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

[Dehumidifier]

For history buffs, which I think describes most people here, the Monmouth County NJ library is replaying tomorrow night (Tuesday 12/27) a very good presentation about the Titanic that they had recently:

ENCORE! The Titanic: 110 Years Later - Virtual Presentation

6:30 PM

**This program will be available on a one-time-only basis via the Library website or with this link.

110 years after its sinking, the legacy and tragedy of the Titanic still endures. But why? Join Historian Greg Caggiano for an overview of the voyage and sinking of the Titanic in a commemorative virtual lecture. Included will be an overview of the ship's construction, daily life for passengers, and what went wrong that led to its sinking. As an avid food blogger, Greg will also be focusing on culinary aspects of the journey, such as the last meals served to the first, second, and third class passengers.  

 

[Driad]

Article listing guests in the new season, which starts Tuesday, January 3.

[Blergh]

As for Miss Robert's great-great-grandfather, I can't imagine it would have been easy to have grown up being a non-marital child in rural Georgia in the 1870's- especially when all 'the neighbors' knew that one's mother's husband had died ten years earlier!  IIRC, there's been speculation that the author James Michenor (1907-1997) who was raised with other orphans by a doting but struggling Quaker widow named Mabel Haddock Michenor(1873-1946) may, in fact, have been her own biological son whose rep she protected via opening her home to orphans but it seems that Mrs. Roberts didn't take that extra step to shield her young son.

I actually called it that Julia Roberts and Edward Norton wound up being distant cousins!

 

[Mermaid Under]

Julia Roberts was less annoying than I expected her to be.  I'm barely familiar with Edward Norton.

Regardless of who the "celebrity" guests are, this show is so repetitive, and I guess I'm finally tired of it.  Even using genetic genealogy to determine that Julia Roberts was really a Mitchell wasn't that interesting.  I kept waiting for CeCe Moore to show up.  And I think I switched to an episode of Poirot that I've seen about 20 times when we got to the "your ancestors owned slaves, how does that make you feel" part.

Is it the nature of the program, or the host?

[PRgal]

12 minutes ago, Mermaid Under said:

Julia Roberts was less annoying than I expected her to be.  I'm barely familiar with Edward Norton.

Regardless of who the "celebrity" guests are, this show is so repetitive, and I guess I'm finally tired of it.  Even using genetic genealogy to determine that Julia Roberts was really a Mitchell wasn't that interesting.  I kept waiting for CeCe Moore to show up.  And I think I switched to an episode of Poirot that I've seen about 20 times when we got to the "your ancestors owned slaves, how does that make you feel" part.

Is it the nature of the program, or the host?

I think it’s one of those “you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen ‘em all” sort of thing.  I mean, I’m interested in my history/genealogy (especially on my mom’s side, since one of my great-grandfathers (my maternal grandmother’s dad to be exact) was an orphan who became a successful businessman.  Still, though, I pretty much know what’s expected in this series.  I stopped watching seasons ago.

[One Imaginary Girl]

I kept dozing off during the show--nothing against it; I'm adapting to getting up early for work again--but I don't recall seeing anything about Edward Norton being a direct descendant of John Rolfe and Pocahontas, which Dr. Gates tweeted about earlier yesterday.

Now that he's had two of Brad Pitt's costars on, time to get him as a guest if he agrees.  I've seen a tree online that shows we have a common ancestor (my great x 7 grandfather, so not a close one), and he's been on my wish list.

[meep.meep]

The Pocohontas connection was mentioned on the show.  

Norton came across to me as someone who had prepared remarks about being a descendant of slave holders.  

The Pocohontas connection was mentioned on the show.  

Norton came across to me as someone who had prepared remarks about being a descendant of slave holders.  

[iMonrey]

Quote

Regardless of who the "celebrity" guests are, this show is so repetitive, and I guess I'm finally tired of it.  Even using genetic genealogy to determine that Julia Roberts was really a Mitchell wasn't that interesting.  I kept waiting for CeCe Moore to show up.  And I think I switched to an episode of Poirot that I've seen about 20 times when we got to the "your ancestors owned slaves, how does that make you feel" part.

Is it the nature of the program, or the host?

I think it's the nature of the program. I've always had an issue with the way they sort of skim over drawing direct connections to the story they want to tell. The camera sort of quickly zooms up a ladder of names until it arrives at the ancestor whose story they want to tell. I'm fine with them rooting around until the find an interesting person, but I want to see the whole ladder; I want to know how that person's story affected their offspring, and their offspring, and so on, until it reaches the celebrity in question. 

Instead, too often, we get "your father's mother's mother's father's mother's father" did something interesting. End of story. 

I don't know if I'm making any sense here, but usually the more interesting stories are those that are closer to home, like grandparents or great grandparents the subject knows next to nothing about. 

Edward Norton has been all over the podcasts lately, promoting Glass Onion. Frankly, he has about as much personality as a piece of toast.

[HunterHunted]

The upcoming episode with Joe Manganiello might be pretty good because Gates had to contact Manganiello to tell him that part of his paternal line was Black people passing for white.

[Suzn]

I was happy to have the show back and really enjoyed it.  I'm not a Julia Roberts fan, but didn't find her annoying in this.  The Swedish history was interesting and covered things I hadn't know of before.  I am an Edward Norton fan and was glad to see how intelligent he seemed.  It was refreshing to have someone who already had a lot of knowledge of ancestors and yet there were some interesting stories of others he didn't know about.

The only criticism I have of the show is the very repetitive question "How does that make you feel?"  I think there could be a way to elicit a response without asking the exact same question.

I'm a hard core fan of genealogical research and mostly love this show.  What I wouldn't give to have their researchers put to work on my brick walls!

[carrps]

I thought the Pocahantas connection was pretty damn cool. If I were Norton, I'd also assume it was just a family story and not really believe it. Neat that it was true.

I thought both North and Roberts (Mitchell? 😉) were articulate and interesting. It's always a better show when there's only two guests.

 

[sempervivum]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Edward Norton has been all over the podcasts lately, promoting Glass Onion. Frankly, he has about as much personality as a piece of toast.

Yeah, in person he has zero charisma. It's funny, because the only thing I remember him for is American History X, where he was super compelling and violent.

I don't care for the 'and 17 zillion ancestors back, you're related to Attila the Hun (or whatever)' stuff. I suspect there are LOTS of people now on earth who are tangentially related to Pocohantas and Rolfe. 

Sometimes it seems that this is just a vehicle for celebrities to beat their breasts over their evildoing ancestors- or, of course, to bask in the glow of their ancestral virtues- sometimes both in the same hour 😏

[carrps]

9 minutes ago, sempervivum said:

I suspect there are LOTS of people now on earth who are tangentially related to Pocohantas and Rolfe. 

However, Norton is a direct descendant. Yeah, it's a long time ago, but I doubt I'm related to anybody other than those millions and billions who are descendants of Constantine and Genghis Khan.

[blueray]

I was really excited when I realized yesterday's was a new episode. I like both guests and have seen some of their movies. I did enjoy it but I can't help but agree it gets repetitive after awhile. I guess there is only so much you can say. I did call them being related somehow. I guess just that her father's side and both (?) of his seemed to be in the south around Virginia.

[Mermaid Under]

Quote

Joe Manganiello might be pretty good because Gates had to contact Manganiello to tell him that part of his paternal line was Black people passing for white.

You mean like Carly Simon and Roseanne Cash?    I wonder if he called them.

[Blergh]

5 hours ago, carrps said:

However, Norton is a direct descendant. Yeah, it's a long time ago, but I doubt I'm related to anybody other than those millions and billions who are descendants of Constantine and Genghis Khan.

For three generations, it was somewhat iffy whether any descendants of Pocahontas (AKA Rebecca Rolfe) would have a line to last to posterity. Rebecca and John Rolfe had their only child Thomas (1615-c.1680) in Virginia but Pocahontas herself would die in the somewhat aptly named Gravesend, England in 1617 when he was just two and since Thomas himself was somewhat sickly, John decided not to take any chances with his health and sailed back to Virginia without him- never seeing him again! Thomas Rolfe grew up in England but later settled in Virginia got married and sired a single daughter named Jane (1650-1676) who married a Robert Bolling before giving birth to her only child John Bolling (1676-1729) . Luckily Pocahontas's great-grandson DID live to sire a large prolific family and it's from THEM that every documented descendant of Pocahontas survives. It's not unlike how the Royal Stewarts of Scotland from James IV to James VI consisted of a single adult leaving behind a single toddler or even infant heir to keep the line going until Mary, Queen of Scot's son James VI finally had a sizable enough family to keep things going!

[shapeshifter]

On 1/3/2023 at 10:52 PM, Blergh said:

As for Miss Robert's great-great-grandfather, I can't imagine it would have been easy to have grown up being a non-marital child in rural Georgia in the 1870's- especially when all 'the neighbors' knew that one's mother's husband had died ten years earlier!  IIRC, there's been speculation that the author James Michenor (1907-1997) who was raised with other orphans by a doting but struggling Quaker widow named Mabel Haddock Michenor(1873-1946) may, in fact, have been her own biological son whose rep she protected via opening her home to orphans but it seems that Mrs. Roberts didn't take that extra step to shield her young son.

Perhaps Julia Roberts ancestor “adopted” her son? Maybe the Mitchells had too many children to care for. Maybe the Grandma and neighbor of Julia Robert’s widowed, childless ancestor  took a Mitchell kid in to live with her, and wasn’t up to the task, so Julia’s ancestor took him as her own.
 

I’m surprised there haven’t been any discoveries of the currently alive descendants of enslaved people whose ancestors were owned by the ancestors of currently wealthy celebrities who then decide to share the wealth in some way.

[Driad]

51 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Perhaps Julia Roberts ancestor “adopted” her son?

Maybe. Some people, when they learn that Mr. X was not the father of Baby X, assume that Mrs. X must have cheated, but there are other possibilities including adoption and rape. If Mrs. Roberts had an unmarried daughter who became pregnant, Mrs. R might have said that the baby was hers (or adopted or whatever) to preserve her daughter's reputation.

[Yeah No]

My question is what the child was told about who his father was.  Mr. Roberts was already dead long enough for him not to be the father so at least when the child grew up he would know he didn't belong to him, especially if there were other siblings around to tell him.  Maybe he wasn't told the true identity of his father either and his mother made up a story about that to explain his existence, but I'm not going to entertain theories sanitizing this because it really looks like an affair to me. 

There's also the chance that she didn't explain it away as her sister's kid or whatever.  I think today we have this image of the past as being more like TV and movies in that people were always ostracized and wore the scarlet letter for being less than pure.  At best, no one may have cared or paid attention to it.  At worst, a few may have wondered about it and gossiped in private, but beyond that it may not have been of much consequence to her or the child.  She may have kept mostly to herself and if anyone noticed, people figured it wasn't their business and moved on.  Obviously she was probably far from the first widow to have a child out of wedlock with no identified father.  It was probably more common than people today think.

[OtterMommy]

I finally had the chance to watch this last night.  My main takeaways are:
1 - I like Julia Roberts the person more than Julia Roberts the actress
2 - Ed Norton seemed to be exactly who I thought he would be: one of those people who always has to be the smartest person of the room.  Ugh.

I do find it strange(ly hilarious) that he was so surprised that he truly was descended from Pocohontas.  Of all those mythical famous people of the past, Pocohontas is one of the easiest for whom you can track descendants.  Maybe he was just hoping he wasn't Wayne Newton's cousin.

[shapeshifter]

My alternate theories about Julia Roberts' unknown/Mitchell ancestor are probably colored by a heroic tale of my daughter's husband's great (or maybe great great) maiden aunt who took in a large number of nieces and nephews whose parents (her siblings) died of something like Tuberculosis, and brought them from Europe to North America. I heard the story 3 years ago, so I'm fuzzy on the facts and details.

 

6 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

I do find it strange(ly hilarious) that he was so surprised that he truly was descended from Pocohontas.  Of all those mythical famous people of the past, Pocohontas is one of the easiest for whom you can track

I didn't know it was easy to track genealogy to Pocahontas, so it didn't surprise me that Edward Norton wondered if it was fact or family legend. My family history is riddled with stories that have morphed into legends with retelling. One time my uncle told me a story about an ancestor, and when I shared it with my mom (my uncle's sister) my mom said that was just something he saw in a movie.

Plus, it was not so long ago that Elizabeth Warren got in trouble on social media for assuming a family legend was true about her having a significant amount of Native American ancestors. 
As an actor in the public eye, I can imagine this made Edward Norton think twice about the family lore regarding Pocahontas.

Anyway, thanks for reading.  
I don’t want to bother her sisters, who both work a lot of overtime.

Edited January 5, 2023 by shapeshifter

[Miss Anne Thrope]

On 1/4/2023 at 11:15 AM, meep.meep said:

Norton came across to me as someone who had prepared remarks about being a descendant of slave holders.  

I feel like years ago Ben Affleck gave a master class in how not to react upon finding our your ancestors owned slaves, so I imagine any celebrities doing this show since then have considered "what if...." and at least had some idea how to better outwardly handle this kind of reveal.

 

 

[OtterMommy]

Just now, Miss Anne Thrope said:

I feel like years ago Ben Affleck gave a master class in how not to react upon finding our your ancestors owned slaves, so I imagine any celebrities doing this show since then have considered "what if...." and at least had some idea how to better outwardly handle this kind of reveal.

 

 

Also, it was said early in the episode that Ed Norton had already researched his family (another reason I don't know why he was so surprised to be related to Pocohontas), so he probably already knew his family had held slaves.

Of course, as Julia Roberts said, if you're white and from the South, you should just expect that your family held slaves.

[Blergh]

21 hours ago, Driad said:

Maybe. Some people, when they learn that Mr. X was not the father of Baby X, assume that Mrs. X must have cheated, but there are other possibilities including adoption and rape. If Mrs. Roberts had an unmarried daughter who became pregnant, Mrs. R might have said that the baby was hers (or adopted or whatever) to preserve her daughter's reputation.

It sometimes happened that older mothers would attempt to pass off their unwed teen daughters' babies as their own but usually the mothers themselves were still married since if the mothers were willing to let their own reps get trashed, it wouldn't have been much help for their daughters. Don't forget that it wasn't just the brides themselves who were expected in that time and place to have been  chaste but it wasn't unheard of for grooms' families to take dim views of  the brides if their  own mothers hadn't had spotless reps even long after widowhood!

Sometimes, folks would 'adopt' children they claimed were the offspring of distant and/or fictitious relatives but it seems Mrs. Roberts didn't attempt any subterfuge and evidently Dr. Gates and his investigators found nothing to hint at her NOT being the actual biological mother of this baby boy.  Of course, at this late date, the only way to prove it would be to have unquestioned DNA from both sets of remains and see if he not only had 50% of her DNA but also her mitochrondria.

[One Imaginary Girl]

I did rewatch for the part about Pocahontas and was amused that he didn't believe the family lore about it, since it seems so common for people to believe the untrue stories passed down in their families.  I don't consider the current-day people to be liars, though.  A lot of the guests on genealogy shows seem to know little beyond their grandparents, and genealogy isn't easy and can be time consuming.  

[PRgal]

27 minutes ago, One Imaginary Girl said:

I did rewatch for the part about Pocahontas and was amused that he didn't believe the family lore about it, since it seems so common for people to believe the untrue stories passed down in their families.  I don't consider the current-day people to be liars, though.  A lot of the guests on genealogy shows seem to know little beyond their grandparents, and genealogy isn't easy and can be time consuming.  

Not knowing anything or much beyond grandparents or great-grands isn’t uncommon.  I’m in the same position -  one of my great-grandfather was an orphan who lived with his sister as a child.  And all in know about my great-grandmother (ie his wife and mom to my maternal grandmother) was that she spoke a dialect of Chinese that barely exists today and that her husband taught her how to read.  I know more about my dad’s side (the male line, anyway) only because I have access to the family book.  

Edited January 6, 2023 by PRgal

[Suzn]

My mother wrote down as much family history as she knew, some back to my 4th grandparent level.  It was spotty and fragmented but there was a good start for when I started online research in about 1995.  A great aunt had researched her family name back to the 1600s.  There were some serious errors in it but it did lead me to the immigrant ancestor who came in about 1634.  It was a well researched family so if you could connect to the line, it laid out ancestors from 1600s to current and connected to other immigrant ancestors marrying into the family.

Not nearly that much was known about my father's side, but there was the family story about Cherokee blood.  I never could find the tiniest confirmation, just people writing stories about a Cherokee "princess", which was nonsense created about the attempt to connect to the daughter of a well-known chief.  When I did a DNA test and it came back with zero Native American and I could stop trying to track it down.

ETA: Family stories often or even usually have a grain of truth, but it takes a little imagination and lots of digging to get to answers.  I also want to add that as wonderful it is to have so much information available online and Ancestry.com is great in many ways, there is a huge amount of misinformation and it spreads like a virus.  The ads that make it look like you can find a complete family history with a search or two, are terribly misleading.  Misinformation is picked up, accepted and repeated.  I know that I probably have errors in my online tree and always state that not all has been completely documented.  As far as that goes, even documents need to be taken with a grain of salt.  Census records are a wealth of information, but it is also full of errors and it's always best to cross check with censuses in other years.

I'll stop now...

Edited January 6, 2023 by Suzn

[meep.meep]

For some reason white people who think they have some Native American heritage always think it's Cherokee.  It shows up on this show:  Steven Colbert had the same family lore about a "Cherokee princess" and he's 100% northern European.

[Lugal]

Family myths just kind of stick around.  When family elders tell us something, I think we tend to take it on faith.  There was an ancestor on my mom's side that everyone in the family insisted was a doctor (he was even listed on the family tree as Dr. So-and-so).  It wasn't until I started looking into the family history that I discovered he was actually a baker.

Then there's the antiquarians in the late 1800s, who shall we say "embellished" their history.  There's a family in Pennsylvania that most online trees trace back to the British Peerage.  But when you look deeper the dates don't match up and it sort of falls apart.  In reality, the line comes from a bunch of Welsh Quakers.

[OtterMommy]

1 hour ago, meep.meep said:

For some reason white people who think they have some Native American heritage always think it's Cherokee.  It shows up on this show:  Steven Colbert had the same family lore about a "Cherokee princess" and he's 100% northern European.

I have a friend whose mother is 100% Navajo.  Once the mother was explaining to me how tribal registration works--she is registered, her daughter (my friend) is registered because she's 50% Navajo, their children are registered because they are 25% Navajo.  Then, there might have been one more registration before she said, "After that, they're Cherokee."  I misheard her and thought she said "Turkey," so I asked her to explain and she laughed and said Cherokees are white people who want to be Indians.

Obviously, I realize that the Cherokees are a real and legitimate tribe, but everytime someone (including my husband) says they have Cherokee blood, I silently call them a Turkey.

(Also, my husband is not Cherokee or descended from any other Indigenous tribe.  I had his father and his maternal uncle do a DNA test and they are all 100% European).

[meep.meep]

The nice guy married to one of my cousins says he's part Cherokee.  What's wrong with being Sioux or Comanche or Ute?

[Lugal]

I read somewhere it was due to patterns of settlement and migration that a lot of people on the frontier in the early 1800s were more likely to meet Cherokees than most other Indian Nations.  In order to be considered for tribal membership, a person has to trace their descent from an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls (Indian Census).  I had a friend who looks Indian and does probably have native ancestors, but was unable to prove a definite connection.  Then I have another friend who looks more like a surfer than an Indian but he did get a census number and is a member of the Creek Nation.

[pasdetrois]

I enjoyed the Pocahontas story - that is a remarkable discovery. Her tribe, and six others that have been in Virginia forever, fought for federal recognition for decades and finally received it about four years ago.

Quote

For some reason white people who think they have some Native American heritage always think it's Cherokee.  It shows up on this show:  Steven Colbert had the same family lore about a "Cherokee princess" and he's 100% northern European.

When Native Americans began to protest their treatment in the 1960s, it became fashionable for White people to claim native ancestry. I recently attended a workshop led by a Lakota  attorney. At one point she said "If any of you are telling people that you are descended from a Cherokee princess, please knock it off."

The Cherokees and the other "Five Civilized Tribes" were marched along many routes from the southeastern US to Oklahoma and elsewhere. Due to somewhat sloppy tribal enrollment (many Indians were arbitrarily left off of the original tribal rolls) and land allotments that were given then taken away, reliable data on native heritage can be hard to find. Blood quantums are specific to each tribe. Add to that the fact that the five tribes owned slaves and had children with them (they were called "civilized" because they assimilated or adapted to European ways, including slavery). Many Black people do have true native ancestry.

Now there are two legally separate Cherokee Nations.

Edited January 8, 2023 by pasdetrois

[sempervivum]

51 minutes ago, pasdetrois said:

Many Black people do have true native ancestry.

I've watched this show since it began, and I could swear Dr. Gates has said several times that it's actually fairly rare. 

[tessaray]

My mother's family came from northern Arkansas, close to the Trail of Tears. We had the usual family legends that there were Native ancestors. Turns out we don't, but several cousins do, but from ancestors we don't share. So I can see how someone might assume they did if they never looked into it.

I have a dead end with a Norton ancestor who went west from Georgia (to Arkansas) after the Civil War, so this episode caught my attention. They may have been from North Carolina but it is next to impossible to find any documentation.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, pasdetrois said:

Many Black people do have true native ancestry.

1 hour ago, sempervivum said:

I've watched this show since it began, and I could swear Dr. Gates has said several times that it's actually fairly rare. 

"Many" and "fairly rare" could be similar numbers. 

Did HLG just mean that among those Black people who thought they had NA ancestry it was "fairly rare"? 

And "many" can simply mean, well, any large number. It's not a percentage.
 

Thinking of Jimi Hendrix, so I looked him up, and yes, even without DNA, his NA heritage was well documented: geneastar.org/genealogy/jamesmarshallhendrij/jimi-hendrix

 

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by shapeshifter

[OtterMommy]

51 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

"Many" and "fairly rare" could be similar numbers. 

Did HLG just mean that among those Black people who thought they had NA ancestry it was "fairly rare"? 

And "many" can simply mean, well, any large number. It's not a percentage.
 

Thinking of Jimi Hendrix, so I looked him up, and yes, even without DNA, his NA heritage was well documented: geneastar.org/genealogy/jamesmarshallhendrij/jimi-hendrix

 

 

I honestly don't know what the occurance of Native American ancestry is among the African American population and it has never been said on the show.  Honestly, I would like them to give us specifics like that (if they have that information).

As far as what has been said on the show, one of the guests (not an entertainment celebrity, I believe she was in government and I can't remember her name) was an African American woman who did have substantial Native American ancestry.  Gates made a big deal about it, saying the "all" African Americans say they have native blood, but it is "fairly rare" that they actually do.  So, make of that what you will.  I think all we can really say is that, of the guests who have appeared on the show and consented to a DNA test and who are African American, one has had proven Native American ancestry.

[Lugal]

On 1/8/2023 at 12:12 PM, shapeshifter said:

"Many" and "fairly rare" could be similar numbers. 

Did HLG just mean that among those Black people who thought they had NA ancestry it was "fairly rare"? 

And "many" can simply mean, well, any large number. It's not a percentage.
 

Thinking of Jimi Hendrix, so I looked him up, and yes, even without DNA, his NA heritage was well documented: geneastar.org/genealogy/jamesmarshallhendrij/jimi-hendrix

 

 

Henry Louis Gates did write about it a few years back.  The original article seems to be gone, but I found this one that quotes him:

Quote

I would soon learn that my cousins’ reactions were typical of the reactions I get all across the country when I lecture about our people’s genetic composition. When I ask black people to raise their hands if they believe they have significant amounts of Native American ancestry, almost everyone raises their hands. Here are the facts, according to geneticists Joanna Mountain and Kasia Bryc at 23andme.com: The average African American is 73 percent sub-Saharan, 24 percent European and only 0.7 percent Native American. So, most of us have quite a lot of European ancestry and very, very little Native American ancestry. And if this Native American DNA came from exactly one ancestor, it surfaced in our family trees quite a long time ago—on average, perhaps as many as 10 generations, or 300 years, ago, which means about 1714.

[pasdetrois]

One factor in tracing native ancestry is the traditional resistance of many Native Americans to having their DNA collected. Also, their presence in what is now the US was so devastated - through slaughter, disease, starvation, freezing, children stolen and placed into adoption, etc. - that their numbers relative to other groups are minuscule.

Edited January 11, 2023 by pasdetrois

[Mermaid Under]

Okay, I have to admit that I liked the on-screen personas of this week's guests better than last week's guests, and somehow that made it easier to watch. There wasn't anything really new in their backgrounds.  And apparently they couldn't find any evidence of slave-owning in either family tree, because we didn't go there.  It didn't stop him from asking them how they felt about every other damn thing that happened 300 years ago.

[OtterMommy]

2 hours ago, Mermaid Under said:

Okay, I have to admit that I liked the on-screen personas of this week's guests better than last week's guests, and somehow that made it easier to watch. There wasn't anything really new in their backgrounds.  And apparently they couldn't find any evidence of slave-owning in either family tree, because we didn't go there.  It didn't stop him from asking them how they felt about every other damn thing that happened 300 years ago.

I agree, although I enjoyed Julia Roberts last week.  I just find Ed Norton to be incredibly annoying.

I also learned (shocker!) that Jeff Daniels and Jeff Bridges are not the same person!  For some reason I had it in my mind that it was going to be Jeff Bridges and was completely shocked when it was not.

One thing I did especially enjoy was Jeff Bridges using his experience as an actor (in Gettysburg, is that right?) as a comparison to what his ancestors experienced in the Civil War.  I think that sort of experience is not one we've yet seen on this show.

I think my favorite part of the episode, though, was Jeff Daniels saying, "Fine, blame ME for the Salem Witch Trials!"

[iMonrey]

We've heard stories about Andersonville prison before. Ugh, this show seems to have an obsession with the Civil War. Maybe that and the Salem witch trials were the only two stories on the Daniels family tree the show could find, but I'm really tired of hearing about the same thing over and over again.

My great-great-great grandfather also died in the Civil War. It's one of the few things I know about because there are very good records kept about the Civil War so it's easy info to find. I'm sure if I ever went on this show (assuming I was a big enough celeb to qualify) they'd zoom right in on the ancestor in the Civil War. And I'd have to go "Yeah I already know all about that."

They reveal surprising DNA relatives this week so I guess they didn't have any. 

Edited January 11, 2023 by iMonrey

[Mermaid Under]

Quote

We've heard stories about Andersonville prison before. Ugh, this show seems to have an obsession with the Civil War.

This reminded me of one of the most egregious "how does that make you feel " moments of  this episode, when it was revealed that Daniel's ancestor was denied a civil war pension because her husband's heart disease was unrelated to his service.  I'm not exactly sure, but HLG said something like "how do you think she felt about that".   Has anyone ever responded "how the hell would I know?" 

As a host, can he take some other track rather than always trying to force his guests to be articulate about something so far removed from their lives and reality.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Mermaid Under
wording

[BusyOctober]

Maybe it’s me, maybe I was in a snippy mood, but both guests irked me.  Jeff Daniels and Claire Danes seemed to be sooo dramatic right out of the gate.  I know, actors emote.  But just OTT reactions too much. Maybe it’s because neither of these actors are favorites of mine, so I was biases going in!

it also felt like they spent a lot more time on the guests’ childhoods than usual?  

My very good friend has an ancestor who was hanged in the Salem Witch Trials. One of her “witchy” acts was wearing a silk scarf (hussy!). She has a memorial bench like Claire’s ancestor in Salem.  I always leave a flower when we go by.
 

 

[OtterMommy]

9 minutes ago, BusyOctober said:

it also felt like they spent a lot more time on the guests’ childhoods than usual?  

It might be because their DNA research didn't turn up anything of note and they had to fill up the time they would normally devote to that?

[Driad]

At least they have just two guests this week, last week, and apparently next week.  Hoping they will continue with just two. 

[Suzn]

I guess just because I'm contrary,  I liked last week's show so much more than this one even though I'm not a Julia Roberts fan.  I liked her and Edward Norton's histories and their take on them so much more.  Claire Dane's reactions seemed too much and Jeff Daniel's seemed kind of blank.

[sempervivum]

9 minutes ago, Suzn said:

Claire Dane's reactions seemed too much and Jeff Daniel's seemed kind of blank.

I agree. Claire Danes seemed to take every bit of info and over-analyze or intellectualize it, rather than project any straight-forward emotion. I was especially annoyed at her calling Margaret Scott's execution a 'tragedy'. Honey, a tragedy would be 'she fell in the river and drowned'. Being hanged for supposedly being a witch is 'INJUSTICE'.

Jeff Danels looks older than 67 to me. In general, he didn't seem to be really connecting to his ancestral history, not sure if he didn't understand or didn't have enough history background to evaluate the info. 

[kassa]

On 1/4/2023 at 2:53 PM, carrps said:

However, Norton is a direct descendant. Yeah, it's a long time ago, but I doubt I'm related to anybody other than those millions and billions who are descendants of Constantine and Genghis Khan.

If you are of English descent you're nearly certainly descended from Edward III. As is everybody else. Because math.   

The  problem, of course, is proving just *how.* 

I seem to recall on "Who Do You Think You Are" they took Brooke Shields back to Charlemagne, but they had the actual names and documents for each step. That was pretty impressive for an American civilian.

Although I like Skip Gates and the more intellectual tone of FYR, I always enjoyed watching the celebrities in their ancestors' actual locations.

Yes, there was a lot of "Guess you should get on a plane and go HERE to get your next clues" scavenger hunt type stuff, but there was something chilling about seeing them processing their thoughts in the location of a village massacre, or standing in a workhouse their ancestor was trapped in.  

 

[Yeah No]

On 1/8/2023 at 2:12 PM, shapeshifter said:

"Many" and "fairly rare" could be similar numbers. 

Did HLG just mean that among those Black people who thought they had NA ancestry it was "fairly rare"? 

And "many" can simply mean, well, any large number. It's not a percentage.

This is from this article on Science.org:

Quote

The average African-American genome, for example, is 73.2% African, 24% European, and 0.8% Native American, the team reports online today in The American Journal of Human Genetics.

So on the average the amount of Native American ancestry among African Americans is pretty small if they have it at all.