There is something about the show Who Do You Think You Are? that hits an emotional chord and makes the viewer really connect with the discoveries made by the featured celebrities searching for their ancestors. I guess it's that history is so much more interesting and affecting when you hear the stories of individual lives. Most of our ancestors have had an impact on history and participated in events we may or may not have read about while in school, but we never knew their names or their stories. That's why I love genealogy—I might get a chance to uncover some of these untold stories.
This long-form advertisement for ancestry.com had this geneaology geek front and center. I enjoyed the first season, which featured producer Lisa Kudrow, Emmitt Smith, Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, whose quest led to the discovery of a family participant in the Salem Witch trials.
I went on my own journey to discover my family's roots last summer, after I found out that one of my ancestors, Sarah Averill Wildes, was one of the first people tried and hanged as a witch in Salem on July 19, 1692. I came across this unknown bit of family history while searching on ancestry.com. Some interesting stuff can be found on the website if you're willing to go on a hunt. To access most vital records, ancestry.com is not free, but hiring a professional researcher or genealogist isn't either.
My grandmother hired a genealogist to help her trace her roots in the '60s. To become a member of the Colonial Dames she needed to perform extensive family research to prove and document our connection to a Revolution-era ancestor. But she didn't need to go as far back as the 1690s, so she never found out about this more infamous slice of our history. Parker's Salem ancestor had like mine been accused of witchcraft, but had a better ending. The court of oyer and terminer was dismissed before she could go to trial, so Parker's relative escaped execution.
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Article comments
1 - Mary Lynn Marsh
Who Do You Think You Are is an enjoyable program and will doubtless revitalize the public's interest in ancestral research. Having said that, I resent greatly how the show portrays the "research" being done. As a researcher of nearly 20 years, I can assure you that 99.9% of us will NEVER get the kind of personal attention from local, state, and federal historical recordkeepers as depicted on this show. For the most part, genealogical research is a dogged, solitary enterprise. Overworked bureaucrats haven't the time to sit with us individually nor do they typically pull records for us and have them available upon our arrival. Moreover, most of us haven't the time or personal wealth to flit needlessly about the nation (or world) in search of documents that can be accessed more expeditiously by mail or over the Internet.
On the one hand, I do understand the show's need to liven up the celebrities' research efforts, but I simultaneously dislike the totally unreal way in which genealogical research is characterized.
I'd like to see just one episode where a celebrity is not spoon fed in 30 minutes the kinds of documents that will require most of us months or even years to acquire -- such is the real nature of genealogy.