Have you been watching the new episodes of this show? I did catch Sean Hayes last week as he discovered his paternal line. Families often have problems and he found his male ancestors did have some alcohol, mental, and attachment problems. Tomorrow evening there is a new episode.

Gosh, I wish we had this show in our local package. I've seen it once or twice - memorably, Oprah Winfrey's ancestors - but only by accident. I'm very much into genealogy - Australian and English - enough to know pretty accurately who I am and where I came from. But there are always gaps. My niece discovered that my mother's maternal grandfather was killed with an axe by (almost certainly) one of his sons, in upstate Queensland. The inquest heard harrowing stories of how he (the victim) regularly beat up his wife, so the authorities didn't prosecute anybody for the crime. Good for them.

Gordon, you can catch the videos at this link:
Who Do You Think You Are

I enjoy the shows although they give you a false impression on how quickly a person can do their genealogy. These shows take at least a year to research and film. They have many genealogists working on the cases as well. They are good in that they introduce a researcher to new record sets and show you where the records may be housed.

We receive requests now at our historical society and I swear people are quoting researchers on the show - "Please provide me with the documents pertaining to my ancestor." We don't even know if they have traced their family correctly and it's hard to say where the records are here - our library, local library, churches, state library, state historical society, etc.

I'm working on something now where the most recent records are in Georgia and prior to that in NC. Ancestry.com trees indicate the person may have been from Virginia but the trees do not tell you they came to that conclusion.

So much fun.

Thanks for the link, Angie; I'll check some of them out. Yes, I suppose some ancestor-seekers would think it's easy fishing! But I did most of my personal research in the days before the Internet - trudging around Britain's County Record Offices and (sometimes) begging Parish priests to give me access to their Registers kept in the Parish Chest! For central records, I was always grateful to the Mormons (LDS), who let any enquirer look at their microfiches in their London Temple.

This year's shows have all aired now. What do you think? Which was your favorite? What did you take away from the stories?

I liked Julie Chen's story. It was good to see her old family home.