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Cougar Town star Courteney Cox may appear on NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" in the near future. Note the word "may" in that sentence; her appearance has not yet been confirmed. Courteney Cox revealed she was invited to the show by her former "Friends" co-star Lisa Kudrow who serves as one of the show executive producers.
“Lisa asked me to be on it; apparently they’ve found something in my family history which they won’t tell me because they like to surprise the person. It’s an amazing show…”
This evening, NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? television series featured actress Ashley Judd. I had a chance to watch the program and was impressed. The show actually presented two separate stories about different men in different branches of Judd's family tree.
The first part of the show described the story of one of her great-great-great-grandfathers who fought in the Civil War, was made a prisoner of war twice, and lost a leg at the Battle of Saltville. The operation was described in some gruesome detail, although the historian describing it either neglected to mention the amputation was performed without anesthetic or, if he did mention it, that part may have been cut out of the final version. Whatever the reason, the most gruesome part of all was not mentioned. It was interesting to note that the "man" was 15 years old at the time he enlisted.
NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? television series appears on American television every Friday evening. The April 8 edition will feature actress Ashley Judd. The show's publicity department is always tight-lipped about future stories to be broadcast but rumor has that this episode will trace some of Judd's New England ancestry and will feature an ancestor who fought in the Civil War at the Battle of Saltville on October 2, 1864 in Saltville, Virginia.
The program airs at 8 PM Eastern time, 7 PM Central. However, some stations will broadcast it on a delayed basis. Check your local listings.
The episode should also be available on www.nbc.com within a few hours after the on-the-air broadcast and on hulu.com about 24 hours later. The show usually is visible to American viewers only; anyone visiting those web sites with a non-U.S. I.P. address typically is blocked, due to contractual issues with the show's producers.
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The National Genealogical Society has a new video available to you at no charge. This one features past NGS president Janet A. Alpert on "Getting Started." Jan reflects on her experience of how genealogists begin their journey and progress through multiple levels of interest and research activity.
Researchers who are just starting the journey and could use a road map or those who are well on the way will appreciate hearing Jan's thoughts.
Paul Larsen is the author and publisher of "Crash Course in Family History," an excellent tutorial for genealogy newcomers and long-time experts alike. I had a chance to talk with Paul at the recent RootsTech conference and to listen as he described the contents and uses of the latest version of his book. The RootsTech folks kindly recorded a video of our conversation, which I edited, and now you can watch on your computer.
The next episode of Who Do You Think You Are? broadcast in the U.S. will feature actor Steve Buscemi. Buscemi was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Dorothy, who worked as a hostess at Howard Johnson's, and John Buscemi, a sanitation worker and Korean War veteran. Buscemi's grandfather was a Sicilian from the town of Menfi in the south of Sicily, and his mother was Irish American. I suspect the TV show will dig a bit deeper into Buscemi's ancestry.
Steve Buscemi has often portrayed criminals in his movies. This Friday, Who Do You Think You Are? searches Buscemi's family tree looking for possible rogues, rebels, and questionable characters in his genealogy. He travels through Philadelphia, New York, and the battlefields of Virginia, as he puts the focus on the secrets of his great-great-grandfather.
The episode will broadcast on NBC on Friday, March 25, at 8 PM Eastern time, 7 PM Central. Check your local listings for stations and times in your area.
At the recent RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City, the busiest booth in the exhibits hall usually was at the company selling a one-and-a-half-pound battery-operated scanner called the Flip-Pal. This scans up to 4-inch-by-6-inch photographs or documents. In fact, you can scan larger photos and documents by making multiple scans. The included software for Windows and Macintosh will automatically "stitch" the images together into one.The scanner doesn't even need an attached computer when scanning. The images are stored on a tiny SecureDigital memory card which can then be later removed and inserted into or connected to your computer for processing. The included memory card stores hundreds of images. If you carry a pocket full of Secure Digital cards, you could scan thousands of images, then process them later.
If you missed some of the episodes of last season's Who Do You Think You Are? (U.S. version), you can now purchase the entire series on DVD. Each episode features a different celebrity; season one's lineup consists of Sarah Jessica Parker, Emmitt Smith (NFL star), Lisa Kudrow (also one of the program's executive producers), Matthew Broderick (also Parker's husband), Brooke Shields, Susan Sarandon, and Spike Lee.
The series on DVD does not include advertisements. Therefore, what is listed as a 60-minute program actually runs in about 41 minutes. Also, one of the many complaints of the first season involve the pause before every commercial break when the story also stops dead in its tracks to run clips of what's coming up, followed by more clips of what you've just seen. Thankfully, that was corrected in Season 2. Another "problem" with Season 1 is that every shows begins with a long teaser for the entire season, followed by another teaser for the show you're about to watch. The result is about 20 minutes of original material in each episode.
NOTE: This article does not contain any genealogy-related information, but it might give some readers another way to stay in touch with distant family members.
Last summer, Apple paved the way for face-to-face calling and conferencing on mobile phones with FaceTime, available over wi-fi connections between users of the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 features a front-facing camera, so users can easily see and talk to each other. The result appears to be straight from the twenty-third century: two-way video between handheld "communicators." Wouldn't it be nice to do the same with an iPhone 3 or even with an Android phone? Now you can.
The Tango app for both iPhone and Android phones offers free mobile video calls over 3G, 4G, or wi-fi wireless networks. Android users can now communicate with Android users or with iPhone users and vice versa. Even owners of the latest iPod Touch with front-facing camera can make two-way video calls with iPhone and EVO 4G or Galaxy S Android users as long as they have access to a wi-fi network.
When used on wi-fi, the app does not use your cell phone minutes; so, the calls are free of charge, even if calling another country on the opposite side of the globe.
Now, THIS is an application that is making the world smaller!
The reality program Top Chef on Bravo has incorporated a segment on genealogy into one of their episodes. It is interesting to see mainstream television discover how much fun genealogy and family history is. The research for the show was conducted by Megan Smolenyak. You can read Marian Pierre-Louis' description of the process at http://rootsandrambles.blogspot.com/2011/03/top-chef-genealogist-megan-smolenyak.html
The U.S. version of the popular Who Do You Think You Are? television show is in its second season and has many guest stars lined up including Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow and Steve Buscemi. NBC apparently is pleased with the show's popularity, as it has now renewed it for a third season.
Megan Smolenyak has published an interesting article on the growth of genealogy on television. Amongst other things, she predicts even more genealogy on the tube next year, including a cooking show where "The chefs create food fare on the open water. Later, they journey to Ellis Island to whip up dishes based on their family tree."
At the recent RootsTech Conference held in Salt Lake City, I had a chance to sit and talk with Brewster Kahle, a digital librarian who is also the founder of The Internet Archive. Brewster had delivered a keynote speech at the conference a few minutes earlier to about 3,000 people. He then kindly agreed to appear on EOGN in a video interview in which he discusses digital archiving to preserve information forever and to make it available to anyone, anywhere in the world, at no charge.
Tim McGraw appeared on Friday's episode of Who Do You Think You Are to discover that he is descended from some of the first settlers of the United States. The Friends star Lisa Kudrow's hit series also helped McGraw trace a connection to George Washington, the American Revolutionary War hero and the first president of United States.
On the show, Tim McGraw's journey began with Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park. It later moved on to the Wilderness Trail and sections of Scott Country, Virginia, after which he learned that his relatives date back before even the establishment of the United States.
I had a unique opportunity today. I was invited to participate in a teleconference with Rosie O'Donnell. The primary topic of conversation was her upcoming appearance on Who Do You Think You Are that will be broadcast on NBC on February 18. I don't know the exact number of people in the teleconference but am guessing it was about a dozen or so with several genealogy authors in attendance along with reporters from the media.
Below are my notes taken in a hurry. I don't type fast enough to make word-for-word transcriptions but I believe these notes are close to what was said. Questions are shown, followed by Rosie's comments that appear in quotations.
You have been out of television spotlight for a bit. Why did you decide to participate in Who Do You Think You Are?
"I watched the show and was impressed. Since I knew Lisa Kudrow and I also was interested in my mother's family about whom I know so little."
The new season of the U.S. version of television's popular "Who Do You Think You Are?" series started this evening on NBC. The first episode focused on the family tree of Vanessa Williams, the first woman of African-American descent to be crowned Miss America. She has since become an entertainer, earning Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award nominations.
In the "Who Do You Think You Are?" episode, Williams researched her ancestry back to two great-great-grandfathers. Both were black men. One was born a free man of color in New York, the other was born a slave in Tennessee. Both fought for justice for all men, although in very different ways.
Her New York great-great-grandfather enlisted in the Colored Troops of the Civil War, saw combat, and then spent time after the war as part of an Army force charged with making sure that blacks in Tennessee were given their freedom as dictated by new laws.
NBC's “Who Do You Think You Are?” is back for more celebrity genealogy searches. The show’s second season features Vanessa Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Kim Cattrall, Lionel Richie, and Rosie O’Donnell.
Vanessa Williams kicks off the second season, which premieres February 4th at 8pm/7 C. as she discovers some interesting facts about her family when she visits the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Singer Chris de Burgh"s daughter Rosanna Davison made an amazing discovery about her grandma"s Cold War exploits on the TV show Who Do You Think You Are? Her grandparents had been involved in Cold War espionage. Her grandmother had worked for traitor Kim Philby. She also was in Malta training British spies to fight the communist regime in Albania, and attended polo and parties with Lord Mountbatten.
The revelations astonished the 26-year-old model who, in the making of Who Do You Think You Are? had visited her quiet grandmother Maeve - mother of singer Chris de Burgh - in her home at Wexford"s Bargy Castle to gently admonish her, "You never told me!"
"You never asked," Maeve had replied, to the bemusement of thousands of TV viewers.
Until now, the only genealogy television program in Ireland has been Who Do You Think You Are?, a programme that concentrates on celebrities and their ancestors. A new spin-off, the Genealogy Roadshow, hopes to change all that by focusing on "ordinary folk" and their ancestors.
Big Mountain Productions, the company behind RTE's Traffic Cops, is filming the pilot show next month in Kildare in the hope the show "will do for genealogy what The Antiques Roadshow has done for antiques". The programme will be presented by Derek Mooney.
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