents were dead.  Since they mentioned his maternal grandmother, but not his mother, is it safe to assume she is deceased?

Re: Tony Danza's hair.  Long hair on old men isn't great, but I've seen worse.  I just told myself it was for an acting role.  He needed some of that Toppik or some other spray-on hair to fill in his part, which was a bit sparse.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Mermaid Under

[shapeshifter]

8.6 "Fighters" is another episode without DNA discussion.

The story of Terry Crewes grandfather was really "heartbreaking."
I wonder if his grandfather's "epilepsy" seizures could have really been the result of abuse when he was incarcerated that included blows to the head (TBI instead of epilepsy)?
Or maybe his grandfather was born with epilepsy and it was at least partly why he abandoned his family. Mental illness was a source of great shame and embarrassment at the time (not that it isn't still).
It seems that cannot be determined by DNA?

I'm guessing Terry Crewe's grandmother instigated the case against his grandfather for abandonment because it was the only way for her to get some sort of financial relief? I wonder if she later regretted having to do that.

_______________

HLG seemed to really enjoy and appreciate Tony Danza.

18 hours ago, Mermaid Under said:

Re: Tony Danza's hair.  Long hair on old men isn't great, but I've seen worse.  I just told myself it was for an acting role.

IMDb only indicates Tony Danza is in an upcoming (Feb. 25) episode of Blue Bloods, so it should be easy for one of us to verify your long-hair-role theory. Maybe an old rock star role? 
Or maybe he's doing a stage production with long hair? A western, LOL?
Or, my alternate theory: Pandemic hair. (When was this likely filmed?) I don't recall any views of Tony and HLG sitting close to each other. It could have been a 12-foot long table with HLG and Tony sitting at opposite ends.
Plus, I think there were some people who have seen in the dark cloud of the pandemic a silver lining of an excuse for the opportunity to grow out their hair.
 

Edited February 11, 2022 by shapeshifter

[Dehumidifier]

I think Danza was exaggerating his Noo Yawk accent. I'm close in age to him. also from Brooklyn and people my age don't generally talk like that.