I agree that that the program is contrived and months or years of work are condensed into a few minutes. I wish I was able to do the Genealogy Happy Dance several time an hour. But that is what the entertainment industry does. No one believes that a Memphis family turned a homeless young man into a Pro Bowl football player in less than two hours. It will get some people interested in finding their own family's origins. And if that means we have more people combing through records and posting their findings here, we will all benefit from it. The fact that a major network is bringing attention to what we do and doing so in a fairly acurate way, except the time frame, is a trbute to all of you. I too would like for them to let viewers know that they have condensed all of that work into 60 minutes. It will help create realistic expectations. If we focused on what we don't have instead of what we do have, we would all stop researching before lunch. JIM

AMEN!!!! -------Original Message------- From: jimg20@earthlink.net Date: 4/26/2010 9:36:44 AM To: ny-irish@rootsweb.com Subject: [NY-IRISH] FRIDAYS TV "Who Do You Think You are?" A Trbite to All of You I agree that that the program is contrived and months or years of work are condensed into a few minutes. I wish I was able to do the Genealogy Happy Dance several time an hour. But that is what the entertainment industry does No one believes that a Memphis family turned a homeless young man into a Pro Bowl football player in less than two hours. It will get some people interested in finding their own family's origins. And if that means we have more people combing through records and posting their findings here, we will all benefit from it. The fact that a major network is bringing attention to what we do and doing so in a fairly acurate way, except the time frame, is a trbute to all of you. I too would like for them to let viewers know that they have condensed all of that work into 60 minutes. It will help create realistic expectations. If we focused on what we don't have instead of what we do have, we would all stop researching before lunch. JIM

15 years ago trhe "catch" for genealogy per hour was the sharing with other genealogists hook, when ibn reality all you were doing was giving these companies your data fr free and they burned it and sold it, collecting all the money. NOW they are simply fishing it off the net and selling access to it. This show is like a infomercial, or those older "miracle" products which are advertised to give you incredible results, like tracing your family back to 400 BC. Celebrity pitchmen aren't new either, One Great Family had Donny Osmond. Even many of the societies were based on connecting to royalty, presidents and ancestors of fame. Yes they put HUGE teams to work on these celebrity trees, but perhaps the results are less than legitimate, and lacking in credibility. How many times have we all seenrtecords presented as 'researched and established" only to find that they really were not the correct ancestor after all. Genealogy, short of Pornography, is the most often use of the internet. It has really boomed in the past ten-fifteen years. Ancestry is notorious for pushing links to ancestors on users, without redundant research and multiple verified sources. Like the current commercials "I found a leaf", NO you didn't - you found a POSSIBLE lead, but not always the right path. It is traditional methods which will pan out, and the best you can get is a idea of what to document, research further, verify, support, and finally 'conclude' based on your own experience. WE all know it isn't an exact process. Joe Public doesn't. Jeff Scism On 4/26/2010 6:36 AM, jimg20@earthlink.net wrote: > I agree that that the program is contrived and months or years of work are condensed into a few minutes. I wish I was able to do the Genealogy Happy Dance several time an hour. But that is what the entertainment industry does. No one believes that a Memphis family turned a homeless young man into a Pro Bowl football player in less than two hours. It will get some people interested in finding their own family's origins. And if that means we have more people combing through records and posting their findings here, we will all benefit from it. The fact that a major network is bringing attention to what we do and doing so in a fairly acurate way, except the time frame, is a trbute to all of you. > > I too would like for them to let viewers know that they have condensed all of that work into 60 minutes. It will help create realistic expectations. > > If we focused on what we don't have instead of what we do have, we would all stop researching before lunch. > > JIM > > > ====NY-Irish Mailing List==== > Don't forget to check out the NY-Irish mailing list website. Also, check/add your NY-Irish surnames on the Surname Registry: http://www.connorsgenealogy.com/NYIrishList/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NY-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > -- Jeffery G. Scism, IBSSG Flockmaster, International Blacksheep Society of Genealogists http://ibssg.org/blacksheep/ Play AstroEmpires http://beta.astroempires.com/?ref=B.115420 "There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." AND: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Robert Anson Heinlein, 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' 1966 Politicians invest in "Pork futures", the more PORK, the better their future. WE need a "Low Cholesterol Diet."