09 March 2010

Who Do You Think You Are--My Take

I might as well jump on the bandwagon of genealogy bloggers who have been commenting on the show.
I loved it. I have told several non-genealogists about it, and they seem to have caught my enthusiasm. Maybe part of the charm was that I have recently discovered a tenuous connection the the Salem witch trials myself, so that part was particularly close to home.
I love finding the details about family members, and stories about them are the best. I also liked that they traced one of Sarah Jessica Parker's line back to England, and told her that no one knew just where in England, so that line was at a brick wall--for now. And then they returned to Salem, and the story there.
The connections of having names and dates you can place within the fabric of history make history seem more alive. Discovering my Civil War ancestor in my Gilbert line, besides being my maternal breakthrough, also gave me a connection to the people who fought then. Ditto my distant cousins who died in France in World War I and II. My ancestor who was captured by Indians and taken to Canada during the revolutionary times is another whose story has connected me with those times. I enjoyed that Sarah Jessica was seeming to feel the same connections, excitement and thrills that I get.
But back to the show, my only quibble--and I have seen this noted elsewhere also--was when Ms. Parker got to see the actual document accusing her ancestor of being a witch. I cringed when I saw the bare hands and when I saw the pencil--I dropped a stitch in the sweater I was knitting! Yikes!! Not the example I would want budding genealogists to take away.
But I can't wait for this week, and the upcoming shows. Maybe it will do for my hobby the same thing that "Roots" did so much earlier.

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