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That makes sense, btw I really didn't mean offense by it again, in case it came off that way. I do notice some people assume the worst of celebrities and though I don't personally I can understand that.
For me I see celebrities as just normal people who happened to get lucky in their careers and become celebrities. So though I like genealogy of normal people as well (such as in the Follow your Past show that was entertaining if not perfect) I don't see any disadvantage to it being celebrities (other than it not being me!).
No offense taken. Alandros, I think we've pretty much proven we can respectfully disagree with each other and still get along, and I enjoy our discussions
Yes, I do wish it was "normal people" (with "normal people" including ME!) I wish there could be a contest we could all enter and the winner gets all the genealogy assistance and resources at their disposal like those celebs do. I wouldn't even need it to be on TV.
Was it just me or was Molly Ringwald exceptionally unengaging and boring? Not necessarily her ancestors, though there have certainly been better episodes, but Molly herself.
Yeah, she was kind of flat. But I was so into the Swedish stories, I didn't mind. I have a Swedish line, and I too LOVE the Swedish records. They were meticulous about recording births, deaths, marriages, and move-ins/ move-outs in each town.
Of course, I always have to find something about the celebrity to annoy me , and I got a little annoyed when Ringwald kept imposing 21st century US labor/employment standards on mid-19th century Swedish coal mines. "What? the mining company didn't have some insurance to cover the families of deceased miners!!!" "What? the mining company provided free (yet low-standard) housing for the widows, but didn't also give them food and money?" "What? the miners wore wool coats in the mines and not waterproof gear provided by the employer?!" Molly dear, this was the mid-1800s. These miners were poor and had no other prospects for work or income. They got a job, albeit a dangerous one, with income and a house. That's pretty good compared with being destitute, jobless and homeless. Plus, Molly, if the conditions had not been what they were, your ancestors would not have been motivated to come to the US and change their lives and the future of their family, and we'd have had another teenager starring in 16 Candles.
I had no idea that her dad is a blind musician! I would have rather seen the show take him on the ancestry journey rather than Molly!
Yeah, she was kind of flat. But I was so into the Swedish stories, I didn't mind. I have a Swedish line, and I too LOVE the Swedish records. They were meticulous about recording births, deaths, marriages, and move-ins/ move-outs in each town.
Of course, I always have to find something about the celebrity to annoy me , and I got a little annoyed when Ringwald kept imposing 21st century US labor/employment standards on mid-19th century Swedish coal mines. "What? the mining company didn't have some insurance to cover the families of deceased miners!!!" "What? the mining company provided free (yet low-standard) housing for the widows, but didn't also give them food and money?" "What? the miners wore wool coats in the mines and not waterproof gear provided by the employer?!" Molly dear, this was the mid-1800s. These miners were poor and had no other prospects for work or income. They got a job, albeit a dangerous one, with income and a house. That's pretty good compared with being destitute, jobless and homeless. Plus, Molly, if the conditions had not been what they were, your ancestors would not have been motivated to come to the US and change their lives and the future of their family, and we'd have had another teenager starring in 16 Candles.
I had no idea that her dad is a blind musician! I would have rather seen the show take him on the ancestry journey rather than Molly!
What annoyed me more than anything was the COMMERCIALS! This was the first time the commercial, recap, story continuation really ticked me off. Because this time it felt like there was no substance to the story, and I actually thought the show made a mistake and reran the same segment. Twice. They could have cut some of that and showed Molly with her Dad again... And it seemed like she said a sentence and CUT to commercial...multiple times.
Yeah -- this one was just awful. if their records were that good -- couldn't they have gone farther back? If that was discussed -- I missed it.
I wish they could have gone further back in Sweden too. The Swedish records are meticulous, I think dating back to the late 1600s, or at least 1700. It was a missed opportunity to show more of that and find earlier ancestors and their stories before the coal mining people.
http://arkivdigital.net/
This is where I access Swedish records. You can pay to join, or do what I do, which is use their free weekends they offer about twice a year.
I keep a short list of Swedish vocabulary too, words that tend to show up in genealogy records. That helps. But when handwriting is hard to read, it makes word recognition harder when it's a whole other language with a couple letters we don't have, and abbreviations we're not used to. Still, I've found some great stuff!
I wish they could have gone further back in Sweden too. The Swedish records are meticulous, I think dating back to the late 1600s, or at least 1700. It was a missed opportunity to show more of that and find earlier ancestors and their stories before the coal mining people.
I'm betting they did but they didn't find anything interesting enough for the show. They undoubtedly research each celebrity's full ancestry as thoroughly as possible prior to filming the show, then pick out the most interesting bits to include in the show. The fact that Molly's story was pretty bland compared to most others on the show and focused only on that one person/family certainly suggests that was the most interesting thing they could find in all of her ancestry. I always assumed they don't bother to film the ones they don't find anything interesting enough on, but maybe they were hurting for enough episodes this season.
I did find it interesting that this woman grew up without a father, barely a home, no money, etc and went on to eventually own land in her own right as a married woman - that's very unusual. But yeah, it was not worthy of an entire episode.
Quote:
Swedish Genealogy - ArkivDigital
This is where I access Swedish records. You can pay to join, or do what I do, which is use their free weekends they offer about twice a year.
I keep a short list of Swedish vocabulary too, words that tend to show up in genealogy records. That helps. But when handwriting is hard to read, it makes word recognition harder when it's a whole other language with a couple letters we don't have, and abbreviations we're not used to. Still, I've found some great stuff!
It always surprises me you have to pay because Norway has a similar digital archive, and it's free: Digitalarkivet - Arkivverket
I had no idea the Chris Noth episode was on at 8:00 last night. I have to catch it on On-Demand. I did see the 9:00 episode.
Wow, very powerful stories and interesting to learn about the group of Jews expelled from Spain who all settled in the same region of Greece, which then became part of Turkey. They not only focused on the story of the young widow being detained by Immigration for 2 years during WWI, but also went forward to find Leah Michele's relatives who died in the Holocaust. I find that actress annoying (surprise) but oddly, she didn't annoy me in the episode last night. She seemed really moved by the stories and showed a lot of empathy (though she did seem a little too perky when talking about the Holocaust, but I figured she probably already had known that story for years, and she was very excited to meet her cousin.)
A great example of an episode that didn't require unnecessary travel (they probably sprang for the cousin's plane ticket form Israel), and that didn't have to go back too far in time to find great stories. Again, I was more interested in seeing the celebrity's Dad's reaction than the celebrity's. Maybe they should let the celeb take a family member along on the journey in all episodes. Like last week, I'd have rather watched Molly's father take the journey. Last night reminded me a lot of the Christina Applegate episode from an earlier season (though the story content was totally different): they didn't go back far in time, and the father was profoundly affected by the information.
I'm behind... finally watched Molly Ringwald's episode. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Based on some comments here I expected a bit of a bland episode, instead I thought it was one of the best ones. It seems to focus on a lot of things that seemed to really impact her. I also found her comments about insurance and treatment of the widows as innocently ignorant. Not really in a negative way. A lot of people don't understand the history of such things and even if such things were fairly common for the time (which I'm assuming they are but to be fair I'm not an expert in that specific place and time and circumstance so maybe it wasn't) but that doesn't lessen the hardship. I mean slavery was common at one point, that doesn't make me feel it was any less unfair and any easier on the people.
In any case loved the episode, one of my favorites. Interestingly I haven't found any Swedish ancestry (one of the few sorts of ancestry in America I have yet to find), so was surprised I found it so interesting.
I'm behind... finally watched Molly Ringwald's episode. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Based on some comments here I expected a bit of a bland episode, instead I thought it was one of the best ones. It seems to focus on a lot of things that seemed to really impact her. I also found her comments about insurance and treatment of the widows as innocently ignorant. Not really in a negative way. A lot of people don't understand the history of such things and even if such things were fairly common for the time (which I'm assuming they are but to be fair I'm not an expert in that specific place and time and circumstance so maybe it wasn't) but that doesn't lessen the hardship. I mean slavery was common at one point, that doesn't make me feel it was any less unfair and any easier on the people.
I thought it was interesting, but like I say, I just don't think it was worthy of an entire episode. I felt like they really stretched it out because they had nothing else.
I thought it was interesting, but like I say, I just don't think it was worthy of an entire episode. I felt like they really stretched it out because they had nothing else.
Based on how they usually cram an episode with things I completely agree. I liked the slower pace though, even if it was unintentional.
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, and I got a little annoyed when Ringwald kept imposing 21st century US labor/employment standards on mid-19th century Swedish coal mines. "What? the mining company didn't have some insurance to cover the families of deceased miners!!!" "What? the mining company provided free (yet low-standard) housing for the widows, but didn't also give them food and money?" "What? the miners wore wool coats in the mines and not waterproof gear provided by the employer?!" Molly dear, this was the mid-1800s. These miners were poor and had no other prospects for work or income. They got a job, albeit a dangerous one, with income and a house. That's pretty good compared with being destitute, jobless and homeless. Plus, Molly, if the conditions had not been what they were, your ancestors would not have been motivated to come to the US and change their lives and the future of their family, and we'd have had another teenager starring in 16 Candles.
