WDYTYA USA on RTE1

hjr

Just wondering if anyone watched this last week, with Cindy Crawford as the guest.

What a disappointing program...they spent about 15 mins talking about her 41st great grandfather Charlemagne, born in 742

I don't think it adds much to a genealogy program to focus on one ancestor, especially one born over 1200 years ago...we learned nothing of interest about the rest of her family, or record collections really....it just seemed like a Hollywood version of family history!

Waitsian

hjr wrote: »

What a disappointing program...they spent about 15 mins talking about her 41st great grandfather Charlemagne, born in 742

Pffft, 742? Is that all? Amateur! I see her 8th Century ancestor and raise it with a 4th Century one. I'm a descendant of Niall, he of the hostages, or his brother or summat.

You have to laugh...

Coolnabacky1873

I didn't even bother watch this series on TV here in the US. I much prefer how the UK version is a full on 55-60 mins. I don't know if they edit it for RTE, but on TV over here there is a large amount of repetition after commercial breaks.

There has been the odd good episode on US version. Kelly Clarkson was good craic last season and the Chelsea Handler one was in the style of the Brendan O'Carroll episode, with a detailed look at her grandfather who was a German POW in WWII.

Waitsian

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

I didn't even bother watch this series on TV here in the US. I much prefer how the UK version is a full on 55-60 mins. I don't know if they edit it for RTE, but on TV over here there is a large amount of repetition after commercial breaks.

There has been the odd good episode on US version. Kelly Clarkson was good craic last season and the Chelsea Handler one was in the style of the Brendan O'Carroll episode, with a detailed look at her grandfather who was a German POW in WWII.

There have been a few good ones I've seen, Martin Sheen was a personal fave.

pinkypinky

I liked Marisa Tomei's.

hjr

Agreed, there have been some good episodes, but just thought in an awful waste of time to be talking about an ancestor who's probably an ancestor to thousands of people, maybe more, by virtue of being so far back in history....nothing about it made it unique to Cindy Crawfords family story....there were lots of other areas of her family which could have been investigated to make an interesting story....

Waitsian

hjr wrote: »

...an ancestor who's probably an ancestor to thousands of people, maybe more, by virtue of being so far back in history....

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/07/charlemagnes-dna-and-our-universal-royalty/


Not only are we all related to him, but we're all related to each other. So the whole premise of Crawford's WDYTYA programme and the segment on Charlemane, was, although true, indeed a waste of airtime.

hjr

mod9maple wrote: »

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/07/charlemagnes-dna-and-our-universal-royalty/


Not only are we all related to him, but we're all related to each other. So the whole premise of Crawford's WDYTYA programme and the segment on Charlemane, was, although true, indeed a waste of airtime.

Dear god,

That article makes it an even bigger mockery to devote nearly a quarter of the program to him! That makes my point a million times stronger...!

Waitsian

I just watched the episode for Cynthia Nixon from the latest series and found it very interesting. They used BMDs, census returns, military pension records, court records and newspapers. Very enjoyable to watch.