From: "Spring Flower" <spring.flower@polomint.plus.com> > i was starting to think it was just me!! > > the information given was very interesting but as a family history > programme it was rubbish. > > trace> If you are really that keen on knowing more about Patrick Stewart's ancestry beyond his father, then what's to prevent you from tracing it yourself? All the necessary data is there online at FreeBMD, the GRO births, marriages and deaths indexes at Ancestry and/or Findmypast and the census returns. I bet I could do it in half a day! Stewart has a lengthy Wikipedia entry that gives his precise birth date (13 July 1940) and the names of his parents, Alfred Stewart and Gladys Barrowclough who were married at Dewsbury in 1933 when Patrick's elder brother Geoffrey was already 8 years old (as was mentioned in the programme). You should be able to find both Alfred and Gladys in the 1911 census and take it from there. You might actually enjoy doing it yourself! Having myself been involved in an episode of WDYTYA? (subject the comedian John Bishop, to be shown at a later date), I know how the team works. They follow what they believe to be the best story and also with regard to what the subject themselves wants to know. In Patrick Stewart's case this was obviously the truth about his father, which I personally (and others) found fascinating. I happen to know that they were doing Michael Parkinson at one stage in an earlier series but abandoned him because they couldn't find a single interesting story in his entire ancestry. "Parkie" was quite p - - d off about it apparently. They also abandoned another mega name, June Whitfield, because at the preliminary meeting she turned up with a large cardbod box full of files that contained her family history because she'd done it all herself - something the WDYTYA? team won't accept. You have to understand the exigencies and demands of television which I do, having been involved in one or two programmes myself. Above all, it is meant to be ENTERTAINMENT for the ordinary viewers and not meant for grumpy, demanding family historians like us !!! -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Famous family trees blog: http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/tag/roy-stockdill/ "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE