Who Do You Think You Are?

[angelaudie]

I saw David Tennant's (best known as the 10th Doctor on Doctor Who) episode thanks to YouTube. I remember being quite horrified when he found out his great-great-grandfather was a member of the Orange Order. One of his new found relatives showed David his great-great-grandfather's Orange Order sash's. He had this look on his face that just screamed, "Burn it in a fire!" I found David's episode quite fascinating because it dealt with a great deal of Irish history.

Really, Brooke needs to rent David's episode just so she could the homes his ancestors lived in. Now, that was a family of humble means!

[ikmccall]

Apr 8, 2010 20:02:41 GMT -4 @mrsbowling2 said:

Who else was on the UK version?

I have a serious fear of finding out my grandma's anscestors might have been on the wrong end of the WWII situation. Most of her family are immigrants from Germany and Poland. But they are Catholic and not Jewish, so I don't want to know if they were in the wrong army or did bad things.

List of UK episodes

[batmom]

Mrs Bowling, the Nazis were no great fans of Catholics either, so you may not have to fear.

I'm dying to do a comprehensive tree of my father's family, particularly with DNA testing to determine genetic makeup. My last name is not common. My father figures that everyone in North America who has it can be traced back to the same ancestor who arrived in the US in the 1700s.

So when a former classmate of my brother, in trying to find my brother, turned up a Black Master's student from Atlanta I got very curious. See, my grandfather was decidedly swarthy looking. He always looked like he had a tan and when he actually did have a tan, he looked almost native. But with curly hair. See where I'm going with this?

My dad says that there's no evidence of any African ancestors (he also figures that our very English last name is now found in at least one African-American family because freed blacks took the last names of people they admired. He didn't like it when I added "Or their owners."), but I'm guessing that, given the time, it may not necessarily have been noted. Plus he knows more about the men than the women.

For Christmas one year I got him that national geographic kit that does DNA testing and he did it on the patrilineal line (so it mapped the Y chromosome). It didn't turn up anything, but my guess was that it was a wife somewhere along the way, not a husband.

[Deleted]

My mom thinks we might have a Mohegan ancestor somewhere back on her mother's father's line, we're fairly certain if it's true it was a woman (all the men in that line have turned out to be French.) Since a native american woman likely would've taken an anglo name upon marriage, it's been really hard to track. I'll probably do a DNA admixture test someday because I'm really curious about it.

[mrsbowling2]

We had a speaker at a DAR meeting earlier this year that explained how DNA testing is used in Family Tree research and it was fascinating. Expensive, too!!

[ikmccall]

*bump* New episode tonight with Susan Sarandon (I think)

[Spinderella]

Ancestry.com offers DNA testing that isn't *too* expensive, but something I'm very interested in putting some $$ away for.

And yes, Susan Sarandon is tonight. Can't wait!

[angelaudie]

Susan Sarandon's episode was really interesting! Her grandmother sounds like quite the character. I keep going back and forth on whether or not to feel sympathy for Anita. Well, I do to an extent. It must have been rough losing her mother, getting pregnant at 13, married at 13, and then finding yourself raising a kid and expecting another one. She was a kid herself and certainly didn't have the maturity to be a wife and mother. I wouldn't be shocked she had no idea what sex was when she slept with her NINETEEN YEAR OLD (man that part gave me the creeps) neighbor. Wouldn't be at all shocked she had no idea that sex lead to babies. Still, it's awfully cold to not only leave your children but only have contact with them one time and leave their lives again.

There are many questions about Anita that will never be answered. Did she ever think about her kids? Did she love them? Why did she ultimately decide to stay away? It really looks like she was trying to run from her past. At best she left because she was a confused kid and by the time she had matured enough to be a decent parent she decided her kids were better off without her disturbing them. Worst case is she just didn't care and it was all about her.

Susan looks an awful lot like her grandmother. It's kinda a shame Anita and Susan never met. I think they would have gotten along really well. It certainly seems possible Susan somehow inherited her grandmother's free spirit.

[Deleted]

Yeah, that sketch of Susan's grandmother looked EXACTLY like Susan!! So crazy.

[Deleted]

This was the most fascinating episode by far. I know she probably loved him but Susan's grandfather sounds like a creep, I mean getting a 12-year-old pregnant? That's just wrong. I'm wondering if Anita stayed away because the grandfather didn't want her around.