Category Archives: Genealogy on TV

Finding Your Roots – 10×05 – Nitpicker’s Guide

Hello readers. I hope you remember this blog, because you’re still subscribed if you just got this email. I haven’t done a nitpicker’s guide in a long time, but I find myself sitting here shouting at my monitor while watching Finding Your Roots, so here goes.

This episode featured Bob Odenkirk and Iliza Shlesinger. I had no idea who these people were, but I knew at least one of them had a Jewish story, so I wanted to check out the episode. Fifteen minutes into the episode, they finally started with the genealogy. Well, I guess that’s better than introducing them for even longer.

Bob’s genealogy started first, as Gates likes to switch back and forth between his celebrities. “The story begins with the 1870 census…” Oh really, does it? 1870? That’s where you started the research? Not with the 1950 census and then going back every ten years and doing other research in between? What happened to the part where they check every possible record they can find? He says that in the intro too. No, you don’t start in 1870. Stop teaching genealogy this way, Skip. How hard is it to say you started in the 1950 census and worked your way back to 1870? How hard?

I also hate that they never show much of the family tree charts that are in the show, or draw them out like another show does. Or explain them when we can see them. Who is Ida Baumgartner? Why is she sitting next to the family with no visible attachments to anyone? We’ll never know.

He stated that the family auctioned off their home and possessions to pay for their passage to the US. What record did they find that suggested that? Auctioned and not sold? Nothing is shown, nothing is mentioned. Sounds more like mythology.

And in typical fashion, they skip all of his American ancestors and go back to the immigrant from France, then his father who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and just wait until later in the episode for the jump back to royalty. The Americans don’t matter at all, it seems.

Next up, Iliza’s story got started. The intro stated that Iliza knew basically nothing about her ancestors. How many times will he ask her “did you know about that?” Too many.

First up, did she know anything about her father’s grandparents. Actually, that one she did, but not a lot. Her records start in the 1940 census. More reasonable for a beginning. But what about 1950? That one’s been out for a while now. The census said that Morris and Esther were born in Poland, “but as we dug deeper…” actually, no they were born in a place that in 1940 was considered Poland. That’s how it goes. It’s why people were born in Russia one year, Poland another, maybe Ukraine another. As the borders changed, they reported the current location.

He then produced their marriage certificate in New York City, where they both say they were born in Plock, Russia. What Skip, no comment on that saying Russia? Also, who told the city they were from on their NYC marriage certificate? Almost nobody in my experience. They might tell the region. But he believed this was the actual city. I was once hired by another genealogy company to do some research. They also looked at an NYC marriage for the place of birth. They were wrong too. The naturalization gives the actual location. If the marriage says more than the country, it’s the region, the county, the oblast, etc.

“Many records were lost or willfully destroyed. Indeed, it’s often impossible for us to learn about the Jewish people who lived here.” Where did you look, Skip? According to the Polish State Archive, Jewish records for Plock, for births, marriages, and deaths, exist for 1808-1825 inclusive, and 1826-1863 inclusive, and then the record books get a little crazy, they skip around the years, some are just one type of record, but they go clear up to 1914 and the majority of them are online and free to view. Not only that but they also appear to be already indexed on JRI-Poland. Why would you lie and say there are no records? Just because you couldn’t find that family in the wrong town? These TV shows lying about missing records make me so mad. This particular one is the one that keeps repeating that lie.

And finally, they found one birth record in Raciaz. Guess what? That’s a different town than Plock. Maybe they should learn to do better research before claiming there are no records. Are they trying to make themselves into miracle workers because “there are no records… but then we found one”?

Of course, Iliza never thought anything like this existed. Because she’s never heard of genealogy before, nor ever watched a genealogy show before appearing on one, just assuming that because her family didn’t know — or didn’t tell her about it — that it didn’t exist to be found. That sounds disingenuous.

Then we get the book of residents page on the family. Did Iliza know any of those names or from such a large family? Of course she didn’t, she already said so. Did he really ask her what their life was like? Again, why do you ask questions you know she doesn’t know?

Then we get Esther’s ship list. No, that’s not the moment she stepped foot into the US. The ship list was written at the port in Europe. I like how Iliza saw that she paid for her ticket herself and then they both made a big deal out of that. But more likely, the family probably saved up and sent her first, hoping she would do well and send back money for more of them to leave. But since the person she joined didn’t pay, the ship list says she paid for her “self”. Also, what about that uncle she joined? We never hear about him again. That is more of her family that she doesn’t know anything about and they skip right over it.

Back to Bob, but I was already shouting and starting the blog post, so I didn’t pay much attention the first time through. This is where we jumped back another five generations. So they look at a marriage certificate that does not list the parents, they then tell us who the parents are but not how they know, then look up more about the mother. Where did they get the parents’ names from? Upon finding the mother’s death certificate, they tie her to a Duke and back to the royal families of Europe. Because that seems to be the goal of all TV genealogists, to find the royal connection.

Back to Iliza, it’s a Jewish story, so we have to get the Holocaust part of the story. When Esther immigrated, she left five siblings behind. How do they know? First, how do they know all five were still alive? How do they know some didn’t leave? How do they know there weren’t any more born after the book of residents?

“This was never talked about in your family…?” Didn’t we already establish she didn’t know anything? She never thought she had any connection to the Holocaust because she didn’t know the history. They got lucky and found an Auschwitz record for one brother. I have survivors and victims in my family who went to Auschwitz and there isn’t a record there for any of them.

Another brother went to France, had a family, and then they found him coming to America in 1955. But none of his family? How about what happened to him in America? Did he have another family? Are there relatives in his line? Can she image his reunion to his sister? How do they know they had a reunion? A lot of families couldn’t find each other after the Holocaust. Those 1955 lists didn’t say who they were joining. “According to one of his daughters…” and who was that daughter? Was she from the French family or a later one? Who was she? Did they tell Iliza where to find her cousin?

Then she was asked if she thought her grandfather knew he had family still in Poland. And then she went on to think that he didn’t know about his family because he never said anything. And Gates goes along with this too. This is one of the major failings of this show, that they have no Jewish perspective. A lot of people didn’t talk about it. How many times do you want to rehash something as painful as most of your extended family was killed by the Nazis? How about her grandfather’s service? Did she even know about that? It seemed like maybe she didn’t, like he omitted that entire part of his life from any stories that she heard. Like a lot of families did. Like my family did.

She “thought I had a very small family that almost came out of nowhere.” Someone never paid attention to genealogy shows, Holocaust education, etc., just assuming that because she didn’t know, it didn’t exist. Did she ever ask? My family only told me about family when I asked. And because I did that when I was so young, I still got no information about who we lost in the Holocaust. I never doubted that we did, I just didn’t know it.

And then the paper trail ran out. But we have no idea what they looked at. Bob’s paper trail only began in 1870. Iliza’s had one Polish birth and a book of residents page. We don’t get a glimpse of their big family tree posters in this episode at all. What was on it? Did they research Esther’s brother who came to America and have all his branch on the chart? Did they figure out who the uncle was that Esther joined on her ship list and all his family?

And lest we forget, the DNA part. Is the only thing they do with the DNA is to compare to previous guests? Here, Skip finally admitted that the cousins usually only share small bits on one chromosome and they never say how much. But this time, there’s shared bits on multiple chromosomes to another guest. Skip did the research for both. If they share so much DNA, how are they related? Or are they sharing teensy tiny bits on all those chromosomes and it’s more likely just endogamous noise?

Yes, I still like watching these shows no matter how much I need to vent about terrible takes on how to do genealogy gets into them. If I didn’t like them, I wouldn’t go through the trouble to nitpick them, right?

Edit: Oops, I had the show title wrong. Fixed it.

WDYTYA Nitpicker’s Version – 10×03 – Megan Mullally

I haven’t written a nitpicker’s guide in a while. Sometimes I fall behind and sometimes I just don’t have anything specific to say. This post is for the third episode of the season; I had no particular comments about the first two episodes.

The episode started out with Megan and her husband joking around, including him saying he was not interested in her ancestry, yet they both did their DNA tests. Nothing really came of that. Was Ancestry hoping something weird would show up that they would follow up on? Or were they just promoting their product in the hopes more people would test and do nothing with it?

Research Begins

Kyle Betit arrived with newspaper articles. Megan knew that her ancestor committed suicide yet she seemed to have a hard time reading the article about it. When I discover someone who committed suicide, I react less than the celebrities do on this show.

Kyle said that they had enough details to look at census records. Really? I look at census records first. She already knew her ancestors back to the 1920s. I would have started in 1930 or 1940, then made my way back in time.

Then they skipped back to when Charles was one month old in the 1860 census, without finding any other census. And the surname didn’t match exactly. And they had nothing in between but the one article that said he was from Macon, Georgia. That’s not the way to do it. You don’t look for a baby on the census without finding the names of the parents in some other record for the person.

Knowing they do a lot of research before the episode, they probably did all this. I hope they did all this. But people just watching the show who don’t know how to do the research learn bad practices.

Kyle then directed her to search for the marriage of Ira and Elizabeth, the parents found in the 1860 census, but he obviously knew there wasn’t a marriage for the people she was looking for. They never did find the marriage record they wanted. Did they find it and not show it in the episode? If I was doing the research, I’d look for it offline too.

To Georgia

At the Georgia Archive with Dr. Robin Sager, we saw another newspaper article.  The article was about Richard rather than Ira. Maybe that was why there was no marriage record in the index? I like that Robin mentioned that this article was backed up by other documents, showing that they had done other research that doesn’t appear in the episode. But how much do amateurs pay attention to little details like that?

I did like how Megan kept trying to figure out when things were happening in her family, calculating dates and ages, and when Elizabeth was pregnant. Some celebrities are seen taking notes, but she seemed to be memorizing it all.

Robin pointed out the time period right before the Civil War and Megan went straight to wondering if the second husband, James Venable, was a slave owner. Did she not wonder that about the first husband?

Fold3 was the next stop, a site with military records. Why did she say “wow” while the site was loading? Were they messing around in editing? She was thoroughly surprised by the Amnesty Papers found on James and Megan wanted to know more. Except it was just an index and Megan was sent off to find the actual record at NARA. Shouldn’t that collection online have been called an index? Some people, just like Megan did, will think that’s the whole record.

To Washington DC

Before she was even finished reading the letter written by James, she was asking more questions. Are the celebrities instructed to ask every question as they’re going even before reading every word in front of them? It seems jarring to me. That’s not how I do research. I read everything before asking follow-up questions, because sometimes the answers are right in front of me.

Back to Georgia

At least they didn’t send her over an ocean and back again. But she wanted to change her name to the second husband even before she learned any more about him.

Back in Georgia at the Bibb County Courthouse, she met with an historian from California who was somehow able to find a bound volume of old newspapers in Georgia. Did she really find that or did someone local do the research? In another newspaper article, from 1869, we learned that James wasn’t much better than the first husband, right after Megan said she liked him. And then she was sure that Elizabeth was the only one who wasn’t crazy, yet she knew very little about Elizabeth at the time too. She made a lot of assumptions about these people before she knew anything about them.

All that way for just one article? Then off to another library for more. The next researcher was from North Dakota State University, who apparently found another newspaper article. Why were all these people researching in Georgia from all over the country? Does Ancestry have no researcher in Georgia who actually did the research who could be on the show?

They were up to two articles in 1869 then skipped to 1890 to a court case between Elizabeth and her son over property that she bought between her marriages. The paper mentioned that she had other children with James and Megan began asking about those other children. But they never looked in the 1870 or 1880 censuses to find out more about those children. Instead they skipped ahead to 1900 where she had no other family living with her, and Megan found her listed as an inmate in a sanitarium.

By this time, Megan started assuming the worst of everyone instead of hoping they would do the right thing. She also assumed that Elizabeth supported her husbands. There was no evidence of that either. We hadn’t seen any record of the occupations of the husbands, especially the second one. That 1869 court case didn’t say anything about property that remained after James died, or if he had, or if the Mullally sons just wanted the property she had bought on her own before she married James.

Finishing up at the Central State Hospital, the site of the former sanitarium, Megan met with one more “researcher”, this time from Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre, which is in Canada. What did all these people have to do with researching this family in Georgia? Did any of them actually do any of the research on this family or are they chosen from a hat to appear in the episodes? From the Georgia Archives, the admission records were brought out to the hospital grounds. Why do they keep removing records from their archives?

That question about other children? It was on that last document, not read aloud in the episode, but it clearly showed she had eight children, but I couldn’t read if all eight were involved in admitting her. What did the document say that we couldn’t see on screen?

Conclusions

It seemed I found a lot more to say about this episode on my second viewing. I wonder if I’d have more to say about the previous two episodes as well.

This random assortment of researchers and historians from all over the continent but no one locally disturbs me. I hadn’t noticed that in the show before. What’s wrong with the people who did the research or local historians? Aren’t there any?

And they never did anything about Richard and Elizabeth coming from Ireland. Did they find anything more on that? Maybe they weren’t able to go back to those records. But since they don’t tell us, we won’t know. Many episodes focus on the immigrants and where they came from. I do like that they sometimes don’t, but they glanced over these people coming from Ireland. I had to go back in the episode just to find that it was mentioned where they were born.

I could see these episodes focusing a little more on looking at the details and making conclusions from them, rather than focusing on a celebrity overreacting to everything they see and speculating about their ancestors before actually learning about them.

I guess this is one reason why they use celebrities instead of average people. Celebrities are used to acting and an average person wouldn’t give them the giant overreactions they seem to like in this show.

Nitpicker’s Guide to Finding Your Roots – Sanders/David

I’ve never nitpicked Finding Your Roots before, the TV show hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, but watching the episode about Bernie Sanders and Larry David, I have to make some comments. And they’re longer than Twitter can hold.

Because the show goes back and forth between the two, I’m going to not do that since it gets confusing without the full episode and the video.

Larry David

Beginning with Larry David, when looking for the origins of the family beyond Brooklyn, Gates said “We were completely stumped… We didn’t even know where to start looking… One of our researchers noticed a tiny little thing.”

Hey Skip, that tiny little thing is a big flag in Jewish genealogy. Every good Jewish genealogist knows to look for the place of origin for a US immigrant on the naturalization. Other good sources include the ship list and the SS-5.

Larry didn’t even know his mother was born in Europe? Interesting.

Also, Blume is not pronounced the way it was on the show, nor was Regina or Leib. Skip, do you want a Jewish genealogist to consult with you? I’m available. ;-)

They believed that Larry’s grandfather, of the ten siblings, was the only one who immigrated to the US. I assume they looked? They didn’t say why they believed that.

They found a lot of records at Yad Vashem for the surnames in his family. Did they try to track down the survivors and find living relatives? I remember asking that for a UK episode of WDYTYA many years ago. I love when they do distant cousins reunions on the show.

Gates really needs some help in pronouncing Jewish names. The synagogue name in Alabama was said completely wrong.

Only about 3000 Jewish men fought for the confederacy. That statement needed qualifying. How many fought for the union? How many lived in the US at the time? Without additional information, that number alone doesn’t say much.

Larry’s reaction to learning his ancestor was a slave owner was outrageous to watch. Well, he did fight for the confederacy, Larry.

Bernie Sanders

And now for Bernie Sanders. They spent some time finding things on his father’s side that are not easily available, so some of it was interesting in that it added to what I was able to find.

They stated that Elias Sanders arrived in the US at the age of 16. The ship list clearly showed he was 17. They covered that part of the page with his photo in the video. They did have the right ship list, but didn’t highlight him on the page showing that he arrived as Eliasz Gutman, or why that was his name.

Actually, there were two ship lists that listed Eliasz Gutman and I found both. One was the year before, showing him as 16, but that wasn’t Elias on the ship. It was his brother Henry. They showed the correct one for Elias. Did they not get that part and thought he travelled himself on both ships? Then why did they show the page for the second one? Was it because he was at the top of the page on that one so it looked better? I don’t know what to make of that now.

Henry was still talking about the Sanders side of the family, but showed a photo labeled Radzyn. That was his mother’s side. I wonder where they found the picture that Bernie had never seen before of his Sanders family, including his uncle.

After learning his uncle was killed by the Nazis, why would the book include a picture of the man who had him killed? I wouldn’t want that in my fancy family book.

I was impressed that they were able to trace all the way back to Hersz and Kayla Mlynarz, as well as the Apeloig family that they didn’t feature on the show but I saw it on the tree. No online trees went beyond Frejda Mindla Mlynarz, even though at least one had that name on it. And that was also why I wanted my blog post to go out before this aired; I didn’t want to seem like I got any of the research from the show. They did find some things I didn’t for the Sanders side, and they obviously researched the history whereas I just did the genealogy.

DNA

Then they looked at the percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish DNA each man had. How did they calculate that? When I first tested, I was told I was 85% Jewish. Now, I’m 96%. My DNA didn’t change. The DNA isn’t labelled. Having Jewish DNA is self-reported. My DNA matches 96% that the specific company has deduced matches other Jews. It doesn’t mean I have 4% that is not Jewish. It just means that 4% hasn’t been determined to be Jewish yet. I was not impressed by this part of the show.

And exactly how much did Bernie and Larry match their DNA? Does Gates know that almost all Ashkenazi Jews appear to be distant cousins via their DNA? Since they don’t go into details, I can only guess it was the same kind of insignificant amounts that I match almost every other Jewish genealogist I know. But yes, I’d believe that two Ashkenazi Jewish men were distant cousins. I’d also believe that I may match both of them just as distantly.

Conclusions

Both men’s family trees extended back to 18th century Europe and “then disappear”. No, they don’t actually disappear. The Jewish records run out. Did they search the Catholic records to go back further? Did they even know that earlier Jewish Polish records can often be found in the Catholic records? Radzyn has Catholic records. I just didn’t have the time to go through them. I may have been able to go back a little bit farther if I had. I do less German research, so I couldn’t say more about that.

I loved all the bits of history that were told during the course of the episode. This is also the reason why I like Who Do You Think You Are? And I like that this history applied to my family in this episode. Somehow the Jewish episodes of WDYTYA, at least lately, don’t cover the European Jewish history even when they have someone Jewish on the show. As much as I like learning about the Civil War, the American Revolution, and the royal families of Europe, I prefer the history that applies to my own family.

I don’t know why I haven’t watched every episode of Finding Your Roots over the years. No wait, maybe I do. I think the DNA analysis often bothers me. I remember, I believe it was the first season, when they specifically compared a Jew and an Arab and then decided the bible was true somehow from that. OK, I need to put that aside and watch this show more often because I definitely enjoyed this episode.

And to finish up, I will again share the photo taken at the IAJGS Conference this summer in Orlando. Henry Gates was the keynote speaker at the banquet and his presentation was terrific. This picture was taken at a private reception just before the banquet.

Blurry me and Henry Gates
Blurry me and Henry Gates

And Skip, I was serious earlier. I’m available for consulting when you need a Jewish genealogist to help. :-)

WDYTYA – 6×04 – Sean Hayes – The Nitpicker’s Version

The intro for Sean Hayes’s episode of WDYTYA interestingly skipped over the TV show he starred in recently, “Sean Saves the World”, which I watched. Oh well. He didn’t know anything about his father, having left when Sean was five years old.

He knew that his father was an orphan, so did his father know his own family history? If Sean was so interested in his father’s history, why not try to reach out to him?

His brother mailed some information about what he knew, which wasn’t very much, and some photos that he got from his father. Did he get those more recently or back when he was a kid?

Ancestry

And suddenly they went to Ancestry, seemingly at random. Conveniently, the 1940 Census came up as the first result. The search engine is weighted to show those results first. Was someone off camera telling him to look at more? Look at the image, look at the columns on the right, these are the kinds of things that new genealogists don’t know to look at.

Chicago

With the 1940 Census listing in Chicago, Sean went there. At the Chicago History Museum, he met historian Mark Largent. The first document, which I was hoping for, was the death certificate for his grandfather. With those indexed by Cook County, unless he died elsewhere, it should have been easy to find. Sean read the age and calculated when he died, but it said so right on the certificate.

“If I go back to my makeshift little timeline…” Sean was keeping notes. And they were awesome.

Check out the timeline drawing in Sean’s notes.

 

Sean asked about the address where is grandfather lived, and the hospital in which he died. And the historian knew all the answers. How do you find out what kind of neighborhood an address was in? I mark the address, sometimes check it on a map, but I’ve never tried to understand the neighborhood.

Sean was also very interested in the fact that his father left the family about the same time his grandfather left the family. Did he ask questions about why he left? Maybe they didn’t know that. I wonder if they had to guide him to some of the questions that they were prepared to answer. It seemed that way to me. Not that there’s anything wrong with coaching the celebrity to ask the right questions.

“Wow, this is hard to read.” Finally, they admit that. But then asking if William’s father was still alive when there was an address given…

At the Circuit Court, historian Dr Margaret Garb recommended checking Ancestry to continue to an earlier census. To me, that was obvious. In fact, I would have done that first, but the show doesn’t go in order of how someone does the research.

The census verified that his great-grandfather was the immigrant of the family, though he had already said that. Was he assuming that or is something out of order or skipped over in the episode?

Sean kept reading and saw that naturalization said “no”. Margaret corrected him that Patrick was naturalized and conveniently the papers were right in the building. That’s actually a good point about teaching what the records mean. Someone who doesn’t know what they are supposed to say wouldn’t know.

Naturalization

Sean looked through the microfilm of the index cards, and boy did they look bad.

“So the date might not be quite right. The census is often not accurate.” Another good lesson on comparing immigration dates on the census to the actual immigration dates.

And then he found the papers in the original book. I have seen those on microfilm so many times. I hope he checked the other pages after reading the Declaration. What about the Petition? Were any of the kids listed on it? Was there a Certificate of Arrival verifying the ship information? Don’t pretend to teach a little about genealogy research and then skip the important stuff. Teach people to look at everything, turn the page, make sure you’re not missing some bit of genealogy gold on the back side.

The Declaration that Sean read was from 1918, so he had plenty of time to get married and start a family after his 1901 arrival.

Ireland

Sent to Ireland to learn more about Patrick, he met historian Dr Shane Kilcommins at the National Archives of Ireland. The 1901 Census was waiting for him, with Patrick living in a prison. The census oddly listed only initials. I’ve seen US censuses with full names, but I guess that’s the way it is there. I haven’t done much Irish research.

The next book required gloves, and was placed on a pillow. (I loved the pillow. I think we’ve seen that before in another episode.) An earlier book showed another incarceration, with another Hayes. I like that Sean noticed that. I remember other episodes where they didn’t acknowledge anything else on the page, and sometimes there were records for the same surnames.

“I’m going to be standing in the exact spot that my great-grandfather stood when he got sentenced. It’s a very proud moment!” I love Sean’s enthusiasm.

Shane was there to guide him at the Tarbert court house as well.

“It’s a weird thing to get excited about.” No Sean, it’s not. It doesn’t matter what your ancestors did, you can be excited just to learn about it.

In more records, Sean learned that the two men were brothers who assaulted their own father.

A list of infractions for Patrick Sr was very long. A ten year gap of law-abiding suggested to me he may have spent some time in prison, but no one came up with that on the show. The next record showed that his wife died at the point the infractions began again. But what happened during those ten years? Was he really a good family man during that time as Sean said? That’s where they leave it off in the episode.

To the Ancestral Town

At the end of the records, Sean headed to Ballylongford to see where the family came from.

“To get any knowledge about your ancestry is a gift.”

Conclusion

I loved Sean’s enthusiasm about standing where his ancestors stood when they were in court for assault charges. He showed a great interest in his family. There were a few conclusions made without evidence shown in the episode. In one such case, Sean mentioned the brothers, then corrected himself saying they hadn’t proved they were brothers, which was a good catch.

Seeing Sean’s notes was fantastic, and that he wrote it out in a timeline. Showing him looking through the microfilm index to find the records was good, WDYTYA trying to sneak in a little genealogy teaching, but not showing the records that search led to left me a little empty. They never did look for his ship list or information about his family in the US. When did he marry Jennie and have the kids? The Irish research suggested that happened in the US, but it was never mentioned. Since the Declaration was so long after his arrival, it was likely.

I really would like to see the teaching side improve even more, though I’m glad they now include it. There’s still the matter of how many hours it takes to really find all of the information they present, leaving some watchers probably thinking it’s easier than it is. (But that’s Ancestry’s thing: type in your name and your whole tree magically appears. Right?) And I wonder if they’ll ever mention that you don’t have to travel all over the world to find the records of your ancestors. Although, the travelling part is fun.

The URL of this post is: http://idogenealogy.com/2015/04/12/wdytya-6×04/.

WDYTYA – 6×03 – Angie Harmon – The Nitpicker’s Version

I thought I’d finally get to watch an episode as it aired on TV, visiting a friend in Arizona, but her cable company was incapable of providing a live TV feed. So I didn’t watch most of the Angie Harmon episode until after I got home.

They started with photos sent by her father, which she shared with her daughters.

Starting Close to Home

She started by meeting with genealogist Joseph Shumway at the Charlotte Museum of History. I was right in my previous review about them trying to teach along the way, when Joseph told Angie that he used “vital records, census, immigration, land records…” to find more information. But just listing record types doesn’t seem like enough for me. They still go right to Ancestry with the finished tree, or rather, a single branch of the tree, because they don’t have it filled in, nor do they specify what records told them what.

And then they go right back to her 5xgreat-grandfather with no information in between. Also again, as with Josh Groban, she never guessed she’d be German.

He did have her to click on a source document, so that was a little better than randomly listing record types. Again, we saw an index of a ship list, or rather another book that listed a name.

“Spelling was quite fluid in the records because a lot of it was phonetic.” OK, this was a good genealogy lesson included in the episode.

He sent her to Philadelphia to see the original source material.

To Philadelphia

At the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, historian James Horn shared the book of servants and apprentices. They met in a very large room with no other people in sight. I haven’t noticed that in an episode in a while. They must either close the building or film in off hours.

She somehow knew the date that her ancestor arrived, even though that was not shown in the episode. The source on the computer showed a page number but no date. There was obviously more shared with her that we didn’t see.

Angie learned that her ancestor was an indentured servant, for five years and seven months.

Back to the computer, they went to Fold3, also owned by Ancestry, where they looked at his Revolutionary War records.

Her next visit was with R Scott Stephenson at the Free Library to find more about her ancestor’s time in the army, where she saw a pay stub for him, which placed him at Valley Forge. They visited the reconstructed barracks at Valley Forge together.

The State Archives

Her next stop was at the State Archive to meet West Point historian Major Sean Sculley. Her ability to read the old record was impressive, as she read an old handwritten letter with lots of bleed-through about the mutiny of her ancestor’s regiment.

A couple documents later, she saw a book that showed he served from 1777 to 1781, so he took the deal offered that they spoke about and left the army. But there were other entries on the page with no dates. What was that about?

I like how he sent her to Kentucky by saying, “You have taken me as far as my expertise can go.” That was a great way to point out that every researcher they meet doesn’t know everything.

To Kentucky

In the Harrodsburg Historical Society, historian Amalie Preston shared his will, where Angie learned that he had seven children, and then sent her to see the land that he owned. And he achieved all that without learning how to read and write.

The episode ended with her visit to the land, after he daughters joined her, where she met her fifth cousin once removed, still living on the land.

Conclusion

I think the ending of this episode was the best part. The surprise of finding a cousin still living on the same land that she just read about in the will was great. I didn’t see that coming, except for the split second before he introduced himself.

Once again, we skip over generations of family, and alternate branches, to find the one that we see in the episode. I’m glad they didn’t go to Germany again, only because we just did that in the last episode. And I always want to know about everyone else as well. Do the genealogists who work on the show stop when they find the interesting story or do they try to fill in the whole tree? Have they ever found additional interesting stories and had to choose which one to air?

WDYTYA – 6×02 – Josh Groban – The Nitpicker’s Version

The second episode of Who Do You think You Are? this season featured Josh Groban.

Starting With The Family

This episode started with a visit with his parents and brother. In his monologue interview, he mentioned that both his parents were only children, so the family tree “just doesn’t come up in conversation”. Sorry Josh, I don’t think that’s how that works. Either someone in the family wants to talk about the family, or someone wants to hear about it. Otherwise, no one talks about their genealogy. Even so, he said his father’s side had a documented tree.

As he was leaving the house, they showed the laptop open on the table, but not what they were doing with it. I guess they saved their first Ancestry commercial for a little later in the episode.

Josh did leave the house carrying a notebook. I always like when we see the celebrity taking their own notes rather than just going where the episode takes them. I spotted that same notebook in several other scenes as well.

Check the Finished Tree First

Josh met with genealogist Kyle Betit at the LA Public Library. Kyle mentioned to Josh that he “used records like wills and deeds and newspapers” to construct the tree. Is this an attempt at WDYTYA to teach how they do the research? I don’t think it was successful.

Looking up his mother’s side of the family, her mother was Dorothy Blumberg. As a Jewish genealogist, obviously this branch sounded more my style. But alas, Dorothy was completely ignored in the episode. A little further back, the tree switched to the female line again, to Zimmerman, which can be Jewish but isn’t always. In this case, it was definitely not Jewish.

And once we get a few generations, the tree goes straight back on the Zimmerman line, showing only the male ancestors on that line. But there are so many more people involved to get to Josh from his 7xgreat-grandfather.

When Was He Born?

Showing the date of “before 1694” for his birth bothered me, especially with the source being a ship list. I haven’t worked in ship lists that far back. Did they not list ages? But then we saw that the source was a compiled book, not the ship list itself, and the children were not even listed individually. So, while they were only showing research up to a point, with the unknown birth date, they’d really already gone past that just to find a mention of his arrival where he’s not specifically mentioned.

They actually showed two different paragraphs from the book. Josh was reading from one, and they flashed to a completely different part in the middle of the scene.

Josh’s ability to pronounce the location names in German was also surprising.

Off To Germany

In Stuttgart at the Wurttemberg State Archive, Josh met archivist Prof. Dr. Peter Ruckert. Again, it’s kind of remarkable that Josh could read some of the old handwriting. I work with this stuff reasonably often and I have a hard time reading it. Were some of those names and dates pointed out to him or did he really find them on his own?

Back To School

At the University of Tubingen, he met head archivist Beate Martin. This was where Josh learned that his ancestor not only studied theology, but also taught music. No wonder the episode focused on this ancestor.

Soon, Josh learned his ancestor was writing books about astronomy.

To Church

Off to Bietigheim, Josh headed for the church where his ancestor was a deacon. Historian Dr. Jonathan Clark had a few more records. Josh was already anticipating that something had to happen to make him leave Germany, and the first document, a letter written by his ancestor, was the first clue.

With the book where he used a pen name, he seemed to believe that the church would fall. It seemed odd that he would want to keep his job with the church anyway. “He was crazy,” Josh determined.

Then The Church Archive

He met with historian Dr. Jan Stievermann at the Archive of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Josh’s first question was exactly what I was thinking — why would he want to stay with the church with what his beliefs had become?

Interestingly, the year he prophecized about the churches falling was the year he died. Maybe he was reading the stars wrong?

 Conclusion

We saw some interesting documents in this episode. Normally, genealogy is done with censuses and vital records first, then we try to find more information in between those events. In this show, we saw a single marriage record, then many other types of documents including school records, letters, and books authored by the ancestor. I wish I had access to those kinds of records for my ancestors.

Except for the skipping of so many generations at the beginning, I liked that the story followed Josh’s ancestor who was a musician. I wonder how much time they spent on everyone else in the family in order to find that one musician in his ancestry.

The URL of this post is: http://idogenealogy.com/2015/03/29/wdytya-6×02/.

WDYTYA – 6×01 – Julie Chen – The Nitpicker’s Version

It’s time for another season of Who Do You Think You Are? and this time, the season didn’t begin during an IAJGS conference, which means, I have a chance to keep up.

The season began with Julie Chen.

They Always Start with Ancestry

Instead of visiting and talking with family on screen, her mother and sister put the family tree on Ancestry and Julie visited that. She focused on her grandfather, Lou Gaw Tong, and noticed that he had six wives, with one completely unknown. That part of his history was never revisited in the rest of the episode. It makes me wonder why they focused on it at the beginning.

Was this their way of saying that you don’t always find the specific family history answers you’re looking for without actually saying that, but just forgetting about it?

Off to Asia

With both of her parents US immigrants, Julie immediately headed to Singapore, where her grandfather died. Meeting the first historian, she walked in completely empty-handed. I was starting to like watching the celebrities carrying around their notebooks.

Upon finding the Chinese language obituary, Julie quickly admitted that she can’t read and write Chinese, but earlier said that Mandarin was her first language. So she learned to speak but not read or write? They didn’t say. She had a translator throughout the episode, but she did speak in Chinese sometimes. Maybe she was just out of practice?

Julie became fixated on the “improper childhood” mentioned in the obituary for her grandfather and asked everyone else about it in the episode. Maybe it was at this time that she forgot about the six wives that interested her before.

Her next documents presented a bit of history that World War II began in China in 1937 after the Japanese invaded. At this point, they did their only history lesson sidebar for the whole episode. I think this episode could have used more. I can’t be the only person who knows nothing about Chinese history or culture.

To The Ancestral Home, in China

Julie was able to visit the Anshan School, which her grandfather and his brother were the founders of in 1937. She then met her cousin, who lived in the same house that her grandfather had.

After the commercial break, the camera panned back to Julie’s cousin, who was subtitled as a “distant cousin”. I didn’t realize a first cousin once removed was considered distant. I don’t consider my second cousins to be very distant, but I am a genealogist.

Another Archive

At the Anxi County Records Office, Julie got to see the Anxi Gazetteer. At the school, she read from the Anxi County Gazetteer. Were those different books? They had different information.

Visiting the Gravesite

I think this episode had the most unusual gravesite visit, which required a hike to a solitary grave. Again, there were Chinese rituals involved that I didn’t feel like they explained. Also, they hiked with more of her relatives but they showed no interaction between them and her. Is that a Chinese cultural thing or did they just not show it?

I felt like they should have explained the location better, or at least sooner. Luckily Julie asked and we learned something about why it was there. Also, how is anyone supposed to know who’s buried somewhere if they put a different name on the stone? How often does a group of people hike up to the site and follow those rituals? Did they pick up all those little pieces of paper from the ground before leaving?

Final Thoughts

This episode was the most foreign to me of the series. I could have gone for more of those history lessons since it only had one. I’d also like more of the cultural stuff to be explained, but they skipped over that too.

It seemed to me like Julie had no interest in meeting her cousins, since she did meet a few. I hope that it just didn’t make it into the episode. How can someone not be excited to meet a cousin they never knew existed? I’ve met plenty and, as a matter of fact, I’m going to meet some new ones this week.

The URL of this post is http://idogenealogy.com/2015/03/15/wdytya-6×01/.

Don’t Believe Everything You See On TV

I’m watching Genealogy Roadshow online since I missed it on TV. Every now and then, I try to look up the documents they have found, or the ones they skipped over.

The New Orleans episode followed the story of Charles Montaldo, who the family thought had gone to Alaska.

They showed him in the 1880 census in New Orleans, with wife Bridget and children, and I was able to find the listing easily.

The family believed he went to Alaska, but the researchers were certain he wasn’t in Alaska.

Instead, he went to Sacramento in 1880. Next they found him in Albuquerque in 1882. The next record was the 1910 census, with a different wife, Ida, allegedly married for 20 years, in Reno. They then found an article that he died in 1910.

The thing is, the 1880 census said he was born in Tennessee and his parents were born in Louisiana. The 1910 said he was born in Kentucky, father born in Italy, mother born in Louisiana. Are they sure it’s the same person?*

But what happened to the 1900 census that they skipped over? Searching online, I found only three listings for Charles Montaldo. Two were in Louisiana, one was clearly his son, the other did not match his age.

The third? Nome, Alaska.

Charles.Montaldo.Alaska.0

Charles.Montaldo.Alaska.1

No other details are listed for him beyond his name, but it is the only possibility that presented itself and matches the family’s story. It’s an unusual census page that appears to have just copied a ship list, clearly stating in the address column “Passenger List” for the steamer Aberdeen of Seattle. The column immediately after his name is for “Date of Locating in Alaska”, which says June 1900. The date of enumeration was 12 June 1900.

* Trying to find this census on FamilySearch so I could link to the page (which they don’t seem to have), I came across the 1870 census that says he’s born in Kentucky. So there’s that, to go with the 1910 census find from the show. Did those borders move or was he from near the border?

WDYTYA – 3×07 – Rita Wilson – The Nitpicker’s Version

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/.

WDYTYA – 3×06 – Helen Hunt – The Nitpicker’s Version

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/.