Who Do You Think You Are?

I used to enjoy this, but I'm finding it increasingly irritating now we're on series 22.

The recent episode featuring Andrew Garfield is a good example of what's wrong with this programme. His great-grandparents were part of a large Jewish family living in Poland in the early 20th century. What could possibly have happened to them? Garfield has to pretend that he doesn't know. Fortunately he is an actor so he's able to play along with the programme-makers. WDYTYA has told this same story now at least a dozen times.

Standard well-known bits of history are presented as if they are news. Apparently Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Wow, who knew?

Any opportunity to criticise the UK via a biased view of history is eagerly grasped.

For example, the story of the Easter rising in Ireland is gone over again and again, always presenting Irish terrorists as valiant freedom fighters and the British as evil oppressors (most recently in the Aisling Bea episode).

Whenever there's a black individual doing the show (which of course is quite frequently - Layton Williams in the latest series) they go to Jamaica, and again, acting talent is required as they feign horror at the discovery that one of their ancestors was a slave.

Occasionally it's interesting, for example when some ancestor did something significant. But more often it isn't. It's just an excuse for emotional misery-wallowing and political opinion-pushing.

The second series has been running for a few weeks. The series opened with Jeremy Paxman (for those who don't know him, he's very well known in Britain as the most hard-nosed, cynical, bullying, political interview around). He was most humbled by his family's less than spectacular background.

I am posting now because last night's show featured Stephen Fry (a highly intellectual speaker, presenter and comedian). He uncovered ancestors on his father's side who were in prison or a poorhouse, and probably dies of TB. Worse, he proved that some relatives on his mother's side had been murdered in Auschwitz, and that the only evidence of his family in Surany (now in Slovakia) is an old headstone in an often vandalised Jewish cemetery. This town was once a thriving Jewish community, but now has just one Jew, a remarkably upbeat old man.

Stephen Fry found a plaque an the wall outside a block of flats in Austria, which mentioned the names of former residents taken to Auschwitz. The plaque mentioned the names of members of Fry's family. This plaque, the run down cemetery, the discovery that his relatives had died in Auschwitz, and a letter written by the old man still living in Surany, all moved Stephen Fry (and me) to tears.

This was a brilliant programme.

I have a fascination for history, particularly social history and I always find this show fascinating. They have done a huge range of people and the amount of work which must go into each show is staggering. I think it's a very engaging and human way to learn about history.

I'd just like to refer to one of the other posters on here and say that these people are generally not employees of the BBC so their political leanings are of no import. There is a long tradition of creative types who lean a little to the left, so I'm not sure why that comes as a shock, and a large number of the subjects (actors or otherwise) of this series are far from uneducated. I think what may have got lost in translation is exactly who some of the individuals in earlier series are. And perhaps their sense of humour. A large number of these people are well-known in the UK but perhaps not elsewhere. I believe that this has been picked up in other countries now as well and made with more relevant subjects.

One of the reasons I think it's so interesting in the UK is that it highlights how mixed the people living here are.

Who Do You Think You Are

Series 19

Sue Perkins was distractingly frenetic from the get go but as she got out and about as the history unfolded there was quite an emotional rollercoaster for everyone. The parallels of an interment camp and Nazis resettlement camp were marked and it was shocking to enter the Nazis programme of eugenics and aryan genetics.

This was a brilliant show and we learned much about the history. Sue wears her heart on a sleeve and we feel her pain in a visceral way. I'm giving this show a 10 outta 10 I was gripped.

Richard Osman, quite a national treasure, we learn that when his father walked out when he was 9 for another woman his mother cut off all relations with his side of the family, perhaps to the detriment of Richard's childhood. The show necessarily focuses on only his mothers side, which is only a partial story. Richard's grandfather clearly stepped up to be the male role model in his life much to his credit and his story was most poignant. 8 outta 10 from me, so much was missing!

Matt Lucas, I'm not sure why this show moved at a snails pace but it was bordering on stop. Matt led us through a terrible history of fleeing the Nazis and concentration camps were very few survived. It was awful and he held it together. It wasn't historically the best of shows so for me it was a 6 outta 10, we must never forget.

Anna Maxwell Martin, you had to laugh before any of the history was revealed Anna proclaimed everything about everyone and then was shown to have got it all wrong. Her need to embellish a back story was beyond irritating, however she got her comeuppance when her grandfather's was way beyond anything she could imagine. She remained fixated that people learn all their parenting off their parents, negating the influences of friends, neighbours, other relatives and a world full of professionals. Overall it was not very interesting history at best a 5 outta 10.

Ralf Little, great show and very interesting history, I'm giving this a 10 outta 10.

Respect the privacy of the dead

This show talks about the private lives of generations of relatives. The show I watched yesterday in Australia about a woman who dug up the 3 marriage contracts of her great great grandfather just to be able to say and chuckle that "he was married 3 times" raises the issue about the privacy of the dead.

At present time, NSW laws do not allow people who are not party to the marriage to get copies of marriage certificates. But if they are 30 years old, anyone, not even those related to them can. There is here a certain irony.

Likewise from a certain ethical point of view, just because they are dead doesn't mean you can do whatever you like just because you can. If they were living, do you think those people would have allowed very distant relatives to pry into their lives, let alone dig up and get copies of their marriage contracts? Put yourself in the place of the dead. See how it goes.

Furthermore, Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides "Article 17 1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation."

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. "

Likewise, the OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data provides that "although national laws and policies may differ, Member countries have a common interest in protecting privacy and individual liberties, and in reconciling fundamental but competing values such as privacy and the free flow of information; ".

Sometimes its not what we want to do with other people's lives but its what they would have wanted had they been alive