Who Do You Think You Are?

[Aethera]

This topic replaces the old Who Do You Think You Are? forum which has been vaulted at the location below:

http://forums.previously.tv/forum/903-who-do-you-think-you-are-v/

[Driad]

'Who Do You Think You Are?' Returns to NBC After 7-Year Absence  

Article

[chitowngirl]

13 episodes!! Woot!!

[Driad]

https://blog.eogn.com/2019/05/27/rolling-stone-ronnie-wood-left-out-of-who-do-you-think-you-are-because-his-family-history-is-too-complex/

Maybe next year.

[bybrandy]

Wow, cool news that it is going back to NBC and for 13 episodes. After just four episodes (which I totally missed) last year I was thinking the show was more likely to be headed to canceledtown rather than back to the network.   

I just watched the first 3 of 4 episodes of the last season and thought Regina King's episode was particularly excellent.    

Mandy Moore's episode was strange because literally I had just seen an Australian (Rodger Corser) episode that also had the Earl Grey Scheme in it and both times I was expecting a story about how these women were exploited terribly and neither time was that the story they were telling.   

Daniel Radcliffe was the first episode on this years UK WDYTYA.  His story was mainly just context for family stories he knew a bit about already, but he was genuinely delightful.

[Driad]

The U.S. version has been renewed and will air on NBC some time:  "Who Do You Think You Are? Season 11 (13 eps) returning series which will debut (TBD)"  Listings

[bybrandy]

On 6/27/2020 at 10:42 PM, Driad said:

The U.S. version has been renewed and will air on NBC some time:  "Who Do You Think You Are? Season 11 (13 eps) returning series which will debut (TBD)"  Listings

Was renewed in May of 2019 and still hasn't aired.  Do we know if it was filmed.  Feels like they should be low on programing in the post Covid world and they might want to get around airing it if it was filmed.   

 

[Driad]

Back on NBC starting on July 10, 2022.

[Yeah No]

1 minute ago, Driad said:

Back on NBC starting on July 10, 2022.

Thanks so much for letting us know!  I knew it was supposed to come back but after 2+ years I thought it became a casualty of the pandemic.  This is VERY good news!

[LizDC]

Yay! I was just wondering where it was.

[LizDC]

Back on Sunday!

https://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are

[shapeshifter]

Why is this on the hour before prime time?

[LizDC]

Quote

Why is this on the hour before prime time?

I think 7:00 is primetime on Sundays.

Edited July 10, 2022 by LizDC

[shapeshifter]

59 minutes ago, LizDC said:

I think 7:00 is primetime on Sundays.

Wikipedia agrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_time#:~:text=Prime time is commonly defined,p.m. Central%2FMountain) instead.

   👈shapeshifter realizing she missed this live TV factoid.

Has 7 on Sundays always been prime time? 
Like, back in the 1960s?

[chitowngirl]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

Wikipedia agrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_time#:~:text=Prime time is commonly defined,p.m. Central%2FMountain) instead.

   👈shapeshifter realizing she missed this live TV factoid.

Has 7 on Sundays always been prime time? 
Like, back in the 1960s?

Yes. The affiliates have network programming an hour earlier. For instance, 60 Minutes and America’s Funniest Home Videos (network shows) are on at 7:00 on Sundays

[shapeshifter]

It looks like prior to the 1971-72 season, there was a lot more programming on all days at 7pm. 
Here's 1970-71: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970–71_United_States_network_television_schedule

And here's 71-72: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971–72_United_States_network_television_schedule

Some volunteers spent a crap ton of hours putting all of this data into Wikipedia! 

Anyhoo. I will probably miss some of these due to swimming during the low-UV hours for at least the next month. 
I wonder if the free Peacock will rerun them next day or next week?

Edited July 10, 2022 by shapeshifter

[DanaK]

It looks like it’s only 6 episodes for the season, at least according to the Futon Critic http://thefutoncritic.com/showatch/who-do-you-think-you-are/listings/

Given that it was said to be 13 episodes, it’s possible it will be shown in 2 halves, with the second half later in the year. Futon Critic seemed to suggest that early on

[Mermaid Under]

I had to Google Billy Porter to find out who he was and what he did.   But did anyone have a thought about the show itself?  Having not seen this show since it moved to a cable network that I don't get, I had forgotten about the dramatic cut to commercial thing they always do.   And the leaps they take in telling a story when the only thing they have is a name on a census page.   

Edited July 11, 2022 by Mermaid Under
extraneous letter

[DanaK]

2 hours ago, Mermaid Under said:

I had to Google Billy Porter to find out who he was and what he did.   But did anyone have a thought about the show itself?  Having not seen this show since it moved to a cable network that I don't get, I had forgotten about the dramatic cut to commercial thing they always do.   And the leaps they take in telling a story when the only thing they have is a name on a census page.   

Yeah, they’ve always done that, kind of annoying. I knew who Billy Porter was and he certainly didn’t disappoint with what he wore lol. It was an interesting story

[shapeshifter]

I too know of Billy Porter. 
I kept mentally comparing this show to Henry Louis Gates' Finding Your Roots.
I liked that Billy Porter visited the different places instead of just sitting at a table hearing about what other people at those places discovered. I really enjoyed the last (I think) woman who smiled at Billy and said he had "come to the right place" (or something similar) and how she shared her research with Billy. 
I wish we could have seen Billy's ancestor's grave after it had a marker or tombstone. I hope it has enough engraving to say something about the injustice around that ancestor's death and how that sort of thing is still happening.😞

[Yeah No]

I liked this episode, it got me in the feels at the end.  I didn't know of Billy Porter before this but was interested in his story.  An interesting person with an interesting family.  This episode really brought home some very real and present issues we still hear about on the news.  I think it was handled in a very good and impactful way.  It made you care about him and his family.

I did feel that the episode got off to a slow start with a lot of time wasted with stuff we already knew being gone over a few times, but it did more than catch up in the end.  I guess I've gotten used to Gates' style of show and need to get re-used to this one.  I'm so glad the show is back!  Not enough episodes, but I'll take it.  Other than "Finding Your Roots" other genealogy shows seem to have gone away, like the Roadshow one on PBS, and "Find My Family".

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I did feel that the episode got off to a slow start with a lot of time wasted with stuff we already knew being gone over a few times

Heh, that explains why I didn't feel like I missed anything when I tuned in a bit late.

[zoey1996]

Glad this is back! Porter's family history was interesting. It wasn't until I moved to Williamsburg that I learned about free blacks owning slaves, and discovered it was often a family member owner that owned their spouse or children, to protect them from being sold and to be able to manumit (free) them.

[Ohiopirate02]

I love Billy as an actor, and his story did not disappoint.  

6 hours ago, zoey1996 said:

Glad this is back! Porter's family history was interesting. It wasn't until I moved to Williamsburg that I learned about free blacks owning slaves, and discovered it was often a family member owner that owned their spouse or children, to protect them from being sold and to be able to manumit (free) them.

Yeah, I learned about some of this during the pandemic for work.  Free blacks bought their family members out of slavery and eventually freed them if they could afford to.  Also, because slaves were considered property and not people, their family ties do not always correlate to the legal records**.  Slaves could not enter into a contract and therefore could not legally marry.  The show simplified Billy's ancestors and said great grandad bought his wife out of slavery, but the woman he purchased was not his legal wife.  That did not happen until after he was able to pay the State of Virginia in order to free her.  Any of their children born before manumission would have been considered slaves due to their mother's status, and he would have to pay the state again in order to free them.  

**There were a lot of marriages that happened in the former confederate states between 1866-1870ish.  The couples had been together for years and even decades before both parties could legally enter into marriage.  The Smithsonian has been working on digitizing the records from the Freedman's Bureau where these marriages were recorded.  Couples travelled miles to the nearest Freedman's outpost to get married by the government employees there.  

[bybrandy]

On 4/1/2022 at 7:54 AM, Yeah No said:

Thanks so much for letting us know!  I knew it was supposed to come back but after 2+ years I thought it became a casualty of the pandemic.  This is VERY good news!

THIS!!!

[Grizzly]

That was interesting that Nick didn't like his ancestors cheating. And that the local authorities also sided with the natives.

[shapeshifter]

I wonder about the editing of Nick Offerman's episode. I would imagine the celebrities get a say, but do the networks have the final say? 
I'm guessing Nick's comment of sympathy for his ancestors' plight was his only mention of that point of view and that they probably cut a lot more about how he saw the 7 brothers as irredeemable——but then in the end they got the land anyway.☹️

[Mermaid Under]

I never actually watched an episode of Parks and Recreation, but was familiar with Nick Offerman from countless clips and commercials while the series was airing.

I enjoyed the first five minutes where he was talking with his mother and aunt, who had done so much of family tree work prior to the ancestry.com influence.  And the 18 month gap due to COVID. After that, with no explanation, they seemed to concentrate on one line of his family tree. (The only interesting story? The only line with any documentation?)

After that, the story they told wasn't all that interesting to me. They couldn't resolve the dichotomy of 18th and 19th century behaviors and 21st century standards.  The perspective kept jumping back and forth and it gave me a headache.  At least Gates is always consistent - your ancestors owned slaves, isn't that awful, or your ancestors were slaves, isn't that awful.

Quote

I wonder about the editing of Nick Offerman's episode. I would imagine the celebrities get a say, but do the networks have the final say? 

This is something I have to get used to.  With Finding Your Roots, Gates is leading the direction of the show, even if all the work is done by his staff.  In this show, the "celebrity" is depicted as narrator, but I wonder how tightly scripted it is.

Edited July 18, 2022 by Mermaid Under
punctuation matters

[iMonrey]

I missed last week's, I didn't know this was back until yesterday. Nick Offerman's story was kind of weak, I thought. It mostly centered around one historical incident involving a land dispute between an ancestor and the Mohawks. 

Quote

And the 18 month gap due to COVID. After that, with no explanation, they seemed to concentrate on one line of his family tree. (The only interesting story? The only line with any documentation?)

That's usually the case, I've found. They look through the family tree until they can find an interesting story to tell and that's about it. In this case they were able to draw a parallel between Nick's strong-willed grandmother and his 8-times great grandmother, so that was the theme. If the story had centered around a male ancestor they probably would have focused on another immediate family member to draw a parallel or connection. Like "Hey, he was a musician too! That must be where I get it from!" Yeah, whatever, they rooted around your tree for eight generations until they found another musician. Big coincidence.

[Notabug]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I missed last week's, I didn't know this was back until yesterday. Nick Offerman's story was kind of weak, I thought. It mostly centered around one historical incident involving a land dispute between an ancestor and the Mohawks. 

That's usually the case, I've found. They look through the family tree until they can find an interesting story to tell and that's about it. In this case they were able to draw a parallel between Nick's strong-willed grandmother and his 8-times great grandmother, so that was the theme. If the story had centered around a male ancestor they probably would have focused on another immediate family member to draw a parallel or connection. Like "Hey, he was a musician too! That must be where I get it from!" Yeah, whatever, they rooted around your tree for eight generations until they found another musician. Big coincidence.

I seem to recall hearing that the show has done background on other celebs who were willing to appear but dropped them when they couldn't find a compelling storyline for their episode.  I think that Nick Offerman's affection for his grandmother and his interest in finding out about her lineage was the impetus, but, if they hadn't found the tough female ancestor, the show wouldn't have been filmed.

[Sharpie66]

Nick’s episode was amazing for me, and for more reasons than I thought before watching. I actually first learned that it was being filmed last summer when I reconnected with his Aunt Micki, whom I knew as Michelle when I worked with her at the Minooka library back in 1992. I saw her name on Ancestry and messaged her. I don’t think I ever knew she was related to Nick before she told me about the first round of filming in Minooka and that they were going to New York in a few months to wrap it up, but she didn’t know then what they had found.
 

My mom grew up just down the road from the Offerman’s farm (not his parents’ place, but probably originally his great grandparents) and knew the family in passing, including his Grandma El. In researching Mom’s family a few weeks ago, I saw the Offerman’s 1900 census entry on the next page from my great grandfather. In fact, we just drove past that water tower near his farm last Wednesday on our way to the cemetery.
 

I also loved this episode for all of the upstate New York connections. Part of my dad’s mother’s family is also from the Hudson River Valley (closer to NYC) and I am very familiar with Dutch Reformed Church marriage records. My 6th great grandfather who was a Revolutionary War vet also got land for his service in Ulster County, which is why he relocated from Maine. Further back in the 1600s in my family tree, just about every woman had a name ending with “je”—Annetje, Marietje, Grietje, etc. Heck, our family histories are so similar that the Maine family also had shady dealings with the local tribes there, especially during King Philip’s War. Also, they mentioned the three English ships that took over Albany in 1664–my 11th great grandfather Jean Johannes De La Montaigne was the one who surrendered as the final Vice Director of New Netherland.

[Lovecat]

1 hour ago, Sharpie66 said:

Nick’s episode was amazing for me, and for more reasons than I thought before watching. I actually first learned that it was being filmed last summer when I reconnected with his Aunt Micki, whom I knew as Michelle when I worked with her at the Minooka library back in 1992. I saw her name on Ancestry and messaged her. I don’t think I ever knew she was related to Nick before she told me about the first round of filming in Minooka and that they were going to New York in a few months to wrap it up, but she didn’t know then what they had found.

Maybe you can tell us whether anyone ever filled Micki in on how they got past the "brick wall" she hit at the 5th-great grands level!  When the first expert was all "We've traced your line back to your 8th-great-grandparents..." my first thought was that having worked so hard to go back 7 generations, Micki was going to be dying to know how they got back even further.

[Sharpie66]

I’ll message her and see if she found that out. I am sure she would have been curious—if I can ever hire a professional staff of researchers to break through some of my own brick walls, I’d want to know every step they took in their investigation.

[Notabug]

19 hours ago, Sharpie66 said:

I’ll message her and see if she found that out. I am sure she would have been curious—if I can ever hire a professional staff of researchers to break through some of my own brick walls, I’d want to know every step they took in their investigation.

I think a lot of us who watch the show are interested in our own family trees and it would be great if some of the experts on the show would share a couple of hints and tips now and then to help people who are stuck try to find the path forward in their search for ancestors.  Even a sentence or two from the expert who broke down the wall that Offerman's aunt encountered would be very welcome.

[Cherpumple]

I though Nick Offerman's story was interesting (I don't mind when they focus on one small part of a family tree), but I wish he would have talked to a Mohawk (Mohican?) historian as well, to get another perspective on the land dispute.

[shapeshifter]

3 hours ago, Cherpumple said:

I though Nick Offerman's story was interesting (I don't mind when they focus on one small part of a family tree), but I wish he would have talked to a Mohawk (Mohican?) historian as well, to get another perspective on the land dispute.

Yes. Exactly!

[pasdetrois]

On 7/19/2022 at 12:39 PM, Notabug said:

I think a lot of us who watch the show are interested in our own family trees and it would be great if some of the experts on the show would share a couple of hints and tips

I've always assumed the experts have access to vast, precious old resources that none of us ever discover on our own.

My brothers and I have trekked to a couple of tiny, vanishing southern towns to look at land records.

I work with tribes so I really enjoyed hearing about the Mohawk connection. The Mohawks are fierce to this day. Last time I was there one had to have a passport to visit their nation, especially if you represented the federal government - not sure if this is still true.

Edited July 21, 2022 by pasdetrois

[Gam2]

I was so glad to see this show returning. Somehow, it’s not as interesting to me as it used to be. Is this the same show that Lisa Kudrow brought over from the UK? I loved every episode of that one.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, Gam2 said:

I was so glad to see this show returning. Somehow, it’s not as interesting to me as it used to be. Is this the same show that Lisa Kudrow brought over from the UK? I loved every episode of that one.

Yes. I happened to catch a delightful interview of Lisa Kudrow on Seth Meyers' show in the middle of last night:
https://youtu.be/_M1-fLcqsYY
After they joke about both of them not liking the beach, they discuss Who Do You Think You Are.

This is the first season I've seen Who Do You Think You Are, so I can't compare.

[buckboard]

On 7/18/2022 at 8:22 AM, Mermaid Under said:

I enjoyed the first five minutes where he was talking with his mother and aunt, who had done so much of family tree work prior to the ancestry.com influence.  And the 18 month gap due to COVID. After that, with no explanation, they seemed to concentrate on one line of his family tree. (The only interesting story? The only line with any documentation?)

This is something I have to get used to.  With Finding Your Roots, Gates is leading the direction of the show, even if all the work is done by his staff.  In this show, the "celebrity" is depicted as narrator, but I wonder how tightly scripted it is.

The first episode (Billy Porter) also focused on one or two events in his family's story.  I agree, I would prefer to hear about more of the lineage on both sides.  The story of the tavern owning ancestor and the Mohawks did, though, extend through a number of generations from the early Dutch settlers past the American Revolution and was quite interesting, I thought.  It's a location and time period that doesn't often get covered on these ancestry shows.

As far as the celebrity being the narrator, I'm sure it is very tightly scripted, but mostly done behind the scenes, as the celebrity is sent from one archive to a library and on to the next expert, who has done all the work.  At least we don't get Professor Gates asking "So, how do you feel knowing that your ancestor cheated the Mohawks out of their land?"  Nick told us without being prompted -- at least in person.

I did enjoy that his mother and aunt had already done so much work.  I don't recall that happening before.

[Yeah No]

4 hours ago, Gam2 said:

I was so glad to see this show returning. Somehow, it’s not as interesting to me as it used to be. Is this the same show that Lisa Kudrow brought over from the UK? I loved every episode of that one.

Yeah so far I'm finding it a little underwhelming.  I don't know if it's because they mostly focus on one ancestor and story or because the stories themselves aren't as interesting or the way they're handling the stories isn't as entertaining as in previous seasons.  Or maybe it's a little bit of all three.  Henry Louis Gates can make even the most mundane story interesting.  He makes you care about the people involved and the way he jumps around to different ancestors and shows their trees is also more interesting because you get a fuller picture of their families.  I feel like this show used to convey those things better in its previous incarnations than it's doing now.  I also think Billy Porter's episode was better than Nick Offerman's although I think Gates would have done a better job on both.

[Grizzly]

Offerman's over acting at each revelation didn't help.

[Grizzly]

I really enjoyed Allison Janney's episode. That was a riveting story about Stephen Hopkins that I never knew. Not sure I'd want to get on a ship with him since he'd been on a few wrecks. How fun that Allison and I both have a Mayflower ancestor (not the same one).

[Lovecat]

I wanted them to talk about Oceana, the son of Stephen and Eliza who was born on the Mayflower during the journey!  Wikipedia says he was the only baby born en route, though another was born on the ship after they had arrived.  It is also speculated that the story of the shipwreck in Bermuda inspired Shakespeare to write The Tempest—there is even a character named Stefano who seems to be based on Stephen!  [We’ll save the discussion of the fact that I was today years old when it dawned on me that Shakespeare and the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony were contemporaries for another day, hmmm?]  Fabulous episode—one of the most interesting ones I’ve seen!

[Chippings]

I wonder how many of her ancestors they looked into before they got up to Stephen Hopkins -- a lot, probably.  A heck of a story to come up with, though.

It's always fun how the subjects always end up saying "I've been lucky to inherit my fortitude and determination &c from this brave ancestor" -- especially when the one they're talking about is this far back.  I keep a chart at my desk showing how much of your inheritance is from each great-grandparent at each level.  We each have four grandparents and the number gets larger very fast.  Each of our 11th great-grandparents is 1/8,192 of our input.  So at Stephen Hopkins' level she has 8,191 other 11th great-grandparents having an equal'influence' on her makeup.  

Great story, though, and a great find by the researchers..  And I have gotten to feeling kind of personal about ancestors at that level, so I'm not sneering at their feeling a connection   But the numbers are the numbers.  

[Mermaid Under]

Quote

I wanted them to talk about Oceana, the son of Stephen and Eliza

I was certain I was the only one who read all the children's names when they displayed that document,  and was more interested in Stephen Hopkin's personal life than anything else they came up with.

In addition to Constance, the first wife Mary had a son named Giles who came along to the new world.  Was Stephen the father, or had he been at sea when this unmentioned son was conceived.  And there was another child with Eliza in addition to Oceana - James or Jamarius.  I couldn't read it.  

This is what you get when mix genealogy and celebrity on commercial tv, I guess.  

[Lovecat]

2 hours ago, Mermaid Under said:

I was certain I was the only one who read all the children's names when they displayed that document,  and was more interested in Stephen Hopkin's personal life than anything else they came up with.

In addition to Constance, the first wife Mary had a son named Giles who came along to the new world.  Was Stephen the father, or had he been at sea when this unmentioned son was conceived.  And there was another child with Eliza in addition to Oceana - James or Jamarius.  I couldn't read it.  

This is what you get when mix genealogy and celebrity on commercial tv, I guess.  

Oh, I frequently pause the DVR so I can read as much of the document as possible!

Giles was baptized in January 1607, so he was a baby when Stephen left on his first ill-fated voyage.  There was another daughter, Elizabeth, from the first wife, but she would have been about 17 when Stephen and Eliza came over; it is speculated that she was either married by then, or had died in England, because there is no record of her in America.  The other child on the Mayflower with Stephen and Eliza was Damaris.  They had 5 more children together, including another named Damaris (the first Damaris died in Plymouth).  Sadly, the awesomely-named Oceanus died when he was only 6.  There is an extensive Wikipedia article on Stephen Hopkins if you'd like to read more.

[Yeah No]

I have Mayflower roots (William Bradford and John Billington) so this episode was very interesting for me.  I had no idea that anyone on the Mayflower also went to Jamestown so that was very fascinating to me.  I've been to Plymouth Plantation and it's a lot of fun with actors dressed in the clothing of the time and doing things they would have done.  I met a young man playing one of my ancestors and when I told him that he said, "Oh then we are kin!"  And he posed for a photo with him and a goat.  Great fun.  I'm so glad I discovered this ancestry while my Dad was still alive and able to go there with me.  It meant a lot to him.

An episode like this will be interesting to a lot of people because after that many generations a whole LOT of people descend from Hopkins.  Even if they already knew of their relationship to him they may not have known the history.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Oh, I frequently pause the DVR so I can read as much of the document as possible!

Same. I complain about this a lot, but the show has a tendency to skim through the tree quickly to get to the ancestor they want to talk about. The camera just zooms up a ladder of names in boxes until it reaches the top and away they go. 

In Allison Janney's case, the ancestor in question was her mother's mother's mother's father's father's mother's mother's father's mother's father's mother's father. I mean, that's a lot of jumping around to find someone interesting to talk about. Granted, I did think the story was pretty good, better than Nick Offerman's anyway. But it often feels like the celebrity is just a superfluous reactionary rather than the impetus of the story. 

[shapeshifter]

12 hours ago, Chippings said:

It's always fun how the subjects always end up saying "I've been lucky to inherit my fortitude and determination &c from this brave ancestor" -- especially when the one they're talking about is this far back. . . . at Stephen Hopkins' level she has 8,191 other 11th great-grandparents having an equal influence on her makeup.  

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

. . . feels like the celebrity is just a superfluous reactionary rather than the impetus of the story. 

Both of these👆 posts are correct, but Allison Janney's story just felt legitimate to me, and her reactions seemed to add to it, rather than just be set dressing. 

For one thing, they made the case that Grandma Sippy had a lot of the same gumption(?) as Stephen Hopkins, and damned if that one picture of young Grandma Sippy didn't look just like Allison Janney! 
Siblings of the same parents will inherit varying amounts of traits, so it's not impossible that Grandma Sippy or Allison got more than their share of old Stephen.
Regardless, Janney made it clear that she did not think for a moment that she could have had the fortitude to attempt or endure what her ancestor Stephen Hopkins did. To me, Allison Janney conveyed a mixture of both pride and humility, which seemed just right. Anyone else feel that way?

Allison Janney has always reminded me of my mother's best friend who had Mayflower roots, with regards to eyes, face and body structure, and voice. That friend spent her last decades in Bermuda. Just funny coincidences, no doubt, but it makes me smile for some reason. 

Mom always avoided revealing our heritage, and hoped people would think we were Mayflower descendants, which triggered me to be ready to be offended by Allison Janney's interest in her ties, but Janney came across as so likeable, that I could not be offended.