Who Do You Think You Are? Series 14 Review, Part 1
It's that time of year when on those summer nights we get to watch celebrities trace their ancestors through the ages. It seems that the BBC have learned from the last series' shortcomings of splitting the series in 2 and showing them in Winter and Spring. As like I have done, for series 12 and 13, I will write a review for the series. I will follow the same system as I did to review those two series so we can see how this series compares. Series 12 and 13 both gained a score of 36 out of 50 stars for the whole series.
Kicking off the series, we saw Charles Dance who gave the series a strong start. In the first half of his episode, he discovered that his 3x great grandfather, Charles Futvoye, was a celebrated artist and art teacher, originally from Belgium. Charles even visited Charles Futvoye's shop in Marylebone High Street which was now a book shop. Sadly, he was in the book shop too long and it did seem to drag out a bit. More extraordinarily, Charles then started to research his father's family and discovered that he had 2 half-sisters he never knew existed. Unfortunately, one of them died in infancy but the other survived and moved to South Africa, where she had her own family; which Charles then met and seemed to get along with extremely well. I did like that he did some of the research himself, however, it was very obvious that some of it was staged by the BBC which can be seen when he was looking at the 1911 census. They started off with a screen having all the details filled in on the 1911 search form; then they show him typing the information in and then clicking onto the 1911 search form. Which is completely the backwards way of doing it. Aside from that blip, I did enjoy the episode as a whole and it was a good start to the series. ★★★★☆
The following week, we saw Craig Revel Horwood delve into his mining ancestors. Craig discovered that his 3x great grandparents, Charles and Elizabeth Tinworth left Essex in 1854 to travel to Australia, with help from the Australian government who gave financial support to those immigrating to Australia. However, the reason that they moved to Australia was in search of gold and later Charles would set up a mining company with two of his brothers. Unfortunately, he spent too much time 'panning for gold' and did not do much research himself, which he could have easily done. Later, he visited his grandmother Phyllis, who is doing remarkably well for 100 years old, to find out more about her family! This was good, from a family history perspective. There Phyllis told Craig about her grandfather Harry Macklin Shaw, who later turned out to be a champion clog dancer - much to Craig's delight! Conversely, to me and other family historians, it seemed that the BBC seemed to drag this out. Although the episode was good, it could have been much better. ★★★☆☆
Next up was Clare Balding. She already knew a lot about her noble side, being descended from royalty. At the start it seemed that she was only interested in finding an ancestor who was also gay, like herself, rather than have an open mind of what she could discover, so much so that she even walked past portraits of other ancestors and family without even giving them a second glance. Fortunately, for her, she discovered that her great grandfather, Sir Harold (Malcolm) Bullock was in fact, probably, bisexual; which strangely for me, on the very day the episode was aired, I discovered the same thing about my great grandfather - although, I did look at other family members' pictures and records. Talking of records, the records used were not as much use to 'ordinary folk' who may be interested in researching their own family tree. She then went over to the US to find out more about her American ancestors, on her father's side and in particular her 3x great grandfather, Joseph Hoagland, who founded the Royal Baking Powder Company. She then met with Linda Civitello, who seemed to be the most enthusiastic person about baking powder, I have ever seen, mainly to fill up show time. She then was interested in Joseph's claim that he was descended from the earliest Dutch settlers which she seemed hesitant about - good from a genealogical standpoint. ★★★☆☆
Next was, actor Adil Ray's turn to discover his family heritage. This episode seemed to split many family historians between a good episode or one that would send you to sleep. Unfortunately, for Adil, I was in the latter. Adil did seem interested in his ancestors but from a genealogical entertainment view it disappointed. Mainly because no records were used so therefore no paper chases but that was not going to happen when dealing with African heritage. The episode did show the importance of talking to elders about family members when researching your family tree so it was of some use, however basic, to people interested in researching their family tree. ★★☆☆☆
Emma Willis was the fifth celebrity to research her ancestry in this series and this one really interested me. Here, Emma looked into her roots to discover Birmingham and Irish ancestors. She seemed very genuine in her reactions; seemed thoroughly interested and actually did some research herself, slowly - which would be helpful to the general public who would like to start researching their own family tree. She also seemed to want a strong grasp of information about her own ancestors which was also good. In the second half of her episode, she uncovered that her 5x great grandfather, Richard Fowler (Senior), was a Protestant at a time of sectarian tension in Ireland and had taken part in the horrific torture of a father and son. Emma was understandably shocked by her ancestor's actions but took into account that many things were going on at the time and that he, likely, got carried away with his religious and political views. Finally, she found that she was descended from Michael Kirwan, who crafted many altarpieces for Catholic churches and being able to see you're ancestor's own work must have been amazing for Emma. ★★★★★
Part 2 of the review will be published after all episodes of the series have aired.
Published: 2 September 2017
Kicking off the series, we saw Charles Dance who gave the series a strong start. In the first half of his episode, he discovered that his 3x great grandfather, Charles Futvoye, was a celebrated artist and art teacher, originally from Belgium. Charles even visited Charles Futvoye's shop in Marylebone High Street which was now a book shop. Sadly, he was in the book shop too long and it did seem to drag out a bit. More extraordinarily, Charles then started to research his father's family and discovered that he had 2 half-sisters he never knew existed. Unfortunately, one of them died in infancy but the other survived and moved to South Africa, where she had her own family; which Charles then met and seemed to get along with extremely well. I did like that he did some of the research himself, however, it was very obvious that some of it was staged by the BBC which can be seen when he was looking at the 1911 census. They started off with a screen having all the details filled in on the 1911 search form; then they show him typing the information in and then clicking onto the 1911 search form. Which is completely the backwards way of doing it. Aside from that blip, I did enjoy the episode as a whole and it was a good start to the series. ★★★★☆
The following week, we saw Craig Revel Horwood delve into his mining ancestors. Craig discovered that his 3x great grandparents, Charles and Elizabeth Tinworth left Essex in 1854 to travel to Australia, with help from the Australian government who gave financial support to those immigrating to Australia. However, the reason that they moved to Australia was in search of gold and later Charles would set up a mining company with two of his brothers. Unfortunately, he spent too much time 'panning for gold' and did not do much research himself, which he could have easily done. Later, he visited his grandmother Phyllis, who is doing remarkably well for 100 years old, to find out more about her family! This was good, from a family history perspective. There Phyllis told Craig about her grandfather Harry Macklin Shaw, who later turned out to be a champion clog dancer - much to Craig's delight! Conversely, to me and other family historians, it seemed that the BBC seemed to drag this out. Although the episode was good, it could have been much better. ★★★☆☆
Next up was Clare Balding. She already knew a lot about her noble side, being descended from royalty. At the start it seemed that she was only interested in finding an ancestor who was also gay, like herself, rather than have an open mind of what she could discover, so much so that she even walked past portraits of other ancestors and family without even giving them a second glance. Fortunately, for her, she discovered that her great grandfather, Sir Harold (Malcolm) Bullock was in fact, probably, bisexual; which strangely for me, on the very day the episode was aired, I discovered the same thing about my great grandfather - although, I did look at other family members' pictures and records. Talking of records, the records used were not as much use to 'ordinary folk' who may be interested in researching their own family tree. She then went over to the US to find out more about her American ancestors, on her father's side and in particular her 3x great grandfather, Joseph Hoagland, who founded the Royal Baking Powder Company. She then met with Linda Civitello, who seemed to be the most enthusiastic person about baking powder, I have ever seen, mainly to fill up show time. She then was interested in Joseph's claim that he was descended from the earliest Dutch settlers which she seemed hesitant about - good from a genealogical standpoint. ★★★☆☆
Next was, actor Adil Ray's turn to discover his family heritage. This episode seemed to split many family historians between a good episode or one that would send you to sleep. Unfortunately, for Adil, I was in the latter. Adil did seem interested in his ancestors but from a genealogical entertainment view it disappointed. Mainly because no records were used so therefore no paper chases but that was not going to happen when dealing with African heritage. The episode did show the importance of talking to elders about family members when researching your family tree so it was of some use, however basic, to people interested in researching their family tree. ★★☆☆☆
Emma Willis was the fifth celebrity to research her ancestry in this series and this one really interested me. Here, Emma looked into her roots to discover Birmingham and Irish ancestors. She seemed very genuine in her reactions; seemed thoroughly interested and actually did some research herself, slowly - which would be helpful to the general public who would like to start researching their own family tree. She also seemed to want a strong grasp of information about her own ancestors which was also good. In the second half of her episode, she uncovered that her 5x great grandfather, Richard Fowler (Senior), was a Protestant at a time of sectarian tension in Ireland and had taken part in the horrific torture of a father and son. Emma was understandably shocked by her ancestor's actions but took into account that many things were going on at the time and that he, likely, got carried away with his religious and political views. Finally, she found that she was descended from Michael Kirwan, who crafted many altarpieces for Catholic churches and being able to see you're ancestor's own work must have been amazing for Emma. ★★★★★
Part 2 of the review will be published after all episodes of the series have aired.
Published: 2 September 2017
Comment Box is loading comments...
*Note - No copyright infringement was intended. If there is a breach in copyright contact me through the 'Contact' section so it can be removed. All photos are Copyright © 2017 Harry Clarke. All Rights Reserved. The image for the homepage of this article is courtesy of Logos.Wikia.