I do occasionally. I like and respect Prof Gates (for reasons aside from the show) and I think the premise followed for the show is interesting. Although, a bit tired. Finding that an African American celeb has ancestors not enslaved during pre-Civil War times, or others whose ancestors turned out to have been either adopted, or from unmarried couples, or included people with a previously unknown or hidden racial background, are all no longer as unique or surprising as the first instance of same was.

A few articles I found suggest that oftentimes several hundred hours of research and sometimes even more are required to piece together an individual's ancestry. I'm sure professional researchers are not necessarily overwhelmed with projects of that magnitude and likely anyone wanting to foot a pricey bill will find a provider happy to have the work.

It being a TV show, I suspect that there are investigations carried out that ultimately are rejected for various reasons for inclusion in the show. Finding little information available, or ambiguous or embarrassing back stories the person concerned may not wish to have broadcast or any number of other things might lead to the info being supplied to the person concerned but not included in an episode.

I think in recent past years it's been about one new "season" of episodes per year. I think that shows that have been on in recent months have been reruns and new episodes are due in early 2022.

A friend of mine has done some research on one side of my family. Anything you find should be corroborated by other sources. My friend has found information that I know to be only partially true, or perhaps misspelled. DH has found some wonderful and entertaining information about an ancestor, in actual newspaper article images. It’s fun! You do have to combine various sources, including parish records here and in whatever ”old country”, censuses, county records, the Mormons, your own family records.

Your library might have subscriptions to genealogy sites, and even classes in the research.

Spoiler alert: ancestors who were not white, males, first-borns, or of means elicit a ”how does that feel to have had an ancestor with no rights” query from Henry Louis Gates Jr.

And still, the stories might not be revealed.

My brother has done some research. Good record keeping in France going back hundreds of years helped.

He uses Geneat I’m not sure if that’s more geared toward Europe or not.

He sees photos of actual documents apparently.

He’s gone back to the 1500’s on both sides

Yes you can hire Ancestry to help with a family search. It's pricey.

https://www.progenealogists.com/?test=help.default-upsell&_ga=2.176482595.704711925.1637066568-881803584.1420603995

One of my favorite shows. My DD has done the Ancestry search and a bit further for DH's side..(.he was Irish, and his Dad and 2 brothers came from there. They parted ways, and

my DH never knew his Uncles, DH always laughed and said, "maybe I am better off not

know what they did or where they went")

and my Mom's side, they were from Scotland. No clue on my Dad's side, she went back

several generations and they were still here in the States. Interesting....DH's Surname was

changed once, then changed back to the original spelling. She learned that a lot of the

name changing, spelling, etc., was due to the Ellis Island check ins. If they had trouble

understanding anyone or reading any documents, they just put down what they thought

they heard.

Big fan of the show here.

I love the show. Memorable episodes profiled Andy Samberg and Fred Armisten.

It's a fascinating show. I watch it when I can. It's amazing how far back documentation is when going back to Europe.

One of my uncles researched my mom's family history (pre-internet) and went way back to the days of Vikings (or so I'm told). He's connected with relatives in Norway (has visited and remains in contact) It's all documented in Ancestry (massive tree!!!!) He found a family scandal.....my great grandfather left a family in Norway when he came to the US. Slightly altered the spelling of the last name (may have been immigration error; not sure) and started a new family here.

lot of the name changing, spelling, etc., was due to the Ellis Island check ins. If they had trouble understanding anyone or reading any documents, they just put down what they thought they heard.

That was a problem with census takers, which is why you can find a different spelling for a name in every census (and you have to use some imagination to locate your relative in a census).

However, at Ellis Island the officials did not change names - despite the popular and oft-repeated myth - they used the manifests/passenger lists that were created at the port of embarkation (Liverpool, Hamburg, etc). There could certainly be some changes made if immigrants were used to spelling their names in one alphabet (like Hebrew or Cyrillic) and it had to be transliterated into another at the port office; but I do not know how that worked then

Could you give me the location of explaining "the popular and oft-repeated myth"? There

are a lot of historians that you should explain this to, as they think otherwise. And, as you

repeated that these changes were made when they didn't understand the immigrants,

you evidently didn't "see" that in the post? Sorry...but when you correct someone, it

would be nice to give the facts. And...you are aware that a good share of given names

can, and are, spelled in different ways? Even, that old standby "Smith"....Smyth...Smythe...and

even changed to, Schmidt.

The most important rule in genealogy research is "documentation". There are several ways to document an event like a birth, death or marriage. I always caution people not to assume that information on someone's family tree on Ancestry or elsewhere isn't always correct, unless it has documentation to back it up. One thing that really bugs me is when people go on the internet, find other people's family information that matches their family, print it out and say they "researched" their family. That's a beginner's mistake and not real genealogy research. It takes years of work to find information about your family and there's some you will never find, because it simply doesn't exist. The internet is a huge, wonderful resource, but you have to use it wisely. I wish it had been available to me when I started back in the 80's.

The comment about name changes coming from passenger manifests and not Ellis Island workers came directly from Dr. Gates in one episode.

My cousins on my father's side did a lot of ancestry work, and I was surprised to learn from them that we have a lot of ancestors from England. These ancestors immigrated around 1630 to Rhode Island and Massachusetts and owned significantly large amounts of land - therefore there are a lot of records about them, including records of the lands they owned in England. There are also records of sex scandals that got published in local newspapers.

I don't know as much about my mother's side, I guess because they did not own as much land, and I believe that her mother's family did not own land at all - anyway, I have not been able to learn of any. They immigrated to Texas from Alsace when it was part of Germany, and while I can trace them back to Europe, I could not find out anything about their history in Europe.

None of my ancestors came through Ellis Island - it seems that most came through Galveston, New Orleans, Charleston, or Providence, RI. None of my ancestors ever lived in New York, and the ones in New England went straight to Virginia and South Carolina, and then to Louisiana before settling in Texas in the mid-19th Century.

I love that show and I really like Professor Gates. I have been working on family genealogy for over 30 years and it was only 2 years ago I got an Ancestry membership. I have had my DNA done and have connected with many new cousins who have helped me with researching and sharing photos. What I don't like about Ancestry is the copying of trees that is being done by people without doing their own research and most of the time they have connected to the wrong tree. I had one person email me to tell me my Great Grandmother should not be in my family tree and I had the wrong information haha. I told him I actually knew my Great Grandmother and have all her documents.

When I joined Ancestry I found many trees shared wrong information about my Grandfather that was wrong, he never lived in California like they said he did. I found this out by going to one tree that had him listed but the wrong info. They had a picture of my Grandfather that I recognized but all the info they had on him was someone else's info. I have one ancestor cousin I had met online. I gave him information that I knew and he took it back further in the tree which showed we are descendants of Scottish royalty from the beginning and it also includes Alexander Hamilton. I laughed and told him my Mom always said there was a Duchess in her family. I take it with a grain of salt. I won't be sharing that info about royalty on my tree because I haven't done the research and until it is proved with documentation it can stay off my tree.

I am happy having ancestors who were hard working people who were strong enough to live through each generation during hard times to allow me to be born. I would love to have my tree professionally researched like on the show but that is way out of my budget.

Each of my parents was a direct descendent of passengers on the ship The Mayflower and who were also signatories of the Mayflower Pact. Documented. My sibs and I are related to five MF passengers. I should get myself to Plimoth one of these days. I think its cool. (And I happen to have bought a house where there is a mayflower plant growing in my front yard.)

We have ”relatives” all over New England and the Northeast. Some of our relatives fought in very early wars. Brutal visions. Many MF passengers perished on the voyage or during that first year. One or two is buried in an Indian cemetary. It would be interesting to learn more about that.

Professor Gates is a most likeable personality with a fascinating program. If I was a celebrity and not stage averse, I’d love to be a guest on his show. There are so many amazing stories.

I did my family history before ANCESTRY. Went directly to the sources in Ireland..This included copies of the actual parish records. Also studied the actual ship lists in Fort Wayne, Indiana's wonderful library. It took me about 10 years but it resulted in a book for family members whose information was directly "from the horse's mouth." It produced some surprises but was all documented. Lots of work and some expense, but well worth it.

Seniorgal

"It being a TV show, I suspect that there are investigations carried out that ultimately are rejected for various reasons for inclusion in the show. Finding little information available, or ambiguous or embarrassing back stories the person concerned may not wish to have broadcast or any number of other things might lead to the info being supplied to the person concerned but not included in an episode."

Ah, yes. There was a bit of a brouhaha several years ago when Ben Affleck was on the show. Apparently, research found that one of his ancestors had owned slaves. He was not happy about that, and didn't want that information to be included in the show. Professor Gates felt that it should be included because, after all, it was a documented part of Affleck's ancestor's life. Professor Gates took it to the "higher-ups," who opted to placate Affleck because "he's such a big celebrity." The info got out anyway...

As for name changes -- my father's side is 100% Italian. My research has shown that their names were spelled correctly on ship manifests, because those are filled out in the home country before the ships left for the USA. For my extended family, no one at Ellis Island changed anyone's name, but several men changed their own surnames simply by changing or omitting a vowel. My

great-grandfather's sister (my 2nd great-aunt) married a man who changed his surname from a very Italian surname to an Irish surname! My grandfather arrived, alone, in the USA when he was 17. He altered his surname by changing the last letter from one vowel to another. My grandmother's first cousin married my grandfather's best friend, who had altered his surname by changing one of the three vowels in his name. My "take" on these name changes is that they represented a new beginning in a new country.

It may be possible to begin your search in the county where you were born. There might be a genealogy library or genealogy society available. I have been a volunteer genealogist for 15 years at our historical society. We assist patrons who wish to do their own research ( $10 fee for non-members) or we will do research long- distance. A $40 fee will get you hours of research in trying to answer your questions. Of course we cannot go back any further than our records allow.

Ancestry is a wonderful tool for giving you clues about your family, but as was mentioned, the copious amount of misinformation can throw you completely off course. Everything needs documentation before you add it to your family tree.

Regarding spellings of surnames, we always say, ” spelling does not count”. Sloppy handwriting, deciphering a foreign language, purposeful changes , etc. are some of the reasons for changes. Some folks wanted their names to sound ” less ethnic”, or to disassociate from other family members. Brothers would end up with different surnames. We have one common local name that has 50 different spellings. Someone of German decent might find that their ancestors we named ” Schwartz” in the old country but it was changed to ” Black ” when they got here. Another example is the German name ” Schneider” which means ” Tailor ”. That can throw you offtrack also. Many people refuse to believe that the various spellings are part of their family!

Genealogy is fascinating ( and frustrating), addicting, and very much like solving mysteries.

I started checking the records that my cousins had done on our English ancestors, and I was able to trace ancestry back to a person born in 1130 in Gloucestershire. He had a descendant (born in the year 1230 - lived to the age of 63) that was given the title "Sir" (whatever that means), and this may have helped preserve the records, as this ancestor was a friend to Edward I. He was also given hunting rights in several counties in the 13th Century.

I really cannot imagine what England was like in the 12th or 13th Century, but it seems like it is getting close to the time of knights and jousting.

This line of ancestry seemed to have had only one or two children that survived - at least until around the 16th Century, and then they started having as many as 15 children that are named in the records. No wonder they had to leave England! Some of my ancestors from the 16th Century have more than 5,000 known descendants, which makes them seem common or vulgar.

I've only looked at some of the information that my cousins have dug up, but I don't expect anything more interesting than what I found tonight. I did not expect to find so many details from the 13th Century.

I would like to learn more about my Prussian ancestors, since they were the ones that seemed to have the most money🤑.

Cherryfizz, that's exactly what I meant about family trees online, especially Ancestry. I saw one person who took one of my Dad's siblings as her ancestor, simply because they had the same first name, and with him she took my father's entire family and paternal line and my Grandmother's family, as well.. Apparently she didn't bother to do any research, because she would have found that my Dad's brother died as a small child and couldn't possibly have any descendants. Unfortunately, I only have a free account, so I couldn't contact her about her mistake.

If you're going to research your family, please, please verify everything. Please don't take what others spent years researching and compiling, and say you researched your family. No, you didn't, you took someone else's work and called your own. I've been working on my family since the 1980's, and it frustrates me when someone says they researched their family in a short time. It's just not possible.

The internet is a wonderful tool for genealogy research, but you still have to visit courthouses, cemeteries and libraries, make phone calls and write letters, etc. It's work, but it's also fun and fascinating.

I trust what my first cousin researched, since we have the exact same paternal grandparents. Furthermore, I don't take this excessively seriously, since it really does not matter AFAIAC who one's ancestors were more than 200 years ago, since they are only remotely related.

I have no desire to do any more research beyond looking at what my cousins have provided me and told me personally.

I understand, Lars. It's like any other hobby, some people are interested in it and some are not. To me, genealogy is like a mystery and a giant puzzle combined. I enjoy finding a piece of the puzzle or solving a mystery.

DH has been really into this for years, and he is forever trying to explain to people that the ship manifests were filled out on the other side and were used at Ellis Island. So many people have the story that the clerk changed the family name at Ellis Island.

I was kind of relieved to read the comments here about the names NOT being changed upon entry.