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Post by librarylady on Aug 3, 2022 2:44:42 GMT
We have watched about 3 episodes and thoroughly enjoy the show. Last episode was fun to watch as the Zachary Levi found out about his ancestors. He had such joy and animation in his responses.
Anyone else watching?
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Post by brynn on Aug 3, 2022 4:13:22 GMT
I've always loved this show. So far, I have watched four episodes.
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Post by AussieMeg on Aug 3, 2022 4:46:30 GMT
I've been watching the Australian and UK versions for years, but I don't think the American one is on TV here. I love it!
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Post by gillyp on Aug 3, 2022 8:29:04 GMT
Love this show and I think the only way we can see any out with the UK is via YouTube. I had seen all the older Australian and South African episodes but could never find US ones. However, my hunt for them led me to Finding Your Roots with Henry Lewis Gates Jnr which has become a favourite of mine. Sadly not all the shows are available or are very poor copies. I shall look again for WDYTYA US.
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Post by mikklynn on Aug 3, 2022 11:42:59 GMT
I love this show. I like the PBS version, Finding Your Roots, even more.
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Post by MZF on Aug 3, 2022 11:51:44 GMT
I love this show. I like the PBS version, Finding Your Roots, even more. We watch both these--really like them.
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Post by disneypal on Aug 3, 2022 12:40:12 GMT
I love this series and have watched it from the beginning...haven't missed an episode - I just wish there were more of them and it was more consistent on when it airs. But I will take what I can get. I also love "Finding Your Roots".
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Aug 3, 2022 13:13:06 GMT
I didn’t know not was on now, but have enjoyed it in the past.
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Post by librarylady on Aug 3, 2022 14:09:04 GMT
I love this show. I like the PBS version, Finding Your Roots, even more. We watch both these--really like them. We watch both and enjoy both.
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rodeomom
Pearl Clutcher
Refupee # 380 "I don't have to run fast, I just have to run faster than you."
Posts: 3,661
Location: Chickasaw Nation, Oklahoma
Jun 25, 2014 23:34:38 GMT
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Post by rodeomom on Aug 3, 2022 15:31:51 GMT
I love anything having to do with genealogy!
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Post by melanell on Aug 3, 2022 19:48:22 GMT
I've loved this show for years. (In the US) And there was a time when full episodes of the UK version were on Youtube & I'd watch those as well, but I don't know if they still have the full eps up anymore.
I have only watched a few partial episodes of Finding Your Roots, though. The episodes I started just had the celebrity sitting at a table having the info presented to them, which to me, seemed less interesting than seeing them actually going different places and meeting up with different people. Does Finding Your Roots eventually do something like that? Maybe I ducked out of the episodes too early? Or do they really just stay there at the table the whole time?
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Post by Scrapper100 on Aug 4, 2022 0:49:02 GMT
I used to watch both shows but haven’t watched in a few years.
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Post by librarylady on Aug 4, 2022 1:32:05 GMT
I have only watched a few partial episodes of Finding Your Roots, though. The episodes I started just had the celebrity sitting at a table having the info presented to them, which to me, seemed less interesting than seeing them actually going different places and meeting up with different people. Does Finding Your Roots eventually do something like that? Maybe I ducked out of the episodes too early? Or do they really just stay there at the table the whole time? It depends upon the story. I *think* they sometimes go and meet others, but I may be confusing shows.
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Post by mikklynn on Aug 4, 2022 11:04:37 GMT
I've loved this show for years. (In the US) And there was a time when full episodes of the UK version were on Youtube & I'd watch those as well, but I don't know if they still have the full eps up anymore. I have only watched a few partial episodes of Finding Your Roots, though. The episodes I started just had the celebrity sitting at a table having the info presented to them, which to me, seemed less interesting than seeing them actually going different places and meeting up with different people. Does Finding Your Roots eventually do something like that? Maybe I ducked out of the episodes too early? Or do they really just stay there at the table the whole time? They definitely get out and about, even overseas. I wonder if the pandemic had an impact the last season or two?
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Post by melanell on Aug 4, 2022 13:43:20 GMT
I've loved this show for years. (In the US) And there was a time when full episodes of the UK version were on Youtube & I'd watch those as well, but I don't know if they still have the full eps up anymore. I have only watched a few partial episodes of Finding Your Roots, though. The episodes I started just had the celebrity sitting at a table having the info presented to them, which to me, seemed less interesting than seeing them actually going different places and meeting up with different people. Does Finding Your Roots eventually do something like that? Maybe I ducked out of the episodes too early? Or do they really just stay there at the table the whole time? They definitely get out and about, even overseas. I wonder if the pandemic had an impact the last season or two? Maybe! I'll have to give the show another go, then, because I do love WDYTYA, so I should love FYR, too if they have a similar format.
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Post by **GypsyGirl** on Aug 7, 2022 23:36:59 GMT
so I should love FYR, too if they have a similar format. Not similar at all IMO. FYR episodes cover 2 people simultaneously. The researchers do all the legwork and final results are presented by Gates while they sit with him at a table. They are both good shows but very different in how and who does the research and how it is presented. If you have the PBS app on your tv, you should be able to find several past seasons of FYR. There are also several other series by HLG, Jr that are excellent.
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Post by wordfish on Aug 8, 2022 9:49:14 GMT
I have watched many of the episodes, both UK and US versions. It was eye-opening to me to see how common issues like children born outside of marriage have been, going back hundreds of years. Another thing that was specific to the UK was the dread that would be associated with any reference that the story was going to lead to the "workhouse." In fact, most of the stories I watched did go there, often literally.
But what my interest in these shows did, most of all, was prepare me for one of the biggest shocks and most welcome surprises of my lifetime. I sent in two DNA tests. The first to come back, much earlier than the second, was 23&Me. That yielded my first surprise, a sort of break-the-seal surprise. I discovered a cousin I did not know existed, on my father's side. She popped right up as one of my closer 23&Me relatives, and I clicked on her profile. What a jolt to read my own words in her history. She was placed for adoption at birth and had been unsuccessful in connecting with her birth mother's family. Her birth mother is my cousin, though a generation older than I am. Her grandmother was my Aunt Kay. She had worked all this out and found my public Ancestry profile, and took the history of her great-grandmother (my grandmother) and that family as written by me, and put it on her own profile. This cousin is actually a few years older than I am, despite my being aligned genealogically with her mother's generation. At any rate, I messaged her and said I thought I could help her, and I was able to provide the first photo she had ever seen of her grandmother and her aunt. I actually do not know her mother, my cousin, but I did know her aunt pretty well, and also her grandmother. We stay in touch pretty regularly. It's very cool. All positive.
But one thing she said in jest one day foreshadowed the big surprise. She asked if I was certain that my father's father was not some random British soldier in London during World War One. My father was born at the end of WW1 to an Irish mother and ostensibly a Portuguese father who enlisted in the Canadian Army and was sent overseas during WW1. That man was originally from Massachusetts and born to Portuguese parents. She asked because she said her DNA had a direct link to the Azores, and mine did not show any Portuguese ancestry whatsoever when we compared them. I laughed and said unfortunately I was sure my grandfather was this Portuguese man. I said that because this man abandoned the family after they traveled to the US to settle, then added two more children. He is a villain in my family story. My father's mother died in 1925 when he was 6 years old, and because his father had already abandoned the family, all three children were farmed out to very bad situations, and his childhood was one of misery--poverty, hunger, abuse. It was much the same with his sisters, and probably worse. So I laughed at her suggestion but did not take it seriously. Still, in the back of my mind the question lingered a bit.
Anyway, several weeks after that, my Ancestry results came back. It was late on a Friday afternoon, and I opened them so fast, because I KNEW there would be something to find. And there was. My closest relative other than my sister and one of my children who had beaten me to Ancestry, closer even than my newfound cousin, was a man I had never heard of: Dan. Dan is in his late 80s, and he has an extensive Ancestry tree that is public. I knew immediately that something was not right, because I did not recognize any of these names, any of these faces. Nothing was syncing correctly.
So I started right away, focusing first on Dan's maternal grandfather. He seemed like a pleasant enough guy, but nothing seemed familiar to me. It wasn't tracking. I am very fortunate that Dan's tree contains an abundance of photos and other information. It is very well fleshed-out. So I followed that for a bit but it didn't feel correct to me.
However, in one of the photos was Dan's maternal grandmother and all of their children. Two of the sons reminded me of my father. Then I looked at the grandmother. Pay dirt. She actually resembles one of my sisters. So I realized she couldn't be my grandfather for obvious reasons. I had figured out by this point, through comparing DNA matches I recognized as being on my mom's side, or my dad's mom's side, that I could isolate Dan to my dad's father. So I knew I was now looking for a paternal grandfather who was a complete surprise.
I got some sleep Friday night but other than that, all I did was search for my grandfather. By Saturday afternoon, I had found him. His name is Fowler. He was a rancher who owned a ranch in New Mexico. He was around 6'5" and he was built, and dressed, like John Wayne in his movies.
I conclusively put him right where my grandmother was at just the correct time he would need to be there for my father to happen, just outside London in 1918.
Once I figured all of that out, I then found my relatives and I ultimately contacted some of them. They have provided me with photos of our grandfather and we have spoken on the phone and corresponded via email. My cousin Alice sent me a copy of home movies from the 1950s with our grandfather in them.
I should say that for my entire life, I have never had living grandparents. I barely have photos of my grandparents. They died long before I was born. I actually expressed that it would be so cool to have some video of a grandparent not long before all of this happened--then I literally had it delivered one morning by the FedEx guy. There was also a 20-page typed history dictated by one of my aunts, who died several years before I found this part of my family, and there was a good bit of description of life with Fowler, and what he was like.
The strangest thing about this, and I don't know how to explain it, is something my newfound cousins told me during our phone call. It was actually the first thing they said after I told them about my dad, explaining that he was a lifelong philatelist (like he was EXTREMELY INTO stamp collecting, made it a career at one point, and was pretty famous in the stamp world). They very quietly in sort of a stunned way told me that Fowler, their mom and their aunt (Fowler's other daughter) were RABID stamp collectors their entire lives.
There was lots of other stuff, including a voracious reading habit that I recognized immediately because my father had it and so do all but one of my siblings.
It was one of the best surprises of my entire life, and it followed on the heels of me watching Who Do You Think You Are pretty religiously for months before I got my Ancestry results. That show and those stories really prepped me for my own.
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Post by mollycoddle on Aug 8, 2022 10:08:23 GMT
I watch it sporadically, but I do enjoy it because genealogy fascinates me.
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Post by gillyp on Aug 8, 2022 10:20:40 GMT
Great story wordfish! So many interesting points.
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Post by melanell on Aug 8, 2022 13:26:07 GMT
so I should love FYR, too if they have a similar format. Not similar at all IMO. FYR episodes cover 2 people simultaneously. The researchers do all the legwork and final results are presented by Gates while they sit with him at a table. Now, see, this is exactly what I saw the few times I started to watch an episode. And I never finished either, so I didn't know if they (the celebrity learning about their family) ever got to leave that table and go explore and meet researchers and such.
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Post by gillyp on Aug 8, 2022 13:34:03 GMT
Not similar at all IMO. FYR episodes cover 2 people simultaneously. The researchers do all the legwork and final results are presented by Gates while they sit with him at a table. Now, see, this is exactly what I saw the few times I started to watch an episode. And I never finished either, so I didn't know if they (the celebrity learning about their family) ever got to leave that table and go explore and meet researchers and such. You do occasionally see the celebrity meeting someone else or visiting an area but on the whole they stay at the table. Although they are presented with their family tree, I feel FYR leans a little more towards social history commentary than WDYTYA. Imho both are very enjoyable, it depends on what you want from a program.
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Post by peasapie on Aug 8, 2022 13:34:19 GMT
I love this show. I like the PBS version, Finding Your Roots, even more. I'm not sure who came up with the concept first, but I've enjoyed watching Finding Your Roots for years. I guess that means I will like this one as well.
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Post by melanell on Aug 8, 2022 13:34:39 GMT
I have watched many of the episodes, both UK and US versions. It was eye-opening to me to see how common issues like children born outside of marriage have been, going back hundreds of years. Another thing that was specific to the UK was the dread that would be associated with any reference that the story was going to lead to the "workhouse." In fact, most of the stories I watched did go there, often literally. Congrats on finding a whole new branch of your family! I think many people believe the idea that people didn't have as many children out of marriage back in the day, and truly, many didn't technically have them born outside of marriage, but they were often conceived outside of marriage, and people just covered it up or didn't speak of it. Same when the children really were born out of wedlock, too. I have many an ancestor whose parents married less than 9 months before their arrival. And I have family members who had children who "didn't have a father" and children adopted within the family and so on. And of course there are women "who never had any kids", if you listen to the old family tales, but in reality they did in fact have a child, but they were forced to "place" them for adoption. And I used quotes because I'm not sure you can say they placed them anywhere, when they were forced to do so. And where I live, you can replace "workhouse" with "Poor Farm". I always feel my stomach drop when I find a census showing someone who worked hard their whole life ending up at the Poor Farm.
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