Travel Channel Show - Follow Your Past

[Chava61]

Originally Posted by TracySam

Wow! Good for you! I felt similarly about Dustin Hoffman's ancestor who saw her son and husband murdered by the Soviet government, then when she spoke out she was sent to a gulag. somehow she lost an arm along the way, and eventually made it to the US in her old age after a several year stop in south America.

I saw the episode with Dustin Hoffman on "Finding Your Roots" on PBS. The host of the show is Henry Louis Gates Jr.

[SunGrins]

I've watched two episodes but will watch more. I think it is an entertaining show...fitting for the Travel Channel. The travelling is somewhat interesting and the segments with the guest 'learning' how an ancestor might have worked or danced or fought is a new wrinkle for this type of show. I actually learned something on one of those segments.


What irks me is that this has little credibility other than the host remarking that they have somehow traced back 40 or so generations to some character in history and the guest seems as though they were not involved or maybe just unimpressed by the feat. The historical characters (that I saw) were quite obscure today and were sometimes cousins of some degree. The destination is very important to the show.


-----Just fantasizing for a minute...for a new TV show. I wonder if it would be possible to work downward from a famous ancestor to an "Average Joe" through a documented genealogy. Spend a few minutes explaining who the ancestor was and what they did. Then we could have the "Genealogy Prize Patrol" drive up at some unsuspecting descendant's house on live TV. Congratulations!!...you are the 73rd great-granddaughter of Emperor Caligula!