Rita Wilson’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? was full of surprises. She knew that both parents were born in Greece and that her father had gone to Bulgaria at some point. Commercials and previews suggested plenty of surprises in store for her on her journey.

This was another episode that focused mainly on a single person in someone’s ancestry. Unlike the first WDYTYA episode that did this, the others have been met with more enthusiasm and received more praise from genealogists, including this one.

Not Much To Discuss With The Family

While Rita was shown visiting with her family, they only showed one quick part where she was discussing her father with them. Instead they focused on what she already knew and the beginning of the research.

In typical fashion, she knew more about her mother’s side of the family than her father’s. There always seems to be one parent who doesn’t discuss the family history, which makes it that much more of a mystery that needs to be solved. From birth until age 20 when he arrived in the US, her father’s life history was sketchy and incomplete.

Rita explained that when she thought of family history, she though of grandparents and further back in time, but in this case, she had more recent past to uncover. She knew his original name of Assan Halil Ibrahimoff and searched Ancestry on her iPad. She ended up in the Ibrahimoff Family Tree and found his marriage certificate from 1951. Pausing the video, I noticed that they had blurred her mother’s maiden name in every shot.

As an extra note, when I search the site now, that tree doesn’t show up, but Assan does show up in the Hanks family tree. After all, Ancestry doesn’t have scans of 1951 New York marriage records, so it had to be put there for her to find. Since it’s no longer there, I have a feeling it was created just for the episode.

Reading from the record, Rita noted that it was the first marriage for both and that her father was born in Oreon, Xanthe, Greece.

Oraio, Greece

Onward to places that I’d likely mispronounce, Rita went to her father’s birth place to learn more. Rita recalled a driving trip with her brother and parents in 1972 where they may have driven by the village, but she didn’t remember it.

As she walked down the street to meet her guide and translator, Deniz Hacihalil, Rita’s voiceover mentioned that she was meeting someone who had “done a little research for me”. Yeah, for precision in voiceovers. Arriving at the house where her father was born, she was already getting emotional. It was an interesting tour, as the house was used for storage and apparently to dry tobacco leaves.

The next stop was to meet her father’s cousins. They shared a picture of her grandfather and had trouble confirming the next part of the story, of who went to Bulgaria and when.

North to Smolyan, Bulgaria

At the Smolyan Municipality, Rita met with historian Dr. Vania Stoyanova to learn more. Vania had a family register for 1927-1934.

The Cyrillic was tricky to read but listed Halil Halilov Ibrahimov born 1876, Halil 1929, Faik 1930, Isen 1906, Fatna Isenov 1908, Ferhad 1919, Hasan 1921, Habiye 1927. There was at least one more name on the page but I couldn’t see it. Vania skipped over what looked to me like Fatna, who it appears was Isen’s wife. Rita recapped what she knew, still stating that he was born in 1920 instead of 1921 as it showed on this record and on Ancestry. They cut to the chart and used some strange spellings for some of them. What standards are they using to transliterate the Cyrillic? Also, I think the showing the name as Rabiye was wrong, as it looked like an X which has been transliterated to an H in this episode, and it sounded like Vania pronounced that letter also.

The next record she had was a military record in 1941. The history lesson was shocking, that he was drafted by the Bulgarian army to occupy Xanthi, his homeland. Rita asked how long he was in the army, and Vania was ready with the next document, a letter stating that Hassan was sentenced to 3 years and 8 months in prison. The document of his parole revealed that he was made an example for a minor crime, and was pardoned after 2 years, 1 month, and 10 days in Plovdiv prison.

The next volume of the family register in Smolyan, he was listed and crossed off after returning to Plovdiv in 1945.

Driving to her next destination, in a voiceover, Rita asked Vania if she could find any of her father’s living relatives still alive in Smolyan. In this case, I will excuse the assumption that nothing was done ahead of time. I’m sure they went ahead and did that long before Rita arrived, but it’s entirely likely that she really did ask.

Confused by the time spent in prison and knowing that her father said he’d spent time in a labor camp, she wondered whether his story was really true.

Farther North To Plovdiv

At the Plovdiv Municipality, ethnographer Meglena Zlatkova was “asked to do some research”. This episode started out with a more honest voiceover, but they’ve gone downhill since. Maybe I should stop nitpicking all of these comments, since they are always the same. I’ll just point out the rare, completely true ones.

Meglena had the census for her father, which listed Alis, born in 1929, his wife. This revelation was a shock for Rita. If she could read Cyrillic and understood the records, she might have noticed where something (likely, the word married) was crossed off and said vdovetz, which means widower, and the third listing of a son, Emil, born in 1945.

“Do we know when he married her? …Are you going to tell me the whole story?” Rita started to ask more questions, but realized Meglena was reaching for more books.

The marriage certificate came with a translation for her to read, where they Americanized the spelling of her name to Alice. They were married 26 October 1945, which was Rita’s birthday.

“I can only imagine what’s coming next.” I wonder what she was imagining. Had she noticed the third listing on the census page?

The next document also came with a translation, a birth certificate for Emil, born 26 December 1945. From this document, we got more details that were not read aloud when they showed the entire page. Alice was born Armenian, religion Gregorian, and 16 years old. It stated that Hassan was a stoker, of nationality Bulgarian (not Greek?), religion Muslim (which Rita had stated earlier), and 24 years old.

Rita asked if she was still alive. After the break, the next document was the death record for Alice on 29 December 1945. One last document showed the death of Emil on 1 April 1946.

Five years later, Hassan was in the US and married again. Rita was still on a quest for those missing five years to find out if there ever really was a work camp. Meglena suggested she go to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.

The Secret Files Commission

I love how Rita introduced the building like she was saying the name within quotes. She met Dr. Daniela Koleva there to learn more.

“If we turn to his secret file…”, Daniela began. I wonder if that’s where I have to find information on some of my people.

At this point, Rita learned that her father was in a labor camp, and that wasn’t just a euphemism for his earlier prison term. By the document Rita read aloud, Hassan lived a wild life, which was not to be tolerated by the communist government. Another document stated that Hassan became friends with the Secretary of the Turkish Consulate in Plovdiv, who arranged for him to escape to Turkey. He got as far as the border before being caught, detained, and then sent to the labor camp for trying to leave the country. He ended up in two different labor camps before escaping. They had also found the report from the guard when her father escaped. Was it also in his secret file? Probably. I loved Rita’s excitement to read how her father escaped.

Hassan became an enemy of the state and was still listed as such in a book from 1973.

Back to Smolyan, Rita met her father’s half brother, 96 years old, who was still living there. Just to add another surprise, Ferhad found himself in the same labor camp as Hassan, and explained that he couldn’t leave with her father because he had a family. He also had a letter that had been kept for years, written by Hassan in 1950, the year after he arrived in the US. In the letter, he mentioned that he was a stoker on the ship, which was also listed as his profession on Emil’s birth certificate.

An earlier document showed that Ferhad was born two years before Hassan, but there was almost no mention of the previous generation, explaining that their father was married twice or why.

The Family Reunion Grows

To end the episode with sharing the journey with family, her brother, Chris, flew to Bulgaria to meet Ferhad and learn about her journey.

Conclusion

I thought it was funny how Rita kept trying ask questions just as each person she met with was handing her the documents with the answers. I guess it showed that she was asking the right questions as she went, because that was what was researched.

I know that Ancestry is the sponsor of the show, and they get quite a few commercials, but do they really have to fake information just to inject themselves into every episode? That kind of perpetuates the false idea that everything is online. According to the show, you start at Ancestry and find something, then travel the world to learn the rest. I have no problem with them searching on Ancestry to find the census records and all the other documents they have, because they do have a lot, but I don’t like when a family tree is placed online just for the celebrity to find something, like a 1951 New York marriage certificate. That is not on Ancestry; it’s not even indexed by ItalianGen.

Genealogy research is about the details. I just want this show to be more honest in the details too.

This is the seventh article in the Who Do You Think You Are?Nitpicker’s Version for Season 3.

1. Martin Sheen
2. Marisa Tomei
3. Blair Underwood
4. Reba McEntire
5. Jerome Bettis
6. Helen Hunt

The URL for this article is http://idogenealogy.com/blog/2012/05/06/wdytya-3×07-nitpickers/.

I fell farther behind than I thought in these blog posts about Who Do You Think You Are? but I am determined to catch up. Helen Hunt began the show scrapbooking for her daughter, to preserve their history. She wanted to know more about her father’s side of the family, where she heard they had European Jewish roots.

Online, some people were discussing how we were back to an episode where she wasn’t doing the research herself and she wasn’t showing much enthusiasm. Just before watching this episode, I saw a TED Talk about introversion, so I immediately connected the two. It’s probably unusual for a celebrity to be an introvert, but that was the impression I got because of the proximity of the two videos. As for not appearing to do the research herself, if everyone wanted to or could do the research, then the show wouldn’t exist because there wouldn’t be professionals to do the work for them. As much as I like seeing the celebrities doing some of the research themselves, we know that it was done before they got there anyway. Not all will have the desire or the ability to do their own research, and I’m OK with that.

Looking for Family Clues

Helen started by visiting her father, Gordon Hunt, where they looked at photos. They knew the family surname that had been changed but didn’t know when or why it happened. They also wanted to know where the family got its money, knowing that they lived in a hotel in Pasadena. Helen started her search in Pasadena where her great-grandmother had lived.

Marc Dollinger met her at the former Green Hotel. They began with the 1900 census on Ancestry, searching for Florence Rothenberg, her great-grandmother, finding that she had four children and four servants. Knowing the name was changed to Roberts later, it was curious that they didn’t note in the episode that the family listed after them had the name Roberts. Maybe that neighbor influenced their choice of surname later?

Marc also had the death certificate for Gustav, Florence’s husband as listed in the census, from December 1900. She wondered when Florence moved to Pasadena, and did a search in 1910 in Pasadena, again finding Florence and the four children. There was no mention of the missing list of servants.

Moving forward to 1920, they did not find her in Pasadena. Helen suspected that the name had been changed in that decade, searched for it, and found the family again with the name Roberts. I like that they went one census after another logically like they should, but why didn’t they continue to 1930? Maybe it didn’t make the episode cut.

Another document shown was the death certificate of Florence in 1949, which had her father’s name, William Scholle. There was no mention of the fact that her mother was listed as unknown.

With more research, they found an 1845 passenger ship list for him, listed as Wolf Scholy. In 1853, a New York business directory listed William and Abraham Scholle with a clothing business on Bowery Street, but it showed William in San Francisco. Marc pointed out that Abraham was William’s older brother. There was evidence of half of this right on the page, showing the listing for Abraham, then William, then Scholle & Brother clothing at the same address as the first two. We have to assume they did more research to determine that Abraham was the older brother.

Northward to San Francisco

Finding William in San Francisco during the Gold Rush, Helen went north to learn more about how he was involved.

At the San Francisco Public Library, she met historian Stephen Aron. Stephen had the 1852 census for California listing William. A newspaper excerpt from 1855 listed Scholle Brothers receiving a significant amount of cargo. Another page listed brothers Jacob and William. They did not specify whether Jacob was older, but he was listed first.

In the 1870 census, William Scholle was listed as a grain merchant, which they didn’t mention. So he went from clothing to grain? He was listed with his wife Rose, five children, and three domestic servants. He also had a series of photographs of the family, but never explained where they came from.

One last newspaper page from 1874, bound in a large book, had a list of millionaires living in San Francisco, which listed both William and Jacob Scholle.

Helen next met with author Frances Dinkelspiel at the old San Francisco Mint. Frances had researched her own family, finding that her ancestor was business partners with William, and that together they invested in the failing Nevada Bank, which eventually merged with and became Wells Fargo.

No Ocean Crossing

Helen had an unusually early Jewish history in America. The majority of Jewish immigration came through Ellis Island and those years, whereas her ancestor arrived more than 50 years before the largest wave of Jewish immigration. It was interesting to see that kind of “alternative” history to what’s usual, but they didn’t go any further into it. Most Jewish American research quickly jumps the pond and looks for the origins in Europe. I think I was hoping for or expecting that. Instead, Helen switched to the other side of the Hunt family. Or possibly, they found nothing more TV-worthy, or found nothing more on that family in Europe.

Changing Directions

Knowing her great-great-grandfather George Hunt was from Portland, Maine, Helen went there to investigate. She met with historian Herb Adams at a pub. George was a sugar importer and lumber exporter. Herb found an article with a biography of George and information about his business, then he shared an obituary with a lot of family information. He then moved the research direction to George’s wife, Augusta, who was president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, among other things.

At the Neal Dow House, the headquarters for the Maine branch of the WCTU, Helen met historian Carol Mattingly. More information about the organization and the history was revealed and more photos of the family were produced. Helen also pointed out, mentioned early in the episode, that her grandmother was killed by a drunk driver; the wife of Augusta’s grandson.

At the Maine Historical Society, historian Dr. Shannon M. Risk began by sharing a biography about Augusta. Helen read that under Augusta’s leadership the WCTU offered day care, free kindergarten, brought female guards to coed prisons, got women elected to school boards, and gave women equal guardianship of their children with the father, all before women were even allowed to vote. While women’s suffrage did not pass in Maine in 1917, the 19th amendment did pass in 1920. After all her struggle she lived to see real change.

“Did she live to vote?” Helen asked, to which Shannon brought out the voter registration book from 1920. Helen began to look and didn’t find Augusta, asking if she was looking in the right place. This was the only time in the episode that she searched in the records herself. After a commercial break and finally finding the right district, the listing for Augusta M. Hunt was found. Two other Hunts were listed, Ella and Sarah E., but they were not mentioned.

One last newspaper article about Augusta celebrating her 90th birthday also mentioned that she was the first woman in the area to vote.

Out at the cemetery, Helen did a rubbing of the gravestone for George and Augusta, his death in 1896 and hers in 1932.

Conclusions

I didn’t comment on each voiceover in this episode as I sometimes do, but again they adjusted the truth with Helen saying that she asked several of the experts to do research for her. I guess in a way she had, as she agreed to do the episode, thus asking for them to research. Many voiceovers included a comment that the previous person suggested the next expert that she should speak to, which I believe.

As usual, a lot of genealogy documents were not shown in the episode. With Augusta living until 1932, she should have been searched for in the census right up to 1930, but the census was never consulted for that family. Back to the first half and the Scholle family, they specified which was the older brother of William and Abraham, but never mentioned where Jacob fit in. Had they found these men in the census together at any time? Did they find them each individually and compare ages to determine who was oldest? Did they find any information that took them back another generation to their parents and do more research on them? Especially because that family was Jewish, and earlier immigrants, that would have been of more interest to me.

They found a lot of pictures of Helen’s ancestors in this episode without ever giving a hint where they were found. Where does anyone find pictures if other family members don’t have them? Besides in newspaper articles, I have never found my own family photos outside of the possession of other family members. Can they give us a clue how to do some of this?

I read recently online that the first season of WDYTYA? in Britain was only 50 minutes long followed by 10 minutes explaining the research. I haven’t checked the NBC site in a while. They don’t have that, do they? I know they have deleted scenes, which I enjoy. And we have had some incite a few times with an online discussion or a blog post from one of the researchers. But I wonder, if enough of us blog about this, can get them to do a bonus video about the research process? Sometimes it seems like they’re listening to those of us online and improving with each season. Can we all rally for a behind the scenes of the research process?

This is the sixth article in the Who Do You Think You Are? Nitpicker’s Version for Season 3.

1. Martin Sheen
2. Marisa Tomei
3. Blair Underwood
4. Reba McEntire
5. Jerome Bettis

The URL for this article is http://idogenealogy.com/blog/2012/04/27/wdytya-3×06-nitpickers/.