Who Do You Think You Are? - Seventh Series

[Luckyjo]

Wouldn't it be nice if they had an episode of "Who do you think you are" with just an ordinary person off the street. Some of their ancestors would be much more interesting I think.
Cheers JOy

[toni*]

Chris Moyles got a bit of bad press for saying that his is one of the ones that does not go through the events of WW1 / 2

[Ruskie]

Too many subject's histories, even when set in the UK, don't seem to go back much before the censuses. Let's have a few manorial documents/ poll books/tax records for a change.
Matthew Pinsent style ... 

I'm tiring ever so slightly of those with Jewish and WW1 and 2 emphasis. Love them all though ...

[lesleyhannah]

I'd really like to see an episode with ag labs and see them try and push as far back in time as possible - getting beyond the obvious census/GRO/ easy PRs stuff.

One of the things I loved about the Paxman episode was finding how his poorer relatives had to move from the south of the country up to the industrial north to get work. It's something that happened to many families, and it's fascinating watching the movement of ordinary people from one end of the country to the other. Most families can trace back to ag labs - it's interesting to see the different directions they took before 1841.

[RJ_Paton]

Wouldn't it be nice if they had an episode of "Who do you think you are" with just an ordinary person off the street. Some of their ancestors would be much more interesting I think.
Cheers JOy

Unfortunately the producers of the show do not think that way. I read a recent interview where they are quoted as saying that they felt that more people could relate to celebrities than to "joe bloggs".

Equally unfortunately, I think we have to remember that genealogy is only a very loose base upon which the program was founded it's primary function as a TV programme is to provide a certain number of minutes of "general entertainment"

[les_looking]

Wouldn't it be nice if they had an episode of "Who do you think you are" with just an ordinary person off the street. Some of their ancestors would be much more interesting I think.
Cheers JOy

Unfortunately the producers of the show do not think that way. I read a recent interview where they are quoted as saying that they felt that more people could relate to celebrities than to "joe bloggs".

Equally unfortunately, I think we have to remember that genealogy is only a very loose base upon which the program was founded it's primary function as a TV programme is to provide a certain number of minutes of "general entertainment"

i don't really agree with that (not what you are saying more the BBC comments)
the amount of diy or house auction programmes have been a major viewing success all with joe bloggs, i think maybe the BBC underestimate the true interest of family history, heir hunters, so you think your royal etc, again all with joe bloggs the main people, it's not as if the celebrity wdytya has anything to do with their way of life, the average person would not cost the same, as the way they pamper the "stars" and i'll bet many on here have done a lot of the work for the programme, but would never be able to afford the places they get taken to, i'll bet there are many people who don't watch certain episodes maybe because they don't like the celebrity,
lol maybe in the economic times they should cut costs and feature the IMPORTANT people

i for one would find, for example a programme about how a lottery winners life had been changed more interesting, than a programme on how the beckhams live

[Suffolk Mawther]

lesleyhannah wrote
One of the things I loved about the Paxman episode was finding how his poorer relatives had to move from the south of the country up to the industrial north to get work.

Do you remember how Jeremy Paxman had assumed his origins to be middle class and northern?  Funny thing is, there are still many Paxman's in the Framlingham area, who are probably all related if you go back a little way.

The programme of relocating folk from East Anglia to the northern mill towns  was fairly short lived due to importation of cheaper cotton affecting the industry, but some of those families took advantage of the situation they found themselves in and worked hard and really did well.  Some though did eventually find their way back to Suffolk (and Norfolk).

Pat ...

[RJ_Paton]

i think maybe the BBC underestimate the true interest of family history

I think you are spot on ..... I also believe that had the program not been transferred from BBC2 to BBC1 as part of their "general entertainment" then it might possibly have gone in the direction of "Joe Bloggs".

Unfortunately there seems to be this belief that we (ie the general public) are besotted with so called celebrities and hang on their every deliverance although having said that there must be a considerable number who do, given the number of so called celebrity gossip magazines which stuff the shelves of the average newsagent/supermarket.

It is possibly this audience that the producers have aimed for rather than the genuine genealogist - quantity rather than quality 

[les_looking]

i think maybe the BBC underestimate the true interest of family history

It is possibly this audience that the producers have aimed for rather than the genuine genealogist - quantity rather than quality 

sadly probably so
although (and this is the only comparision i could think of, i do NOT watch it) the "normal" big brother and compare the celebrity one for viewing figures, and the normal one comes out way on top, not sure if thats because everyone tunes in to see where they get these strange people from
i'd still like to think the majority of normal people prefer to see someone they can relate to, and how the BBC could think that spoon feeding celebrities with stuff and moving them to different countries or on 1st class trains that it is anything like the research most of us do, amazes me, i must really try to walk into a records office one day and ask a question and get an instant answer lol, must frustrate a newcomer to watch one of these episodes and then realise you would have more chance chucking a note in a bottle in the sea, than tracing history as they do