who do you think you are

I actually did watch it tonight because I really like Anne Reid as an actress and I wanted to see if her rather frosty response to winning, what was it, Gransnet woman of the year or something? was because she didn't like being labelled in such a way.

I'm so glad I watched. One of the best I've ever seen. I thought her growing hilarity as she read the original disciplinary reports about her g. g. grandfather was hilarious. The various experts didn't seem to know quite how to respond to her emotionality. It was great - and a very interesting story too.

I don't warm to Anne Reid at the best of times (!) and realised tonight how typecast she is in Last Tango. I found her incredibly naive and surprisingly ignorant about crime and punishment in the 19th century. "Would the courtroom have looked like this?" she asked, well, apart from the layout, electric lighting, seating, the windows and decor. . . . .
Her reaction to the judge and jury ("I hope they all died horrible deaths") also frankly appalled me. OK punishment was appallingly hard in those days, but that wasn't necessarily something to lay at the door of individuals. Anyone of our generation with any knowledge of history will be aware of the hardships of transportation, but it all seemed new to her.
These are the steps he would have walked up, this is where he would have stood, etc etc , it's all getting a bit hackneyed and as a programme WDYTYA has lost its edge for me. Still fascinated by family history, but there is a focus on the "tear jerking" which does not feel right to me.

The researchers seemed a bit taken aback by her reaction, particularly when she said all he did was forge a signature. His father-in-law's?

She seems quite a feisty lady herself! I loved it when she got the gilggles - makes a change from tears.

I found the history of transportation and what happened to the convicts very interesting.

Excellent tonight. Anne Reid's very likeable but I'm not as impressed by her ancient relative as she was. He sounds a nightmare. His poor wife and children.

I lost interest in this series a while ago but did watch a couple of the people I particularly like - Derek Jacobi and Gareth Malone. That is to say I watched all of the DJ one - which put me off DJ - and a little of the GM one - which I found boring and gave up on.

I don't think I'll bother with it now.

The only programmes I remember enjoying from past series were the David Suchet and David Dickinson ones.

What surprises me is just how well connected to fascinating and famous people everyone is on Who Do You Think You Are? Derek Jacobi was from a poor area but connected to Kings! Amazing.

My lot were farm hands, shoemakers, house maids and such like. My husband's lot were Welsh gentry so he goes to newspaper sites and there they are.

We must have been what they call 'salt of the earth'......Such is life.

Just caught up with Derek Jacobi episode

Thank goodness at least one episode was interesting.

I was starting to give up hope of carrying on with the series to be honest. The early series were far better and really were interesting but this one and the last series are not as interesting by a mile thus far .

I quite enjoyed it but partly because it brought back memories when he sang "The Bold Gendarme". Every Christmas my primary school had a concert and the Headmaster and deputy head dressed as policemen and sang that and "the Laughing Policeman. They were both large men who were usually very serious, but they brought the house down as they sang and danced around a prop lamppost. I wonder if they were recreating Gareth's GGGD's act?

I don't think he has a weak voice - he has the sort of tenor voice that sits well in a choir and in certain sorts of music - baroque or lieder in particular. Pavarotti he ain't but that does not detract from the tuneful poise of his voice.

I thought the Gareth Malone programme intensely irritating. Why does he insist on singing when he has such a weak voice?

I enjoyed Gareth Malone's episode last night - mainly because he bears a passing resemblance to a normal human being rather than a cardboard cutout celeb - and clearly had a strong sense of family. His delight in in theatrical ancestors was charming.

Thanks, dj. That explains why I have missed it so far - Thursday night is badminton night! - but I will record it next week.

Thursday at 9.00 p.m.
Jerry Hall next week.

If you are interested in tracing your own family history I can really recommend ancestry.co.uk. I joined in March to give me something to do whilst recovering from a hip replacement and it is absolutely fascinating and not at all difficult to do once you get the hang of it. I did my own FT years ago (without benefit of Ancestry) so I'm now doing DH's and have found out all sorts of things.

When is the current series of Who Do You think You Are? on, please?

I suppose Jacobi just was not interested in Switzerland. He might have followed that up but found nothing there.
What I liked was the fact that he knew so much about it from his history studies. Wish I could remember dates, etc., like he seemed to be able to do.

yes, I picked that up, but it just wasn't discussed in the programme- most Huguenots, like my ancestors, headed for the French speaking Jura. My maiden name is directly related to Huguenot, like so many other versions of the name, here.

54 minutes in.
Armand de Bastide, son of John de Bastide, born in Bern, Switzerland.
Armand de Bastide was Jacobi's great uncle x7.

Granjura, can you watch it again on you-tube or something, because I am sure I saw a reference to Switzerland on one of the papers that was shown to Derek Jacobi near the end.

OMG- mil's maiden name was definitely Dutch - so maybe... not sure how many generations back became free- only to get caught again by the awful Apartheid regime.

The Derek Jacoibi one was very good. I think it helps when the "celebrity" is educated and intelligent, with some of them most of the stories seem to go right over their heads and you wonder why any one bothered with them.

I enjoyed the Sheila Hancock one a few years ago. I loved the way that all her grandmother's delusions of grandeur and rubbing shoulders with royalty turned out to be true. Nice to know that some of us mad old grannies aren't mad after all

Never visited the Huguneot Church in Soho. but I loved the Huguenot Chapel under Canterbury Cathedral- such a huge symbol of tolerance at the time- so moving.

When the Huguenots arrived in London and the South, the locals must have felt totally overwhelmed by all those immigrants needing help and support. Watching the programme explaining how the Huguenots were tortured and persecuted, and their children torn apart and burnt to force a conversion, was so reminiscent of what is happening with Isis and Boko Haram, etc.

Really enjoyed it too- such a nice man- as we share Huguenot ancestry, even more interesting- mine came over to Switzerland, his to England- some went and settle the Cape and started the SA wine industry.

Derek came over as a very nice man.

Derek Jacobi's was very interesting a great story. I have to confess it's a bit more fascinating when the programme delves back further into history rather than just a generation or two. If I remember rightly Julia Sawalha, a few series ago, had Huguenot ancestry on her mother's side as well as a fascinating Palestinian background on her father's side.