This was really the genesis for Last Saturday’s post, Watching Family Trees Grow, but I got long winded there and I didn’t want it to get lost, so here you go:
As we powered through the episodes of “Who Do You Think You Are” we had a couple of instances weirdness. First was the 5th Episode of Season 9 about Molly Shannon. Molly’s maternal grandfather came from an island off the coast of County Mayo called Achill. Ms. Shannon actually travels to the island and meets folks who knew her grandfather and some cousins she never knew she had. Later that evening Donna and I were doing the crossword puzzle from that day’s newspaper when we came to a clue that read, “Western Ireland Island.” The answer was five letters long and we had the last letter already, an ‘L’…
The second time it happened was Episode 2 of Season 10 about Josh Duhamel. Josh discovers that his 12x great-grandfather, a man named Thomas Norton, held prominent status in 16th century England, and was an influential figure in the war between Protestantism and Catholicism at the time. When they were discussing this religious schism the names of Queen Mary the 1st (Catholic) who was succeeded on the throne by her half-sister Elizabeth the 1st who was Protestant my ears perked up. Earlier in the day I had started watching the movie Elizabeth starring Cate Blanchett which covers this very period. Unfortunately Mr. Duhamel’s 12x great-grandfather didn’t figure in the movie. Or maybe fortunately because Thomas Norton “interrogations” of Catholics in the Tower of London led to his being nicknamed “Rackmaster-General.”