26 October 2006

Ancestors in the Attic - week 2

The second week of Canada's History Television series featured some sound genealogical technique:

- a man could not be a descendant of Pocahontas as her male descendant line died out. They speculated there might be a link to an earlier generation of her British husband.

- a man's ancestor was shown to be a projectionist in Toronto based on City directories and a record found at the local archives.

- a woman was related to a home child by marriage (genealogy but not genetics).

While nobody wants a TV program showing the hours of mostly tedious research that typically go into solving genealogical mysteries I do wonder whether the host's frenetic style, and quick cut editing, will be successful in broadening the series audience appeal. The BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? and PBS's History Detectives take a more relaxed approach and WDYTYA certainly gets good ratings.