Monday, August 8, 2011

My Ideal WDYTYA Season

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Susan Petersen (Long Lost Relatives.net blog) posted Open Discussion Weekend: YOUR Ideal Season of Who Do You Think You Are? on Friday, but I've been busy, and I wanted to contribute my ideas. 

Susan asks:

"Imagine, just for a moment, that you are the producer of the hit NBC television series, Who Do You Think You Are? What celebrities would you like to see on your perfect season of the show? And why would you choose them?"

Easy, isn't it?  If only some of these celebrities were my first or second couisns, maybe they could solve my Thomas J. Newton, William Knapp, Hannah Smith, and other elusive ancestor puzzles.

Here is my list of wanna-sees for WDYTYA:

1)  LaDainian Tomlinson - This all-pro ex-Charger (broke my heart when he went to the Jets) must have an interesting background - where did the name LaDainian come from?  His mom's still alive (and stars in commercials), so they can ask her questions.

2)  Ted Williams - This all-time favorite San Diego born player had a rough youth - I'd love to know who his ancestors were and how he overcame his life situations to become one of the best baseball hitters over.  He is deceased, but they could work with his children.  Or get his brain out of the deep freeze.

3)  Elizabeth Shown Mills - this all-pro genealogist surely has some elusive ancestors.  If she doesn't, the stories she can tell about her ancestors, and how she researched them, would hold my interest for days if not weeks.

4)  Donald Trump - Where in the world did this guy get his business smarts?  He has German and Scottish roots.

5)  Whoopi Goldberg - her ancestry may be really interesting, and the show may be really funny.  Or sad.  Or both.

6)  David Petraeus - this General and current CIA Director could be a future President too...and his ancestry might be really interesting.

7)  Tiger Woods - he claims to be Cablinasian (Caucasian, Black, Indian and Asian) ...and several researchers have found two or three generations back.  Exploring his claimed Indian and Chinese ancestries might be interesting and instructive.

8)  Rush Limbaugh - I know that this has been done to some degree, but the stories and research into them might be fascinating and revealing.

I really would rather see details about the research - how, where, why, etc. than hear the tug-the-heartstring stories.  But that's just me. 

Come on, NBC, give us some really great celebrities in the next WDYTYA season.

4 comments:

Shelina (formerly known as Shasta) said...

Whoopi Goldberg's genealogy was traced in the PBS show by Henry Louis Gates Jr. that traced several prominent Americans in African American Lives, though I wouldn't mind seeing it done in this format.

Susan Petersen said...

Glad you had a good time with this one, Randy. I enjoyed reading your selections and that we both had Whoopi on our list.

She wasn't on the Faces of America series that aired two years ago, Shasta. Was there an earlier version of the show that she was on?

Elizabeth O'Neal said...

Oooh, I so agree about LT! He broke my heart, too, but he really seems like a decent human being and an interesting person. Had I completed the "assignment," he would have been on my list.

Also agree about ESM, but really, do you think there's anything about her ancestry that WDYTYA can find... and she can't? ;-)

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

David Petraeus is a member of our NH Mayflower Society. I was honored to be part of the scholarship committee that awarded his son a scholarship a few years ago. Not many people know that when his son graduated MIT he also served in Afganistan. Now you know a little more about the General's ancestors and descendants!