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Old 10-17-2014, 03:06 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nightbird47 View Post
This is a very good point. When you look at history, there are often according to present sensitivities, no real 'good guys'. It's much easier to imply that all southerners supported slavery/owned slaves/defended the south/were motivated by the politics we see now. But the reality is so much more complicated. And on an hour show when your hurrying through it takes *time* to really explain history. So you keep it simple. The problem is too many people will never get the complicated story and believe the one sided pc one.

I appear to have ancestors who fought for the north, and some for the south, and the direct ones who were burned off their farm by union forces in Missouri, left and didn't fight for anyone. And this is in one family. But I had never heard of the virtual war in Missouri that preceeded the big war, and the ruthless way it was ended by Order number 11. And when I connected the county where my ggggrandfather lived with the first one depopulated, I felt like there was a connection I hadn't even known of. I'm not taking a 'side' since the object was to end the guerilla war which had led to many deaths, but then I can understand just how they'd feel that because somewhere in Scotland County there had been a confrotation so the whole county was despoiled. I can see why they stayed out of it. The war was about different things for different people.

And we don't really teach history today, not for a long time, but the pc version. A friend who is Native told me about his family, part Sioux and part Crow. His father's family disowned their son when he married a 'lesser' person. The native tribes were hardly pc standard perfect. But since they are the honored loser we don't seem to be able to deal with the reality that they too were just imperfect human beings. Everyone is, and we need to lose the idea that the currently 'right' side had to be the 'good' one too. "Good' as we like to define it doesn't exist.

Maybe they should do ONE person's line, and deal realistically with who is in it. Don't condem people who are long dead and lived in a different world, just look at the world they lived in and leave it up to the viewer. But then some would come to the wrong conclusion so that would not do.

I was absolutely blessed by having a history teacher in high school who taught US history using the words spoken and written by the people of the time. The book with their writing was the most important one to read. The standard vanilla text book was the least. We had a debate each week on an issue of the time, and you got assigned a side. Thing was, you have to argue your point with the arguments they would have used. See their world. It made you realized that why people do what they do is far from as simple as the pc sorts like to make it. And if we were around then, who knows what you'd think if you'd grown up in their world.
This is a stellar point, because in essence, you're saying that it's all about PERSPECTIVE. Perception, even in its simplest form, has always differed. What may be "bad weather" (rain all day) to one person may be "good weather" to another, who needs the rain for crop growth, etc. So in its most infinitesimal form, even weather is not "good" or "bad," and the same applies with history, depending on where you are, who you are, when you are who you are, and about a thousand other things. The events taken by themselves are just that -- events.

 
Old 10-17-2014, 03:52 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jiminnm View Post
They did not get that info from a test. They surmised that one of her great grandparents had to have passed down the DNA and they then ruled out 7 of the 8 by the ancestry, geography and other non-DNA factors specific to those 7, leaving the one who could not be ruled out.
I really, really don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I'm a bit thick-headed about this science and still wonder how they arrived at this, exactly. So, here's the transcript of that episode, "Born Champions," and that certain segment:

Courtesy, PBS: Public Broadcasting Service, Born Champions ~ Full Episode | Finding Your Roots | PBS
(Bolded text is mine)
-------------

GATES VO: I HAD NOW CONNECTED ALL THREE OF MY GUESTS TO FAMILY STORIES THAT HAD BEEN LOST — AND SHOWED THEM HOW THE LIVES OF THESE UNKNOWN ANCESTORS PAVED THE WAY FOR THEIR ATHLETIC SUCCESS.

BUT THERE WERE MYSTERIES THAT COULD NOT BE UNLOCKED USING THE PAPER TRAIL ALONE.

THE LATEST ADVANCES IN DNA ANALYSIS NOW ALLOW US TO PEER INTO THE ANCESTRY HIDDEN IN OUR CHROMOSOMES. WE TURNED TO THIS POWERFUL TOOL TO HELP REBECCA LOBO TRY TO FIND HER GREAT-GRANDFATHER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF HER FATHER’S FAMILY – HIS MATERNAL SIDE.

REBECCA’S GRANDMOTHER, CATHERINE WADE, HAD BEEN BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK. AND CATHERINE’S FATHER HAD REMAINED NAMELESS FOR GENERATIONS.

GATES: Did your grandmother or anyone else in the family talk about Catherine’s father?

LOBO: I was led to believe that she had no idea who her biological father was.

GATES VO: TO FIND CATHERINE’S FATHER, WE BEGAN BY EXAMINING THE LIFE OF HER MOTHER, REBECCA’S GREAT-GRANDMOTHER MARY OLECH. OUR RESEARCH REVEALED THAT MARY WAS AN IMMIGRANT FROM AUSTRIA. SHE ARRIVED AT ELLIS ISLAND AT THE AGE OF 19 WITH ONLY 25 DOLLARS IN HER POCKET.

GATES: Do you know who that is?

LOBO: I don’t.

GATES: This is a photo of your great-grandmother, Mary, taken in New York City a year after Catherine was born.

LOBO: She looks like she was 15-years-old. She looks so young.

GATES: Mmm. Do you notice anything else about her garb?

LOBO: It does not look like peasant garb.

GATES: She’s wearing a fur coat. That’s the first thing that struck us, Rebecca, we said, where’d this woman get this fur coat?

LOBO: Yeah.

GATES VO: IT TURNS OUT THAT AFTER REBECCA’S GREAT-GRANDMOTHER, MARY, ARRIVED IN THE UNITED STATES, SHE FOUND A JOB AS A MAID IN THE HOME OF A WEALTHY FAMILY IN NEW YORK CITY. THAT MIGHT EXPLAIN HOW SHE CAME BY HER FANCY CLOTHES. BUT IT DIDN’T HELP US FIND THE MAN WHO FATHERED MARY’S CHILD, REBECCA’S GRANDMOTHER, CATHERINE.

IN ORDER TO DETERMINE HIS IDENTITY, WE WOULD NEED TO EXAMINE REBECCA’S DNA.

REBECCA TOOK A SERIES OF DNA TESTS THAT ALLOWED US SEE WHAT GENETIC TRACES HER MYSTERY GREAT-GRANDFATHER HAD LEFT IN HER DNA.


WE HAD ALREADY PIECED TOGETHER REBECCA’S FAMILY HISTORY USING CATHOLIC CHURCH RECORDS, BUT THE DNA RESULTS REVEALED SOMETHING QUITE UNEXPECTED.

GATES: You have 10.2 percent Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.

LOBO: Really? Wow. I did not know we had any Jewish ancestry.

GATES: I don’t think anybody in your family did.

LOBO: Wow.

GATES VO: WE ALL INHERIT ROUGHLY 12-AND-A-HALF PERCENT OF OUR DNA FROM EACH OF OUR GREAT-GRANDPARENTS. SO REBECCA’S RESULTS STRONGLY SUGGESTED THAT ONE OF HER GREAT-GRANDPARENTS WAS JEWISH. WE WANTED TO SEE IF THIS JEWISH ANCESTOR MIGHT TURN OUT TO BE HER MYSTERY GREAT-GRANDFATHER.

SO WE RAN ANOTHER TEST.

CHROMOSOME ANALYSIS REVEALED THAT REBECCA’S JEWISH DNA CAME FROM HER GRANDMOTHER CATHERINE–MEANING THAT ONE OF CATHERINE’S PARENTS ACTUALLY WAS JEWISH. WHEN WE RESEARCHED THE GENEOLOGY OF CATHERINE’S MOTHER, MARY OLECH, WE FOUND NO EVIDENCE THAT HER FAMILY WAS JEWISH. IT SEEMED THERE WAS ONLY ONE POSSIBLE CONCLUSION.

GATES: Catherine’s mysterious father, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was Jewish.

LOBO: Yeah. Finally, finally know something about him.

GATES: Yep, you finally do.

LOBO: Yep. Fascinating.

GATES: Yeah, so I hope that’s a gift that we’ve given you.

LOBO: Yes, it is. Thank you.

-------------

Like the previous poster SobreToto mentioned, I'd like to know more about which tests these are, more specifically, and if they're available to a female like me, with no close, living male relatives.

For example, here are my autosomal test results from Ancestry.com:


Europe 99%
• Great Britain 41%
• Ireland 35%
• Europe West 12%
• Scandinavia 7%
• Trace Regions 4%
• Finland/Northwest Russia 2%
• Iberian Peninsula 1%
• European Jewish < 1%


I would apparently need a chromosomal test of some kind (?) to tell me which "part of me" came from Scandinavia, right, or wrong? This Ancestry.com autosomal test is more "deep clade," I think; it tells me nothing PARTICULAR regarding the ethnic makeup of my great-grandparents (of whom 2 were born in Scotland; the other 6 were born in the US/the Colonies).

Am I right? And please forgive my ignorance, but how, again, do I determine (if I can) who makes up that Finnish/Russian or Scandinavian, for example? Names of specific tests, companies, labs, etc.?
 
Old 10-17-2014, 09:23 AM
 
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Love this show!!

I have watched many HLG shows and specials. He has done a ton of them and FWIW, he is a professor of African American literature and history so of course he would have more interest in his subject matter. He is also a very well respected researcher in regards to his field. I went to an HBCU and was an English Literature major and HLG was a very prominent figure in practically all of my literature classes due to having been the editor of or writer of or researcher of many of the textbooks, especially as it relates to slave narratives which are a huge subject of his.

In regards to the show, I actually do like it better than the Who Do You Think You Are show. I think HLG's is a bit more intimate and even though they don't travel all over the place, I do feel the information provided and the stories of the ancestors are more in depth. I also like that it is not interuppted by commercials because I hate commercials lol.

But primarily wanted to mention that HLG actually has done some segments of this show that doesn't involve the Civil War or slavery or being guilty about slavery. He has also had a segment where oppression and discrimination against Native Americans were discussed. He has done some about immigrant families, one that was the most interesting to me was when the show did Margaret Cho's ancestry. Her ancestry went back farther than anyone else he had ever showcased due to in Korea and China they keep exemplary genealogical records. That was probably my favorite show, it featured Sanjay Gupta (his family's story was also very interesting), Martha Stewart (who I love and who is the reason I watched that episode) and Margaret Cho.

I also feel that this year they aren't breaking out ancestry by continent as much as they should so far. I am black, but I don't think being European is boring either. Due to being an English major in college and even as a result of the influences of HLG and his editing and texts, I came to really love the various cultures and ethnicities of Europe and especially of the variety of peoples in the British Isle and Ireland and other former English colonies.

But in regards to slavery and the Civil War, practically every American who isn't a recent immigrant will have some sort of connection to either one or both. You should expect that anytime a black person is featured, there will be mention of slavery and the Civl War because both of those are a part of every black American's past, even free black Americans and slave owning black Americans. It is very difficult for blacks in this country to even find anything about their family before the Civil War so unfortunately this topic is usually the climax and the end of the research for black Americans.

I know that if Anna Deveare Smith's case (the black woman whose ancestor was a conductor of the Underground Railroad) the fact that he had that connection and also owned land near Gettysburg and he was one of the contractors who buried the dead there, is just fascinating and something of great value I bet to her and that she will treasure.
 
Old 10-18-2014, 08:03 PM
 
Location: West of Louisiana, East of New Mexico
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Yeah, I think we spend so little time on slavery and the near Native American genocide, that it's refreshing to see it brought to the light. If some white people are uncomfortable with the truth, go to a typical American history class (high school or college), and you can rest assured that these painful aspects of history will be mostly ignored and somewhat white-washed.

As for Confederates, well, Nazis, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban all feel/felt that they were doing the honorable thing. Just because you are passionate about what you do, doesn't make your cause any more acceptable. If defending your way of life means emasculating and enslaving my flesh and blood....you deserve to go the way of the Dodo bird.
 
Old 10-19-2014, 11:09 AM
 
Location: Native Floridian, USA
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I am a genealogist and the show does not hold my interest. As has been said, too much emphasis on race, civil war, civil rights, etc. I have a few fairly large(25 or more) slave holder ancestors. Am I particularly proud of that ? No, but it is what it is. I am much more interested in other details about their lives. I don't want to fixate on that one thing. I have ancestors in the Appalachian mtns and I find a bigger kick.
 
Old 10-19-2014, 01:47 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AnnieA View Post
I am a genealogist and the show does not hold my interest. As has been said, too much emphasis on race, civil war, civil rights, etc. I have a few fairly large(25 or more) slave holder ancestors. Am I particularly proud of that ? No, but it is what it is. I am much more interested in other details about their lives. I don't want to fixate on that one thing. I have ancestors in the Appalachian mtns and I find a bigger kick.
I don't think that any American should disregard or avoid what may be the 2 most defining events in our genealogy history: Slavery and the Civil War. To do so would just leave out a major part of what shaped the descendants over the decades and centuries.
 
Old 10-19-2014, 03:54 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,166,913 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hondu54 View Post
I don't think that any American should disregard or avoid what may be the 2 most defining events in our genealogy history: Slavery and the Civil War. To do so would just leave out a major part of what shaped the descendants over the decades and centuries.
But there is a great difference between seeing them as defining events and personal ones. The Civil war displaced at least one part of my family and sent them packing out of state. But its just something which happened to me, and while of interest its just as much because of the historical persepctive. It isn't *personal* to me. I'm sure it was for for them. I didn't even know about Order 11 until looking up their history but something over a hundred years ago is not something to take up as a cause. The problem with the show is it gets all preachy. Ok, if your going to be preachy, find other things like the shipping of convicts (and convict who got shipped did so for the most minor of crimes, the major ones hung) and question the mindset of that too. Don't get stuck on one 'group' when you emotional.

I'm with others who, whatever else they did that was normal in their sociey, I'd like to know about ancestors as human beings. Did they marry young? Did the wife die years before the husband and there is a child who died (or is listed with only a birth date) which matches? And so on. I don't want to be 'preached at'. And if I want to feel proud of ancestors who survived incredable odds, but violated 'our' rules of good and bad, then I will.

The people who are really bothered by the preaching don't want the civil war or slavery never to be mentioned. But put it in *historical* terms, not the personal ones. It also seems to be the universal focus. I may record and fast forward after any mention of the hot topic comes up. And maybe to some of us how people survived the farm and raised their kids to look forward is JUST as important.

We don't really *want* to know how later generations will view us so maybe we shouldn't be so picky about our ancestors.

I do think people who are bothered about this focus should write their local pbs station and pbs and be specific. It's even better if your a paying member. It will get passed on.
 
Old 10-19-2014, 05:39 PM
 
Location: near bears but at least no snakes
26,637 posts, read 28,446,887 times
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How about some people with Revolutionary War ancestors for a change? That war was even more important than the Civil War, although we don't hear that much about it because it was so long ago. There wouldn't be a USA in the first place if it hadn't been for the Revolutionary War. There was a famous black regiment here in MA too--and there is a famous statue commemorating them in Boston.

I agree, I wish the scope of this program with expand a bit to include other parts of the country, other wars, even other countries. But even though that's what I wish for, I still enjoy the program a lot.
 
Old 10-19-2014, 06:30 PM
 
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I don't like the focus, either, but it's Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and that's his show and his area of education and interest. Surely even he can see how skewed it might seem to others?

But like someone else mentioned, he's done shows on Meryl Streep and others who don't have any slave history (or if they did, he didn't bring it up), and he's also gone overseas to look for his own Irish ancestry. It may be that this season, they don't have the budget for all of that, or he's worn out. I know I would be, and he's a lot older than I am!

I'm not apologizing for it in any way; just thinking that other factors might be contributing -- and agree that if he had intended on narrowing the focus, the name of the show could have been changed to reflect that.

Still, it would be nice to hear even the smallest detail about a person "of color" without mentioning how "the color" was involved. I want to know more about the little things, like how people cooked food and what they ate, where and how they lived and what kinds of buildings those might have been, if someone died of the 1917-'18 Influenza epidemic, how many in a family were affected, what sorts of clothing they would have worn, etc. (they have some of the photos; would be interesting to go more into these things).

I was particularly flummoxed when, after Ben Affleck was presented with his entire family chart, which he unrolled to find out that he had Swiss ancestry (which they glossed over) HLG said something to the effect of, "How does it make you feel to know that your mother participated in the 1964 protests?" WHAT? I'd have thought, "I don't feel anything, in particular -- this was part of her growing-up stage. Plus, I knew and lived with her. I'm more interested in those Swiss ancestors."
 
Old 10-20-2014, 10:42 PM
 
2,696 posts, read 3,752,201 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by in_newengland View Post
How about some people with Revolutionary War ancestors for a change? That war was even more important than the Civil War, although we don't hear that much about it because it was so long ago. There wouldn't be a USA in the first place if it hadn't been for the Revolutionary War. There was a famous black regiment here in MA too--and there is a famous statue commemorating them in Boston.

I agree, I wish the scope of this program with expand a bit to include other parts of the country, other wars, even other countries. But even though that's what I wish for, I still enjoy the program a lot.
I saw part of a recent episode with Ken Burns. The show highlighted an ancestor of his being loyal to the British during the Revolutionary War. I enjoyed that story.
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