Archive for the ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ Category

I just loved this week’s episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” with Reba McEntire!  Since she was raised in our next-door state of Oklahoma, it’s like she’s almost a neighbor!

According to Thomas MacEntee of GeneaBloggers, I’m not the only one who loved this episode!  According to MacEntee the number of viewers went up by 1/3rd and it came in second in its time slot!  Sounds pretty good to me, though I think it ought to be Number 1 in its time slot!

Check out the rest of the stats for the Reba McEntire episode here at the GeneaBlogger’s website!

I have to say that I’ve loved every one of the WDYTYA episodes, but being a big Reba fan made this one special to me!  My hubby, son and I saw her sing in Wichita several years back and she put on an awesome show!

The things that the researcher’s uncovered about Blair’s ancestors, and then this week that they shared with Reba sure was a revelation on the times and the area they all lived in, and reminded me to turn over all the stones in my searches.

I can’t wait till next week rolls around to see what interesting things the researchers share with the guest!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
24 April 2010

Until “Who Do You Think You Are?” began, Friday nights used to be marathon channel surfing nights while we tried to find something worth watching!

Three Generations Who Love WDYTYA!

Now, Friday nights are a hurry up, get everything done, cats and dogs fed, supper out of the way (or picnic in front of the television!) while we all gather around, three generations ranging from age 35 to age 98, to watch while someone searches into their family’s past to learn their family story.

I Loved it That Her Son Joined Her for The Research!

I particularly enjoyed watching Susan Sarandon’s story last night. She was an admitted family history researcher who seemed to be pretty familiar with microfilm viewers and library research, and I thought that it was a nice touch that her son joined her for part of the research.  (Don’t we just love it anytime our children are interested in our family history?)

For those who say they’d like to see more realism in how long it takes to research, you can’t do that in an hour, but last night we did get to see several different records and methods that Susan used to access to the information, and learn ‘the rest of the story’ as Paul Harvey used to say.

Her Grandmother’s story was heartbreaking…

Susan’s grandmother’s story was heartbreaking with its hardships, and to be so close in distance to a grandmother she would have loved to know must have made for some “wish I could have done this sooner” thoughts on the part of Sarandon.

I thought it was wonderful that she could forgive her grandmother the choices that she made, and enjoyed how she wove the story together in a way that made it very understandable why her grandmother had made those choices, touching on her grandmother’s hardships:  loss of her mother when she was so young, a pregnancy when she was just a child, a marriage she probably didn’t really want to a man she may not even have liked, and two little babies by the time she was fifteen.

There was a haunted quality to her eyes…

I thought in her later years’ photograph there was a ‘haunted’ quality to her grandmother’s eyes as she held the little baby, as if she was remembering her own babies and wondering where they were, and if she had grandchildren of her own.