Who Do You Think You Are? Series 13 Review, Part 2
Last week, I reviewed the first half of the latest series of BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? and this week I will continue reviewing with the second half. The second half was moved to Wednesdays after Christmas and New Year with the first episode, of the second half, airing on the 25 January 2017.
In that episode, Sir Ian McKellen found that his great great uncle, Frank Lowes, was also an actor; however, Frank's acting career was halted when his agent moved to the US, leaving Frank to act in smaller roles. His career went even further down hill and he died aged 47 in Liverpool Workhouse. Ian then went on to trace his 3x great grandfather, Robert Lowes - a warehouse clerk and director of the Salford Lyceum before tracing Robert's father, James, who was an illustrator. However, he could have done more research himself. ★★★☆☆
A week later, comedian Greg Davies followed with a very interesting episode. Here, Greg was luckily enough to be able to trace his illegitimate grandmother's birth father, William Owen, who himself was raised by his grandparents. William's father, Evan was a deacon who died as a result of being thrown from his carriage and subsequently drowned in a flooded river. Later in the episode, Greg tried to get further back into William's tree; only to find that he was a direct descendant of the first Prince of Wales, Owain Gwynedd. The show ended after, Greg had visited a pub full of other direct descendants - which may have been Greg's humour! ★★★★★
We then had to wait a fortnight, for Warwick Davis' episode. This episode felt like it was for the general public; rather than family historians. In this episode Warwick found that his 2x great grandfather, Frederick Durban, was a bigamist and went on to look into his scandal. Afterwards, he looked into his great grandfather, Dennis Manning - of which his family knew very little about. He had a very sad life and died in Croydon Mental Hospital of syphilis. He finished by tracing his 3x great grandparents who moved to London, from Ireland, due to their being more opportunities there. His 3x great grandfather ended up performing as a minstrel which Warwick was conflicted about. At the end of the show, when there was singing; presumably the producers had run out of material! ★★★☆☆
In the penultimate episode, it was Sunetra Sarker's turn. Despite describing herself as strongly Scouse she researched her Bengali heritage. She started with a letter from the notable Indian writer, Rabindranath Tagore to her great grandfather, Naresh Chandra Sengupta who was an academic, lawyer and academic. She headed over to Calcutta to find out more. Here, it was revealed to her that the two men were debating what literature was appropriate for Naresh to publish. Naresh's sister, Charuprabha, was also historically noted and even met Mahatma Ghandi; which is something very different to other WDYTYA? episodes. She later found out that her great grandmother came from a family of well respected landlords who owned hundreds of acres of farmland. She was even lucky enough to visit the ruins of their house; which still stood. ★★★★☆
Finally, it was the turn of Sophie Raworth. Her family had made the mistake of confusing two people of the same name in Isaac Mott, one being her ancestor and the other a well known piano maker. Luckily this must have been checked by the WDYTYA? production team. Instead, she was the descendant of Samuel, who had been fired from the family's piano business, and ended up taking his own life in Jersey. Inspired by this Sophie, wanted to find out more about his early life which had led to this. She found that Samuel's parents (her 5x great grandparents) had moved to New York as part of the New Jerusalem Church. Sadly, they both died of yellow fever, leaving their children as orphans, which had to be split up and brought back to England. She then researched her ancestors who worked in Kew Gardens, including another one of her 5x great grandparents Abraham Crowder, who was head gardener at Cusworth Hall. Records show that he sold pineapple plants which were very valuable at the time in the UK. I was rather drawn to Sophie's parents' wall with many old family photographs on; although I do hope, that they are copies so the originals are not being damaged by the sun!
★★★★☆
So to conclude, this series had many gaps between episodes which were very unneeded and would have been better placed in it's usual spot of the summer and I hope that the BBC move it back there for the next series. The total score this series scored was 36 stars out of 50 which is an identical score to the previous series. However, this series did have more positive consistency compared to the last one, as last series did have a number of varying scores of 2 and 5, whereas this series only had one of each. In my opinion, Greg Davies had the best episode although, there were many other really interesting episodes not too far behind. Hopefully, series 14 will take into account the views of family historians and show more of the celebrities carrying out more of the research themselves.
Published: 17 March 2017
In that episode, Sir Ian McKellen found that his great great uncle, Frank Lowes, was also an actor; however, Frank's acting career was halted when his agent moved to the US, leaving Frank to act in smaller roles. His career went even further down hill and he died aged 47 in Liverpool Workhouse. Ian then went on to trace his 3x great grandfather, Robert Lowes - a warehouse clerk and director of the Salford Lyceum before tracing Robert's father, James, who was an illustrator. However, he could have done more research himself. ★★★☆☆
A week later, comedian Greg Davies followed with a very interesting episode. Here, Greg was luckily enough to be able to trace his illegitimate grandmother's birth father, William Owen, who himself was raised by his grandparents. William's father, Evan was a deacon who died as a result of being thrown from his carriage and subsequently drowned in a flooded river. Later in the episode, Greg tried to get further back into William's tree; only to find that he was a direct descendant of the first Prince of Wales, Owain Gwynedd. The show ended after, Greg had visited a pub full of other direct descendants - which may have been Greg's humour! ★★★★★
We then had to wait a fortnight, for Warwick Davis' episode. This episode felt like it was for the general public; rather than family historians. In this episode Warwick found that his 2x great grandfather, Frederick Durban, was a bigamist and went on to look into his scandal. Afterwards, he looked into his great grandfather, Dennis Manning - of which his family knew very little about. He had a very sad life and died in Croydon Mental Hospital of syphilis. He finished by tracing his 3x great grandparents who moved to London, from Ireland, due to their being more opportunities there. His 3x great grandfather ended up performing as a minstrel which Warwick was conflicted about. At the end of the show, when there was singing; presumably the producers had run out of material! ★★★☆☆
In the penultimate episode, it was Sunetra Sarker's turn. Despite describing herself as strongly Scouse she researched her Bengali heritage. She started with a letter from the notable Indian writer, Rabindranath Tagore to her great grandfather, Naresh Chandra Sengupta who was an academic, lawyer and academic. She headed over to Calcutta to find out more. Here, it was revealed to her that the two men were debating what literature was appropriate for Naresh to publish. Naresh's sister, Charuprabha, was also historically noted and even met Mahatma Ghandi; which is something very different to other WDYTYA? episodes. She later found out that her great grandmother came from a family of well respected landlords who owned hundreds of acres of farmland. She was even lucky enough to visit the ruins of their house; which still stood. ★★★★☆
Finally, it was the turn of Sophie Raworth. Her family had made the mistake of confusing two people of the same name in Isaac Mott, one being her ancestor and the other a well known piano maker. Luckily this must have been checked by the WDYTYA? production team. Instead, she was the descendant of Samuel, who had been fired from the family's piano business, and ended up taking his own life in Jersey. Inspired by this Sophie, wanted to find out more about his early life which had led to this. She found that Samuel's parents (her 5x great grandparents) had moved to New York as part of the New Jerusalem Church. Sadly, they both died of yellow fever, leaving their children as orphans, which had to be split up and brought back to England. She then researched her ancestors who worked in Kew Gardens, including another one of her 5x great grandparents Abraham Crowder, who was head gardener at Cusworth Hall. Records show that he sold pineapple plants which were very valuable at the time in the UK. I was rather drawn to Sophie's parents' wall with many old family photographs on; although I do hope, that they are copies so the originals are not being damaged by the sun!
★★★★☆
So to conclude, this series had many gaps between episodes which were very unneeded and would have been better placed in it's usual spot of the summer and I hope that the BBC move it back there for the next series. The total score this series scored was 36 stars out of 50 which is an identical score to the previous series. However, this series did have more positive consistency compared to the last one, as last series did have a number of varying scores of 2 and 5, whereas this series only had one of each. In my opinion, Greg Davies had the best episode although, there were many other really interesting episodes not too far behind. Hopefully, series 14 will take into account the views of family historians and show more of the celebrities carrying out more of the research themselves.
Published: 17 March 2017
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