WDYTYA USA Ep1 Martin Sheen

Coolnabacky1873 · 04-02-2012 2:44am #1

Just watching Martin Sheen examine the life of his Tipperary uncle who was an old IRA volunteer.

More here about it from the Indo.

In relation to Sheen, they did the usual bit where he has a look on ancestry.com to see what he can find. I was quite surprised to see them display a digitized Irish civil registration record on their website.

They do have the indexes but I'm almost 100% certain they don't have digitized civil registration BMD's. They didn't refer to it as one but you could tell by the lay out of the document that that is what it was. A bit misleading I feel.

In general the show can be a gift and a curse to pro genealogists. Obv gets people interested in doing their family tree and that can means business but it also creates this unreal expectation that a number of generations can be researched quite quickly.

Waitsian · 04-02-2012 6:20pm

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

Just watching Martin Sheen examine the life of his Tipperary uncle who was an old IRA volunteer.

They do have the indexes but I'm almost 100% certain they don't have digitized civil registration BMD's. They didn't refer to it as one but you could tell by the lay out of the document that that is what it was. A bit misleading I feel.

They don't.

Coolnabacky1873 · 06-02-2012 8:48pm

Just had a look at the relevant part of the episode again online. It's a death certificate and is from a family tree that someone created.

Whether it was created by a genuine member of the website or by ancestry.com for the purposes of the episode is another question.

Jellybaby1 · 07-02-2012 2:11am

They really wind people up, don't they?

Coolnabacky1873 · 07-02-2012 2:32am

For sure. The more they can make people think that all you need to do your family history is an Ancestry subscription, the more that suits them.

IrPsych2011 · 10-07-2012 12:04am

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

.....
'In relation to Sheen, they did the usual bit where he has a look on ancestry.com to see what he can find. I was quite surprised to see them display a digitized Irish civil registration record on their website.....'

That hopped off the screen at me. I've just taken a wander over to Ancestry.com (already have a subscription) & no, as I thought, they don't have the images.

Much as I love the programme, it is beginning to sound like one long Ancestry.com ad. :rolleyes:

Jellybaby1 · 10-07-2012 12:46am

I didn't enjoy the programme at all. The Irish branch broke off pretty early. Disappointing, as there must have been more to discover. Maybe there wasn't enough heroism and suffering on that side for the programme. :rolleyes:

Coolnabacky1873 · 10-07-2012 1:07am

IrPsych2011 wrote: »

Much as I love the programme, it is beginning to sound like one long Ancestry.com ad. :rolleyes:

That was part of the reason I gave up watching that season before the end. The Marisa Tomei episode was probably the most interesting of the ones I watched from that season.

shanew · 10-07-2012 11:36am

I've seen these - they do come across as an advert for Ancestry, but are worth look for the US research element. The versions they show on RTE are a trimmed down edit with all the 'coming up next' and 'reminder' segments either side of the ad breaks removed.

The Rashida Jones episode was interesting.. she had a Dublin ancestor but didn't spend very much time on that... I think she may have visited Stuart Rosenblatt

Shane

WDYTYA USA Ep1 Martin Sheen

Comments