WDYTYA: Minnie Driver and Brendan O'Carroll

Less than 5 min. into Wednesday evening's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on cable channel TLC actress Minnie Driver found her way from Los Angeles to London and the hidden story of her father's Second World War heroism while in the RAF. Researching his parents, and tracing forward to descendants of living siblings illustrated how much easier genealogical searching is in England and Wales with open access, at a price, to national BMD records than in Canada or the US where they are held on the sub-national level and subject to long embargo periods.

The BBC episode on Thursday evening took place in Ireland and featured comedian Brendan O'Carroll trying to get to the truth behind the 1920 murder of his grandfather during the civil war just prior to independence. It was a fascinating if not very typical Who Do You Think You Are? episode, more like CSI. To O'Carroll's surprise the identity of the likely murderer, according to IRA sources, was revealed. One criticism, a segment showed O'Carroll supposedly searching a newspaper on microfilm, an almost laughably casual approach, flipping through images which in most cases would lead to missing vital information.