Scene on "Who Do You Think You Are?" Reportedly Faked

The popular BBC genealogy show "Who Do You Think You Are?" has won lots of praise, but recently it has received a few brickbats as well. It seems the shows producers faked at least one scene that starred Carol Vorderman. Filmmakers allegedly persuaded people to lie as they concocted scenes for the show.

In the program, cameras followed Vorderman through north Wales and traced the scene of a photograph. Vorderman wanted to know where a photo of her great-grandfather was taken and was shown asking passers-by in Prestatyn for help. Finally, shop assistant Dawn Farrell identified it as Bodnant Gardens in the Conwy Valley.

Dawn revealed, "A man told me Carol was going to come into the shop with a photo and ask me about it. He said, 'She is going to show you a photo - could you tell her it is Bodnant?'"

You can read more about this story at http://tinyurl.com/366eaa.

Comments

[Peter Bridge]

That may be true, but it hardly detracted from the general flow of the programme. IMO, however, it does illustrate one of the important first steps of research - if you want to know about the past, start asking the living.

[Caroline Gurney]

I'm not surprised. "Who Do You Think You Are" has only a tenuous connection with real genealogy. They usually approach the sources back to front to make the whole job seem harder. And they routinely ignore some of the information available in a source, such as a BMD certificate or census, early in the programme so that they can "discover" it from another source later on in the programme. I rarely watch because it is so frustrating seeing them make a meal out of perfectly straightforward, basic research.

[Keith]

I recognize the need to have someone answer during the show. A couple of questions I have are: (1) Is the answer correct, and (2) where did the producers find the answer? If they had previously done the legwork and found the answer from a "local" then staged the scene; I don't have much of a problem. On the other hand, if the answer was fabricated or was obtained from an "expert" who was not a local, I think it is misrepresenting.

[Richard Heaton]

While it is a bit disappointing to find a fabrication in the storyline (everyone take your unidentified photos to a local newsagent), its still great viewing entertainment.

At times a bit like those deflating moments from the Antique Roadshow (for those who are familiar with it), when someone rolls up with the painting they inherited by an old master, which turns out to be painted by a much more modern master (faker). As family legends get a bit of a knocking.

It is however doing a great service in illustrating what a melting pot the UK is and has been. "Weirdly comforting" I think was Graham Nortons comment, to trace his Irish Protestant ancestry back to Yorkshire.

And while it passes over much the bricks and mortar (gathering certificates, weighing up how they match the census records, etc etc). It has illustrated sources which might be missed in tracing Anglo Indian, Jewish, and Irish ancestry. And of course showing many records do indeed remain still within the local community, and not all in the "local" archive.

Now all I need to do is to take those photo's down to a local store and I'll finally know that the chap with the tash & beard was Robert the uncle of my grandfather - Bob's your Uncle !

Regards
Richard H

[Wayne Laurence]

Caroline Gurney's statment "I'm not surprised. "Who Do You Think You Are" has only a tenuous connection with real genealogy." is a bit unfair. The series is cramming what normally takes months or years to do into a one hour presentation. Many one off genealogy leactures are based on the same premise. However,"Who Do You Think You Are?" has do much to promote the top hobby in the world. Also the people involved in the success of the series; i.e. the likes of Nick Barrat, are very experienced people and have done well to use this medium to make it exciting, rather than dry and institutionalised, as it is often perceived.

[Peter Bridge]

Apart from being a programme dealing with a VERY popular hobby (some would say obsession), WDYTYA is basically entertainment. The viewing figures speak for themselves. But as a result, I would guess that many viewers are inspired to research their own family. There must have been a great deal of basic research in the planning of a programme. How else would they know that a celeb had anything interesting to reveal? Caroline referred to 'perfectly straightforward, basic research'. How often does this turn out to be anything but?

[Caroline Gurney]

My objection is not to the series "cramming what normally takes months or years to do into a one hour presentation" but rather the opposite - that they stretch out what can be done in 5 minutes with internet access so that it takes up most of the programme! That is what I meant by "perfectly straightforward, basic research" - looking up a family in the range of censuses available online, for example. When I do watch the programme, it is with my laptop beside me, and I often look things up myself because I am frustrated by the slow pace. If they took less time over the basics there would be more time for the more interesting and unusual sources which often get skated over towards the end of the programme. They do have professional genealogists as consultants but, as Peter Bridge says, the show is basically about popular entertainment. For me, that means the genealogy side is "dumbed down". However, the programme is not aimed at experienced researchers and does do a good job in broadening the appeal of the hobby, so perhaps I should stop being a grumpy old woman!

[Dawn Carlile]

Is this program available in the US? I would love to watch it.

Dawn

[Rick B]

After I read this article, it really doesn't surprise me since TV shows and news programs, especially, have been doing this for years. These shows always want you to do things for the cameras that you normally wouldn't do in real life like the obligatory "walk in the park" interview. Or how about the contrived news stories on spoiled food in grocery stores and exlpoding gas tanks on trucks that never happened in real life? And how about Washington Correspondents pretending they are standing outside the Capitol Building when they are really in a studio wearing a trenchcoat? When we watch TV, we really should watch it with a level of skepticism.

[Vicki]

I think that aspect was a triviality. It's just to show the importance of asking local people when researching the family tree. It could also serve to make the public feel more of a sense of engagement in the story. It would have bothered me if important parts storyline were fabricated. But I could see from Carol's emotional reaction that it was completely genuine. I thought Carol's family history was fascinating. I wish mine was as interesting as that.

[Malcolm Holmes]

C'mon Dick what axe are you grinding now? You ran this story a couple of days after the program first aired. You failed then to stir up any controversy and you will fail again now. This BBC program can annoy the hell out of us all where at some stage of it's production a viewer might shout at the screen saying, "That's not how it's done". But the plain fact of the matter is that this show, all by itself, has done more to popularise genealogy than any other single source, yourself included. Just start enjoying the extra bucks that are coming your way through genealogies increase in popularity. Long may WDYTYA continue to entertain?

[Adrian Foster]

Three points:
1. This is a great programme (whoops -just gave away my nationality!). A reality TV show that motivates and educates as well as titillates. So what if, for smoothness and continuity they used simple, common TV sleight of hand. This wouldn't have made the newspapers in the UK at all if it wasn't for the scandal of the BBC falsely & inadvertently claiming the Queen had stormed out of an interview.
2. Some of the comments are churlish and remind me that every hobby I have ever indulged in has it's share of bigots who are more interested in trying to assert their superior knowledge than seeing knowledge shared.
3. I am more concerned that this newsletter is recycling old news -I get excited when I see an email claiming "4 new articles" only to find that it's 1 new and 3 old ones. Dick, you do a great job and I'm grateful but less is fine.

[Barbara Hall]

I'd like to add my comments to a couple of the points made by Adrian. I, too, wonder at times if some of the posters realize how self-centered they come across in their comments on various topics. I've been involved with this hobby for only a little over a year, so I don't feel that I know enough to join most discussions. I enjoy reading the varied opinions of knowledgeable folks and I feel that I have learned a lot from the discussions. However, I must admit that there are times when the comments are worded in such a confrontational manner that it makes me a bit uncomfortable. It's unfortunate that some folks can't disagree without becoming unpleasant.
I initially was perplexed, too, when I saw an article listed as "new" that I recognized as having previously been posted. Then I realized that "new" referred only to some of the comments, not to the article itself. Perhaps a change in the title to "New articles and/or comments" would clarify that situation. For the sake of continuity, I think that it's good to have an article repeated with all of the previous comments whenever showing any additional comments that have subsequently been posted. My only problem is that I can't remember the date that I last looked at the comments on a particular article. Consequently, I have to read through many comments that I have previously read in order to find the correct place to start reading the comments that I haven't aleady seen. It would be very convenient if I could mark the line each time where I stop reading the comments so that I can pick up at that point whenever new comments are added to that article. I don't know if this is possible and practical to implement. Perhaps there already is a way for readers of this newsletter to do this and I'm just not aware of it. If so, would someone please post the instructions here? Thanks!
Dick, I think that you do a wonderful job of putting so much information together in one convenient place for the rest of us to read and comment on. Thank you and please keep up the great work, even if some of your readers occasionally respond unkindly!