The Austin Episode

The Genealogy Roadshow episode filmed in Austin was actually the first one that was recorded. But it was the last one aired . . . and that worked for me. Well, it really didn't matter to me about the order, but it was sort of interesting because that was the episode that included "my kid." At least, that's how I phrased it.

So, YES, "Max Hibben" is my kid. I taught him to ride a bicycle. I helped him with homework. I took him to get a cool looking outfit for his first dance. I (along with a host of other brave folks) rode with him as he learned to drive. But, no, I did not give him birth, nurse him (except back to health from the age of 8 on), change his diapers (for which we are both grateful), or hear his first words. He is, technically, my step-son. That means that my ancestry is not his; he shares his with his father and his biological mother, who was adopted in infancy and whose bio parentage is unknown.

Max helped some with some field research on an Austin story (he has made Austin his home since the 1980s and works there as a well-known DJ). So I suggested that he submit his story about his father's family's connection to Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island. I did not know if the show would accept it, but it certainly would make for an interesting story.

The question that has been asked over and over is, "Did Max know that he was related to Roger Williams?" Well, no more than anyone else on the show knew about their ancestors. He'd heard the stories throughout his childhood, but no one had proved it to him, nor did his father (my husband) have the lineage verified. Grandma and Granny (Butch's mother and grandmother) had always talked about the relationship, but was it valid? I agreed to work on the verification.

Consider my situation: After 36 years of marriage, I was actually questioning my husband's claim of being Roger Williams's 7th great-grandson. If it turned out that this family legend was false, I would have failed the show (bad) and I would have failed the family (worse). I was running the risk of letting down my bosses and being kicked out of the family. Max wouldn't be too pleased either.

After quite a few hours of research, I was immensely pleased to discover that all those stories were true. My rebel son with tattoos, piercings, and purple streaks in his hair was carrying on the tradition of bucking the system that we traced to the founder of Rhode Island (who, according to my family tree, was a close friend of my 8th great-grandfather, John Gallup . . . but I still need to complete that confirmation).

I do want to include one disclaimer: we sent in the family tree information to the producers, but how the editors put it together is out of our hands. Max's lineage connects him to the Chlarson family that, unfortunately, appeared on the television show as Charlson (I know, it looks as if I spelled it wrong so they corrected it, but I really did spell it right . . . I am surprised many of the Chlarson clan - and there are thousands of them! - didn't descend on me en masse).

Want to watch all the shows? Check PBS on-line. And, yes, that is my kid talking to Josh on the thumbnail link of the Austin Show.

Did you see the San Francisco episode of GENEALOGY ROADSHOW?

The San Francisco program was filmed at the Old Mint on 21 July 2013. By chance (and some schedule adjustment), Gena Philibert-Ortega and I were able to attend the filming (we were on a presentation and book-signing tour around California). What fun to watch all the folks milling around. I got to meet some of the "higher ups" in the program development, as well as the amazingly welcoming PBS execs from the local station, KQED.

I am not new to the filming industry. Besides having friends (past and current) in the "business," and often visiting studios over the years, I was a guest star on Oh, Madeline, with Madeline Kahn, for one episode (this was in the 1980s . . . but the show pops up every now and then . . . I no longer get residuals!). But I continue to be amazed watching the equipment and the operators thereof . . . it's almost like a waltz as cameras move in, move out, and make it look so easy. I know it's not and that often there are last minute adjustments, for various reasons: lighting, sound issues (and the Mint was fraught with those as the ceilings have to be 30 feet high and with hardly any furniture in the rooms, if there were few people around, the echo was pronounced), availability of the applicants to be filmed, equipment failures, etc. The casting director was a miracle worker. She must have been in three or four places at once and used both walkie-talkie and her phone to connect with people. Bless her heart, when I didn't appear in the lunch room when the rest of the folks were there, she texted me to make sure I had something to eat! And what a spread (Hollywood folks are known for getting some of the best food for their people . . . I have no idea how so many stay so skinny). Anyway, the constant flurry of activity kept me on my toes (often getting out of the way of people).

So, I have been asked: did people really just show up with their stories, asking for genealogy advice? Yes. But those that Josh and Kenyatta worked with had submitted their materials at least two weeks in advance (most, more than that), and we on the research team had lots of time (this being a relative term, of course) to get the information and verify it. I will be sharing a little more about some of the stories that I worked on in later posts. But let's look first at those crowds of people.

Folks had an opportunity to reserve tickets in advance (I believe for free). I tried to do that, but all tickets were gone within three hours of the PBS station posting their availability! (Funny: one of my friends - non genealogist - got one of those, not knowing about my involvement, arrived, looked in and saw me, and we had a great reunion!) Anyway, not all of those people were ticket holders. The others were a mix of family members of the applicants, various crew members (moving furniture, setting up lights, tearing down tables, etc.), and paid "extras." Yup, they paid folks to make sure there would be a crowd. At first I thought that was strange, but when you consider that a lot of people would come in for their consultation, chance to be on TV, etc., and then leave, there was a frightful chance that, at the end of the day when they were filming the last bits, there would be just an empty building. Hiring extras kept that from being an issue and, watching large families leave after having their clans' mysteries solved, I realized the need for the additional, guaranteed "audience."

There were four or five genealogists there to answer questions and I was included in that group. Jim Dane, Kim Cotton (who was instrumental in securing a number of documents for us), Gena (who had another obligation in the morning and didn't arrive until later in the day), and me (I am sure I am forgetting someone, so please let me know who you are) talked to people "off the cuff," giving them websites to visit, other avenues of approach to their brick walls, etc. Usually no more than about 20 minutes was spent on each of these good people. But I also handled some of the less dramatic (for television) stories that had been submitted early and I was able to give a little information about the applicants' ancestors. So, while Josh and Kenyatta were filming in two large rooms across the hall, other genealogists were working with folks in another big room without large crowds around. Personally, I liked the more intimate setting as we got to discuss side issues that were not possible to cover in the filmed segments. The two segments I did do that were filmed never made it to the final cut . . . I am not surprised . . . one of them would have not fit in comfortably (due to the awkward setting and no real information involved - more of a show and tell ancestor chart) and the other really didn't include any new information for the applicant (except that he came from a long line of people involved in refrigeration and, before that, the ice business).

The day went by too fast. I had a great time. And, personally, I think the resulting splicing and cutting made it look a lot like it was (compressed into a viewable hour). I continue to wish that there had been more time for a couple of additional stories, but those were received very late and one was a bit "touchy" in the final reveal. I would like to see more of how everything was found, but each of the more involved stories would have taken a minimum of two hours to do right. I will share a few of those background research details in the next blogs. Enjoy.

(above: Paxil the Platypus displays the KQED Genealogy Roadshow card that everyone was given for coming to the taping.)

I said I search for dead, not living, people

The second of the two "connect living family" stories from the Nashville episode of Genealogy Roadshow dealt with a young lady whose father was unknown to her. I would estimate that I spent a good thirty hours on this story, with many, many successes along the way.

Luckily, Sarah knew the name of her father (who had died in San Francisco a number of years earlier) so I got onto the SSDI to get his exact (or nearly exact) death date. From there, I checked the California Death Index and located an abstract of the certificate, but it was not complete (only part of the mother's maiden name was listed). I contacted a genealogist in the Bay Area and asked her to get a copy of the certificate, which she did. With that document, I had the full maiden name of the decedent's mother and the name of his father (Sarah's grandparents). I tracked the father's line a little way, but got tangled in the different lines for the surname; I changed direction to the mother's line and was able to track her back to the East Coast.

Sarah's grandmother came from Connecticut and her line took me to the immigrants mentioned in the Nashville episode of the show. There were a lot of name changes happening (both actual changes and misspellings) but the Polish roots were relatively clear from the beginning of the search. To follow the family from place to place, I used city directories and learned that Sarah's great-grandmother was an early female employee of the Fuller Brush Company in Hartford, Connecticut, working as a "matron." The great-grandparents' immigration data was located, some by me and some by one of the production team members, who was the one to do the tracking into the original village in Poland.

Finding living family is often a back and forth procedure, and here is a perfect example of this as I went backwards, then forwards, then back again to pick up the history of a second husband, another alias for the great-grandmother, a move across the country, etc. I contacted the Bay Area genealogist again for other death certificates and a marriage record, giving me the needed name of the death informant. This coming forward again led me to Sarah's father's sister (Sarah's aunt) who had attempted to reach Sarah when her father died. Armed with the aunt's information from her mother's death certificate and a telephone number Sarah had from years before, I was able to get in touch with living family, connecting Sarah to her father's family, as you saw on the episode.

Lesson learned: Sometimes using the RootsWeb mailing lists can help with finding others researching the same line (while I was not able to connect with others searching for the same line I was, I used some regional mailing lists for help in finding information about research in specific areas - in this case, Hawaii). I also used some "finding living people" websites for phone numbers and email addresses of people who might be related. I had some interesting conversations, but did not have any luck with them . . . this time.