Who Do You Think You Are, Season 2 Episode 7

Celebrity: Gwyneth Paltrow
Aired: 1 April 2011

Ancestry.com Presence: Two commercials and four mentions during the actual show.


Pros:

• Jewish Ancestry and Eastern Europe are not genealogical areas I'm familiar with so it was very interesting to see the show cover that. I've mainly stuck to Western Europe and mostly the UK at that.
• Finding books that mention ancestors is such a joy. The story about her ancestor and stopping the fire was so fascinating.
• Gwyneth's Barbados ancestry. I would have liked to see more of her visit there, and I wish we'd been able to explore how her ancestors came to be there. 
• Note: In the UK version of Who Do You Think You Are, Ainsley Harriott explores his slave and slave holder roots in Barbados.)
• I really liked that Gwyneth was so happy with connecting to her ancestors. It's one of the great joys of genealogy to see what your ancestors have gone through and what they contributed to your existence.

Cons: 

• They certainly covered a lot and quickly! If I didn't have my notes, I'd be confused about which side was which and what happened to who. It flitted about a bit too much for my tastes, almost like two episodes that were squeezed into one. 

In the End: They covered a lot of different records, locations, and family history. It also explored family stories, traits, and the connection you can feel to your ancestors.


Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (Mainly because of the hectic pace. My reaction may be due to fatigue on my part though!)

Things I'd Like to Reiterate: I do actually like the fact that they have a genealogy show on television, even if a lot of it is geared towards advertising one specific genealogical site. I will miss it after the last episode and will look forward to its return.

I can't say I can point to one trait that was passed down to me, but my Mother did tell me that my paternal grandmother had to have just a little bite of something sweet at the end of dinner as well!


Links: 

• http://www.jewishgen.org/
• http://www.gov.bb/portal/page/portal/BIG_Department_of_Archives
• http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/about/archives.shtml

Next Week: Ashley Judd (I saw in the preview a family tree that had William Brewster on it. If she's related to him, then I'm related in some way to her through the Brewster family.)