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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Lydart on Wednesday 24 August 11 16:47 BST (UK)
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BBC One, 9 p.m. this evening.
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Coe the runner?
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Yep !
Also MP and 2012 Olympics ... organiser ? promoter ??
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I wonder if running was in his genes
is wdytya available as a webcast?
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You can watch it again after the broadcast on iPlayer ... go to the BBC One website and follow the links.
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thanks :)
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Didn't want to associate himself with slavery, did he!
Again, a very interesting programme and I think he was really interested in what was found.
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An interesting episode, but he didn't look that excited by it all. I would have loved to have all of those portraits of my family. :)
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But then he didn't have to work as hard at it as we do!!
Nice that he apologised to Granny for not believing her stories :)
Linda
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Like the US shows, this is the 3rd of the new series that has only concentrated on one particular line. Is this to be the continuing theme? If so, I, for one, am extremely disappointed.
Annette
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I suspect that many of us watch WDYTYA from a differant perspective to the non ,family researcher viewer
I often feel that the programme throws up questions which I would really like to be followed up, but there is only an hour!! (and it is supposed to be mass entertainment after all)
For instance, are there any descendants of the legitimate Hyde Clarke children as well as the other illegitimate offspring,especially the daughter mentioned in his will.
As has been said before, what about other ancestral lines? There again it would take a number of hour long programmes for each subject and that would probably be just too boring
Spring
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Here's an interesting book - Voyage of George Clarke, esq., to America.
http://www.archive.org/details/voyageofgeorgecl00clarrich
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Not having seen it yet, it doesn't inspire me to watch it when it comes to Australia.
Even if they don't dwell long on each ancestor I like to see how far they can go back (and any little thing which may be interesting), which I thought was the idea of the programme from the beginning.
Just because the US concentrate on one particular line does the UK version have to do the same?
Bev
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I wasn't too impressed with this one from the production side and Sir Seb himself was as boring as a politician can be! His cousin, who did the initial work must have found everything out from here as its not too difficult if you are lucky enough to hit on privileged lines and wills.
From our prospective, showing how you can access the Jamaican documents at the Familysearch HQ in London and NA for the wills and other military and NY docs would have been better, though probably a little too boring without the backdrops of Jamaica or New York for the non-FH researchers.
I was also a tad annoyed how they stopped at George Clarke... and dismissed his wife Ann Hyde as it was pretty obvious she also came from a wealthy family as the listing in the NY book listed her entry rather than the other way round! The name Hyde didn't come down the line for no reason after all and most of us would have been intrigued s to why the name had been passed down the line so much.
On the bright side, at least the Will entries stopped Sir Seb from mentioning his running at every opportunity, that was beginning to get on my nerves. ;D ;D ;D
ps, thanks for the link Rewcastle! it explains alot about the Hydes ;) I now realise why they didn't go any further as it broaches on a subject line that is going to be used on a later episode.
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He was clearly uncomfortable about the slavery issues - and who wouldn't be? But as one of the researchers involved pointed out, (the "inexorable") George Hyde lived the typical life of white male West Indian Plantation owners - a lifestyle probably comparable to the more dissolute film and rock stars of the twentieth century.
I thought it was a fascinating bit of British social history - even though it had no real value for my own research.
JULIAN
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Well, I enjoyed this one 8)
I liked his real interest in all the portraits , wills etc. that he was shown.
I agree that a mention of the illegitimate siblings' descendants would have been interesting.
Also, where in England did the New York governor originate?
Kooky
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His cousin, who did the initial work must have found everything out from here as its not too difficult if you are lucky enough to hit on privileged lines and wills.
It seems odd to me that his cousin hadn't managed to uncover all about this line given the relatively abundant availability of information about it online - for example, this is available on Ancestry:
The annals of the parish of Swainswick (near the city of Bath) : with abstracts of the register, the church accounts and the ov.
It gives quite a bit of detail re the Hydes and Clarke's. Could've saved him the trip.... :-\
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On the bright side, at least the Will entries stopped Sir Seb from mentioning his running at every opportunity, that was beginning to get on my nerves. ;D ;D ;D
And me JC ;D ;D ;D
I said that to my husband,when June Brown's episode was on she didn't go on and on about being an actress,nor did JK Rowling about being one of the richest writers ever.
Seb obviously felt we needed reminding all the time ::)
Carol
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Beginning to think the 'researchers' just fancied a jolly in Jamaica!
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/burke2/Royal%20Descents/edwardhydeclarke.htm
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Don't know why that link keeps coming up, the one I'm putting in is from Maximillian Genealogy. Just google Hyde-Clarke and it'll bring up a the page with an entire tree going back to Edward the 1st!
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Like the US shows, this is the 3rd of the new series that has only concentrated on one particular line. Is this to be the continuing theme? If so, I, for one, am extremely disappointed.
Annette
I agree Annette, l dont believe this series has taken off yet, they usually start with a great episode but not this time.
Three disappointing episodes so far, but then that is just my opinion.
Steve.
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An interesting episode, especially as the 'American' Clarke came from Somerset, which is where my Clark(e)s came from ... and I noted there was an Edwin Clarke mentioned early on ... I too have an Edwin Clarke !
I must look into this line a bit more !!
I too wondered if there were descendents of the slave 'mistress' that Seb might have met ... he seemed embarrassed to hear this forebears were slave owners ... would have been good to have seen his reaction to meeting one of the distant Jamaican cousins
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I thought it was an interesting episode. I kept wondering where it would lead next.
For those wondering about Seb's Coe roots... the FindMyPast Newsletter (http://www.findmypast.co.uk/content/wdytya/seb-coe.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=fmp_email&utm_term=reg&utm_content=250811&utm_campaign=wdytyasebcoe) has some interesting stuff :)
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I think he was a little 'concerned' regarding his connections... But how wonderful to have all those photographs.....
Yes he must have many many ''''cousins'''' so it is a shame he wasnt introduced to one or two. Maybe he chose not to be.
xin
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I enjoyed the show
Idon't mind them concentrating on one line when it's as interesting as that
I would have liked to know about the Hydes as I have ancestors who lived in Hyde - not a long way back, gt grandfather was undermanager at the colliery at the time of the 1894 explosion
Bob
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I watched this late last night because the OH had friends around to watch football, because it was late I fell asleep towards the end ‘22 minutes remaining’ was the last bit I saw! I am going to rewatch it when OH goes out tonight however
Wow what a lot of paintings / photos he was so lucky to have these and what sensible chaps making wills
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One of his great greats didn't figure very favourably on the wills ! ;D
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Another very enjoyable episode - a good series so far.
Larry Lamb next week looking into his biological Grandparents - his mother was adopted as a baby.
Apparently there is a mystery which the WDYTYA researchers couldn't solve. :-\
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in the very first series there was a mystery they couldn't solve and within 1hr ouf the program ending they received several emails telling them the answer ;D
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His cousin, who did the initial work must have found everything out from here as its not too difficult if you are lucky enough to hit on privileged lines and wills.
I'm not too sure how much actual research the cousin had actually done as the certificate that she showed seb was dated November 2010 so it had obvioulsy only recently been purchased. Unless they got a pristine copy just for the programme which seems a little unlikely.
I enjoyed the programme and I think all of us would be just as uncomfortable if we found we had slave owners in our genealogy.
It was lovely that he now has a set of pictures of his assorted grandfathers over time though.
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Really enjoyed this one as did other half who commented last week that the episodes had been too similar so far. It gives you a good incite into early British history.
I have also been watching two very interesting Irish genealogy programs which i don`t know but people might be able to watch abroad via RTE and TV3 websites.
One called the Tenements on TV3 was a program regarding life in a Tenement house a sort of Victorian farm experiment where a family had a go at living in a tenement house and where the history of tenement houses was explained.
The other is a new series called Genealogy roadshow where normal people have their genealogy explored. It did feature people who had a interesting family history story eg one family was related to the fourth wife of Charlie Chaplan, it makes a change to seeing celebrities stories.
regards
Sarah
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At the end of the day, I think that WDYTYA really is there to try and get people who haven't done any research to start doing some. It therefore, has to try and make things a bit more "exciting" and "celeb" than they really are. If you just watch it as "entertainment" then its perfectly fine. If you are watching it to get research help, then, its not really the right thing. They do get a lot of stuff packed into an hour and there are a lot of people researching their families who do just head straight down one line. I know I hop all over the place, but I know other people who just follow one surname as far as they can go and then take the next one. Yes, he mentioned that he's a runner, but so what, that's exactly what he was, its important to him. If I ever became famous (or infamous) then I would probably keep mentioning that for 8 years I was a test driver and that I've driven loads of fancy cars, mainly because its something I'm fairly proud off.
:-)
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Having finally watched this episode, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, I'd read the comments previously made here, but have to somewhat disagree with most of them.
He did mention his running, but that was in the UK and like all athletes he associates places with races - OH continually tells me that he has raced down this road (in the 50's and 60's :P).
I thought he handled the illegitimate children and "mistresses" admirably and with due deference to another age and lifestyle including slavery in Jamaica, without commenting from a modern-day angle. What was accepted then and what is acepted now are two entirely different perspectives, and to an extent cannot be compared. Excellent :)
All I have to do now is stay awake long enough to catch up on the two previous episodes ::)
BumbleB
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I was disappointed that they didn't go further back into the Hyde family, especially when we could see them in the book. :) The programme seemed to end prematurely, but I suppose they have to fit it all into one hour. Perhaps they provided more detail to Coe.
About his cousin the researcher...maybe she already knew much of what Coe learned, but for the purposes of the show she just got him started on the search. It appears to be a very well documented line so it's unlikely all his findings were new to her.
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Can anybody remind me which show from previous years also had a celeb who had slave owning ancestors?
It wasn't the Colin Jackson or Spike Lee episodes.
Thanks
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Was it Ainsley Harriott ? He had both slaves and slave owners in his ancestry, as I recall ?
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Moira Stewart(newsreader) had them too ..........I think?
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About his cousin the researcher...maybe she already knew much of what Coe learned, but for the purposes of the show she just got him started on the search. It appears to be a very well documented line so it's unlikely all his findings were new to her.
maybe the actual Jamaican documents were new to his cousin
it would be interesting to see what happened to all the children of George Hyde Clarke
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I would have loved to have delved more into Sophia Astley's line as well...what a story, that she left England to travel to Jamaica to live with a lover...
The final mistress that George had as well, Sarah Lee, would have been another line I would have explored.
Maybe they should make these episodes two hours! ;D ::)
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Can anybody remind me which show from previous years also had a celeb who had slave owning ancestors?
It wasn't the Colin Jackson or Spike Lee episodes.
Thanks
Wasn't it Hugh Quarshie (the Holby City guy)
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Can anybody remind me which show from previous years also had a celeb who had slave owning ancestors?
It wasn't the Colin Jackson or Spike Lee episodes.
Thanks
It was definitely Ainsley Harriott because I saw his episode fairly recently while I was house-sitting for a friend who has Sky TV. Carol is right in saying that Moira Stuart had slave or slave owning ancestors too. I'm not sure about Hugh Quarshie, but I remember him going to an African village where his ancestors had been very important (sorry, can't remember exactly).
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You can read the episodes here, either to catch up, or refer :)
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/episodes
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maybe the actual Jamaican documents were new to his cousin
The Jamaican document records are available at the Family History Center Head Quarters, in London, which would be easy for a Londoner to go and research. I'm not sure if these films are rentable though, don't see why not so long as they are referenced?
No where near as much fun as going to the Jamaican archives though 8) ;D
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You can read the episodes here, either to catch up, or refer :)
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/episodes
Thanks to all, it was probably Ainsley Harriet I was thinking of. The link is great too Daisy Loo.
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Three disappointing episodes so far, but then that is just my opinion.
Steve.
And one with I agree, Steve. The new series just hasn't 'grabbed' me yet, but I will continue to watch in the hope there's better to come :-\
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Annette 7,
I agree with you, following one line has limited interest to the viewer who is keen on the "whole" family.
Mind you I bet he enjoyed the first class travel ::)
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I enjoyed the Sebastian Coe one best of the three. It did have some unexpected twists and turns.
I've said before, in my opinion WDYTYA is past its best. It's got a bit too cliched and predictable, and needs a good shakeup of the format. I'm not sure how though! Maybe that's what they are trying to do with focusing on one line, but I don't think it's working.
Also, we have to remember we are not typical viewers! It's all too easy to find information that has been left out or glossed over, which leaves us feeling a bit cheated.
Anne
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In this case I didn't mind them sticking to one line because it was so rich in detail and there was a lot to interest me.
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Out of interest Sophia Astley appears in the Wiki entry for her father the painter John Astley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Astley_(painter)
Carole
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That's interesting reading Carole...so Seb Coe has another line there...full of interesting stories.
Ironic really that John Astley should disown his daughter if she went off with George Hyde Clarke, when it appears he was no better!!
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I enjoyed this episode - an interesting family. I think Sebastian Coe came across as a bit uncomfortable - I'm not sure if this is solely due to the subject matter found, or whether he is just a bit nervous and camera shy.
I think in an hour long programme it would be impossible to cover all generations. There was plenty to just fill in this one line.
So although I would like to see research on other branches, it is probably better to just focus on one line and do it in more depth. In the intro they make a point of stating which line the celeb wants to trace, but I think this is probably staged, taking into account the most interesting and easily followed branch of the family.
What I do think could be really interesting is revisiting some of these personalities at a later date, to trace another branch/es, and also to see if the celeb has done further research of their own.
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I have just watched my recording and really enjoyed it. Liked the way Sebastian reacted to some of the 'scandals' so much better than some others subjects when discovering what their ?X times grandparents did.
One other thing I enjoyed was fact that Seb's ancestors had not only portraits in existance but so much written about them that could put the meat on the bones rather than just being a name and time.
What I do think could be really interesting is revisiting some of these personalities at a later date, to trace another branch/es, and also to see if the celeb has done further research of their own.
That's a good idea WDYTYA Revisited ? :)
Jean
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That's interesting reading Carole...so Seb Coe has another line there...full of interesting stories.
Ironic really that John Astley should disown his daughter if she went off with George Hyde Clarke, when it appears he was no better!!
Reading that I was reminded of the saying that women tend to marry (or not marry in this case) men who are just like their fathers ....
Carole
(who did ;D but I had a lovely dad and have an equally lovely husband )
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That is a good idea Ruskie!!
;D ;D @ Carole - good point!
It's funny as well, how much can be found in one family....it also appears that one of the George Hyde Clarkes married a woman that survived the Titanic disaster! Can you imagine researching a line like that...you'd have files and files and files!! :o :o ::)
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It's funny as well, how much can be found in one family....it also appears that one of the George Hyde Clarkes married a woman that survived the Titanic disaster! Can you imagine researching a line like that...you'd have files and files and files!! :o :o ::)
Interestinger and interestinger. ;)
Even some of the earlier series where several lines were looked at still left some things up in the air and a lot of unanswered questions (which were discussed here on RC). Even revisiting some of these and expanding on previous findings would make for good viewing.
It's even possible that the WDYTYA researchers did find more information that they were unable to include in the allocated time frame, so in addition to expanding on what we've already seen, they'll likely get a series of really cheap programmes. I'm sure they know which the most popular programmes in each series were, so they would be the most logical ones to revisit. ;D
I'm glad you like my idea. ;)