Wordless Wednesday

"Who Do You Think You Are?" - Blair Underwood

The Blair Underwood episode of Who Do You Think You Are? opened with a voice-over about how Underwood has highlighted black issues in his roles and work and has won five NAACP Image Awards.  In Underwood's initial monologue he talked about how family has always been important to him and that he wanted to learn more about where his family came from.  His father was in the U.S. Army for 27 years and retired as a colonel; his paternal grandfather was the first black police officer in Steubenville, Ohio.  He knew some information about his mother's side of the family, not as much about the Underwoods.  The commercials for the episode had indicated he was going to Africa, so we knew that was coming at some point.  I thought it might be the big finale to the episode, as it had been with Emmitt Smith.

Underwood began his research by visiting his parents at their home in Petersburg, Virginia.  His brother Frank Underwood, Jr. is the family genealogist and had assembled information for the family to look at.  (Wouldn't it be nice if in one of these episodes the celebrity was the family historian?)  They discussed what they knew about the family and how they had hit the brick wall of 1865 -- how to find people who had been slaves prior to emancipation.  Underwood said that with "science and technology we can break through" and sent a DNA test kit off to Ancestry.com.

It's really annoying and unfair to constantly parade DNA around as a "magic bullet" that will give people answers about their ancestry.  A recent blog post by "The Legal Genealogist" discussed the general problems, including the fact that the results the tests give are based on probabilities and percentages, not on absolutes.  But people like easy answers, so the tests gain momentum.

Underwood began his research with genealogist Joseph Shumway (of ProGenealogists, owned by Ancestry.com) at the Library of Virginia in Richmond.  Shumway had already found records and showed Underwood the register entries for the marriage of Harry Royall and Ada White (Underwood's great-grandparents on his mother's side) listing their parents, Ben and Fannie Royall and Thomas and Mary White, and the marriage of Ben and Fannie, listing their parents.  The focus was on Fannie's parents, Saunie and Maria Early, and particularly on Saunie.

Shumway proceeded to show Sauney (yes, spelled differently) in the 1900 census -- born 1822, could read and write, but residing in the Central State [Mental] Hospital in Virginia -- 1880 census as Sawnee -- with wife Maria and daughter Fannie, working as a farm laborer -- and 1870 census again as Sauney -- this time working as a blacksmith.  Shumway mentioned that they would not be able to look for Sauney in the 1890 census because it had been burned, which is not entirely accurate.  There was a fire in the National Archives in which parts of the 1890 census did burn, but the reason we don't have it is because after they put out the fire they just left the wet pages as they were.  By the time someone looked at them again, they had been ruined by mold.  Shumway should certainly know that, and it helps no one to give inaccurate information.  I wonder if his research is that sloppy?

After showing Underwood the 1870 census, the two men discussed the fact that during the 1860 census Sauney was likely a slave and would not appear in the enumeration by name.  Underwood declared that they had "hit the wall" of slavery.  While that is true, there are definitely ways to determine former slave owners and then research slave ancestors, and it would have been nice to see Shumway discuss that.  Freedmen's Bureau records, available at all branches of the National Archives, are a goldmine of information.  Did WDYTYA's researchers look at the Freedmen's Bureau records and find nothing?  Did they look at all?

But back to Sauney -- he had obviously declined over the course of 30 years.  In 1870 he was a skilled tradesman, in 1880 a general laborer, and in 1900 in a mental hospital.  So what happened?  Underwood went to Jones Memorial Library in Lynchburg, Virginia to meet with Dr. Dan Fountain, a professor of history at Meredith College.  Fountain had found several newspaper articles about Sauney.  For the first one Underwood scrolled through a microfilm to the date that Fountain gave him, but after that they were practical and used printed copies of the articles.  Sawney (yup, another spelling) was called a "pestiferous darkey" in one article about how he stole a cow from a neighbor, R. M. Chambers; he was sent to jail in Liberty for that.  In the Lynchburg Daily Virginian, an 1897 article discussed how "Sawney" wore badges with cabalistic signs and described him as a "religious enthusiast."  And on January 23, 1884 another article explained that Sauney had been shot and killed by another neighbor, Mr. Tardy, in a fight over some timber.  (That article was in error, since Sauney was still alive in 1900.  Apparently a reporter didn't wait for the full story.)  And another article called Sauney a religious enthusiast again.

All of this led to a discussion of how Sauney must have been a "conjurer", a position in the community which originated in West African tradition.  The conjurer negotiated the boundary between the spirit and human worlds and was a leader in the community.  Now, Sauney had been shot and survived, and he liked shiny things, but it's still a big leap for me to decide he was a conjurer.  He could just as easily have had some mental problems, based on the information presented in the show.

The different ways that Sauney's name was spelled were not discussed at all, which was probably very confusing for people who have not seen this yet in their own research.  It didn't used to be important to spell consistently (Social Security is one of the reasons spelling became codified), and many people were illiterate or barely literate.  It is not uncommon to find a name spelled half a dozen ways or more.

From the library Underwood and Fountain went to what looked like an empty lot.  Fountain showed a map indicating the property lines of Sauney, Chambers, and someone named Armistead.  The properties in question were where they were standing.  He talked about how Chambers and Armistead were newcomers to the area and apparently were trying to push Sauney around.  Fountain had found a deposition in Bedford County (one assumes the county they were standing in, but it wasn't specified), given by a white man, stating that the cow which Sauney had "stolen" had wandered onto his property from Chambers' property.  Something that struck me in this scene was that Chambers and Armistead were identified on the map by their family names, but Sauney by his given name.  Usually calling someone by a given name shows less respect.  (I promise I do not mean any disrespect by using given names in this post!)

From all of these disparate pieces of information, including a comment that Sauney had been shot four times (we didn't see articles or evidence of all four times, however), Underwood decided that Sauney was a man who had lived by his own credo and could not be broken, and that maybe Chambers and the others had decided it would be easier to commit him rather than continue to fight him for the land.  Underwood was proud to have Sauney as his third-great-grandfather.  I would think if Sauney had been committed through that type of process, there should be court records to indicate it, so I'm a little suspicious.  Maybe there was something in the research we didn't get to see that supported the idea, but I can only judge by what they decided to include in the episode.

Underwood now went back to see Joseph Shumway, who had found information about Ada Belle White, who married Harry Royal.  Her parents in the marriage register were given as Thomas and Mary White.  The death certificate of Mary White showed that she died in 1917 in Lynchburg and was born in 1862.  Her father was listed as Delaware Scott.  Delaware Scott was in the 1860 census as a free person of color with Julia, William, and Judith Scott.  Family relationships were not stated in the 1860 census, but an educated guess based on everyone's ages was that Julia was Delaware's wife, William his son, and Judith possibly his mother.  Besides the family being free, it was also noted that Delaware owned real estate, which was definitely unusual.

At the Library of Virginia, Underwood met with Dr. Eva Sheppard Wolf, a historian and professor at California State University at San Francisco.  She had done extensive research on Delaware Scott and found him registered as a free Negro in 1849.  His mother was listed as Judith, he was 5'11" (the same as Underwood), and he was born free in 1823 (though in a later family tree diagram his birth was listed as 1824).  His mother had to have been free or he could not have been born free, as the child's status came from the mother.  We learned that there were thousands of free blacks in Virginia.  A 1782 law permitted slaves, with the exception of children and someone more than 45 years old, to be freed by deed or will.

A second registration for Delaware from September 5, 1852 again stated that Delaware was born free and mentioned a law from May 1, 1806.  Dr. Wolf discussed the law, which decreed that slaves freed after that date had to leave Virginia within one year, otherwise they could be captured and made slaves again.  Those people freed before May 1 did not have to leave.  By extension, Judith had to have been free before May 1, 1806, or the family could not have stayed in Virginia.

Dr. Wolf also found an 1850's deposition of some sort from a white man named Guy Lee.  He stated that he had known Amy Umbles for "60 years or upwards" and that she had been free.  He stated he also knew her two daughters, Judd and Tabby.  In the deposition he appeared to be vouching for the family in some way.  Wolf explained that Judd married Samuel Scott, and that they were the parents of Delaware Scott.  Later information showed Judd's name as Judith; no explanation was given in the episode about the change in her name.  Even given that people used variations of names at different times, the names here were different enough I thought this merited a comment explaining how they had determined Judith was Judd.

From here Underwood and Wolf went back to Lynchburg, to the Court Street Baptist Church, which the Scott family helped build.  Land deeds had been found showing that Samuel Scott was buying property in June 19, 1815.  He eventually owned about 200 acres, a pretty good amount for the time.  Tax records had also been found, which showed that Samuel owned two slaves in 1838 and 1839.  This, of course, threw Underwood for a loop.  Further research showed that in Samuel Scott's household in the 1840 census, only one slave was present, a male between 55-100 years of age.  Wolf said that a slave of that age was not someone who was working, so there had to be another reason to keep him.  She talked again about the law that slaves freed after May 1, 1806 had to leave Virginia; if someone remained a slave, he could stay.  She explained that most free black slave owners owned family members (she did not address if this was common only in Virginia because of the 1806 law or if it held for other states also).  Free people owned their family members so the family could stay together.  She hypothesized that the two slaves listed in the tax records were probably Samuel's parents, and that the person who died between 1839-1840 was likely his mother.

Underwood talked about how Samuel took care of his own and then said, "This is where the trail for the Scotts ends."  We have to assume that the show's researchers couldn't find any records for Amy Umbles or Samuel Scott stating when they were freed.  I'm wondering why the two slaves Samuel owned, theoretically his parents, didn't show up in any deeds or purchase transactions which might have named them.  How did Samuel come to own them?  He probably bought them from someone else, which should have generated a record.

Now we went from real research to the world of probabilities and smoke and mirrors.  Underwood met with Dr. Ken Chahine, the general manager of Ancestry DNA, in Lynchburg.  Chahine annoyed me from the start by using poor grammar when he said that Underwood's DNA "is comprised of" 74% African and 26% European roots.  The parts comprise the whole, not the other way around; you can say his DNA is composed of its parts, or you can say that 74% African and 26% European roots comprise his DNA.  Is good grammar really so difficult, guys?  Underwood's European roots were shown to be from what is now France, Switzerland, and Germany, and Underwood said he had always felt a connection with France.  His African roots indicated connections with the Bamoun, Yoruba, Igbo, and Bron tribes.  And the big revelation was that his closest DNA match was to a man named Eric Sonjowoh from Babungo, Cameroon.  Chahine said that they shared a male relative between the years 1600-1700.  The Legal Genealogist blogged about this also and gave some scathing comments about the pseudoscience that was expounded upon.  Suffice it to say that based on currently available science, they don't really know that Underwood and Sonjowoh are cousins; they're just guessing, and not really in an educated way.  Sure makes for good drama, though, doesn't it?

Something I immediately wondered is why a man in Babungo, Cameroon would possibly be in the Ancestry DNA database.  But this would be answered shortly.

Underwood went back to Petersburg to get his father and the two of them flew to Africa to meet their newfound "cousin" in Babungo.  The entire village came out, and it was obviously a major production that the Americans were coming.  When Underwood met Sonjowoh, it looked to me that they were using an interpreter who was not being shown on screen, because of the way they cut the camera shots.  Later Sonjowoh did speak in English, though he was subtitled throughout.  Underwood talked about how his ancestor had been separated from his family and now they were able to reunite.  (When, oh when, will it be discussed on these programs that the slave trade started because warring tribes were selling their enemies to the white traders?)  Then Underwood asked Sonjowoh why he was in the DNA database.  Hey, I wasn't the only person who wondered!  Apparently in 2005 a man came through the area offering to do DNA tests because blacks in America were trying to trace their family roots.  So seven years ago, someone was figuring out how to make money off of this in the future. It apparently was someone from Ancestry.com.

Underwood gave Sonjowoh a photograph of his family and invited him to come to the U.S. to visit.  He talked about how he had come from a long line of people with good values and how he was reuniting family members.  He also said that he was African because "Africa was born in us."

Overall the research in this episode was really good, and they found some amazing information.  But there were some huge gaps in what could have been sought that were not explained.  It is so frustrating to wonder whether it's the editing that's at fault or if the research is the problem.

And I almost forgot to include that this makes me three for three on my predictions.  Going by the teaser for the Reba McEntire episode, however, they're going somewhere overseas, so it looks as though I'll get my first ding next week.

Search for Owners of Vaults in the Pantin (Paris) Jewish Cemetery

Old Jewish Graves in Pantin Cemetery

The rights for two hundred burial vaults in the Pantin Jewish cemetery may legally be transferred to the Paris cemetery administration, which can have the deceased exhumed, unless descendants of those interred are traced.  The vast majority of these vaults are "tombs bought in perpetuity."  This means that the only cost to descendants would be for maintenance of the tombstones.  For other vaults, the continuance of the burial "concession" (i.e., for 100 years) must be paid, otherwise the bones will be exhumed.

Bought at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century by members of the Jewish community of Paris, these burial vaults are much deteriorated today.  Up to fifty tombs can be found in any one vault.  The vaults could be protected through the intervention of direct descendants of the owners, but unfortunately most are unaware of the current risk to their ancestral graves.  More than 80,000 French Jews were victims of the Holocaust, and any surviving descendants they may have are now scattered around the world.

Anyone related to the following early 20th-century Paris Jews should send an e-mail immediately to Deborah Dreyfus at info@agudasyisroel-eu.org.

ALEXANDRE Simon AMRAN Jules ATLAS Adolphe BACHRICH Samuel BADY Maximilien BANCK Wolff BEHAR Esperance BERNHEIM Juliette BIRGE Henri BIRKEMOE Peter BLOCH Alexandre BLOCH Esther BLUM Clotilde BLUM Gustave BONN Julie BRANDENBOURG Sigismond BRUNSCHWIG Joseph BUTTENWEISER Benjamin CAEN Edouard CAHEN Emilie CANTOR Jacob CERF Charles CHAPIRO VOLBERT Boris CHIMENES Gaston CHRENPREIS Andre COBLENCE Mayer COBLENTZ Julie COHEN Abraham DA COSTA Silva DAVIDS Sylvain DE SCHAUENBURG Maurice DEITZ Leon DEWULF Justin DIAMANTBERGER David DREYFUS Gaston EIFA Aron ESKENAZI Albert FALAIZE LAVILLE Gabriel FEISEL Alfred FINKEL Max FREIS Simon FUCHS Charles GALICO Azaria GOETSCH Ernestine GOLDKETTE Bennevois GOLDMANN Morley GOLDSCHMIDT Lothaire GOLOBORODSKY Michel GOUGENHEIM Georges GRIBINSKI Maurice GRUNBERG Pauline HALPERIN Constant HELFT Gustave HERMANN Leon HEYMAN Babette HIRTZ Samuel HUET Adelaide IKELHEIMER Rosalie ISAACS Esther ISRAEL Paul ITZIG Philippe JACOB Celina JACOBER Benjamin JACOBOVITZ Abraham JACOBSON David JUNES Bibo COBOWITZ Maurice KAPLAN Henri KARTUN Salomon LAFERME Rosalie LAKSINE Charles LANG Maurice LAZARD Sarah LEIB Albert LEIBOVITZ Benjamin LEOPARD Pauline

LEVI Mathilde LEVI-BRAMIBRAHIM Henri LEVY Camille LEVY Emile LEVY Jacob LEVY Victor LUZATO Max MACAULAY Rachel MADERA Deborah MAHLBERG Samuel MARGOULISS Alexandre MAYER Raphael MENDELSOHN Berthe MEYER Estelle MIZRAKI Rebecca MOYSE Leopold NEINADEL Joseph NETTER Cecile NETTER Mathias NEUJARHR Isidore NUNES Joseph ORDENSTEIN Herman PENHA Mariana PERSON Mendel PICARD Eugene PIETTE DE MONTFOUCAULT Adele POLITZER Simon RABDEL Samuel RACOVSKY Leon RAPAPORT Jacques RIVELINE Hirsch ROSENBERG HACHMANN Leon ROSENBERG Ruben ROSENFELD Ernest ROSENTHAL Ernest ROSH Forestine SALOMON Alphonse SALOMON Arthur SALOMON Laure SALOMON Robert SARACHEWSKY Sabrina SCHARTZ Ignatz SCHILLER Henry SCHLUSSELBLUM Renee SCHNEEBERG Edouard SCHRKROB Pauline SCHROKB Henri SCHROKB Maurice SCHWOB Antoinette SEE Arthur SEGALL Armand SEIDLITZ Siegfried SENCIER Gaston SIMON Alexandre STERN Benjamin STERN Helene STIBBE Abraham STRIBREVER Nuhiu SUISSA Massaoud TCHOULOK Isaac THOREAU Charles TIANO Joseph TOLMAN Ephin et Naum VANPRAAG Elie VILLAR Charles WALDTENFEL Raoul WASSERBERGER Ignace WECHSLER Leon WEIL Adrien et Bernard WEIL Charles WEIL Ellen WEILL Charles WEISSMANN Maurice WOLOCH Isser WOOG Adele WORONICK Elias

Wordless Wednesday

Historical Black Newspapers Talk at CGS

This Saturday, February 25, I will present my new talk on using online historical black newspapers for genealogical research, at the California Genealogical Society.  I've said before that newspapers can provide incredible amounts of information that will help you in your research.  An important aspect of researching black family history is that the major newspapers often did not publish items about members of the black community.  Newspapers published by and for the black community stepped up to fill that void.  Along with the kinds of things you'd expect -- births, marriages, deaths, military service, moves, hobbies, civic involvement, etc. -- you can also find stories specific to that community, such as personal ads searching for lost family members and historical reminiscences that include the names of former slave owners.

There is still room in the class, which will be 1:00-2:30 p.m. at CGS, 2201 Broadway Lower Level, Oakland, California.  You can register online.  Members of CGS attend for free as a membership benefit; nonmembers pay a nominal fee which can be applied to membership.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Valentine's Day, Bubbie

A few years after my grandfather died, I was talking with my grandmother (Bubbie), and she mentioned how every year on Valentine's Day for the 50 years they were married Zadie (my grandfather) had given her these big beautiful cards.  She sounded wistful as she told me about it.  They loved each other so much.  So the next year I started sending her big, flowery cards, the kind she told me Zadie used to give her.  She loved getting them.  She would call me when they arrived and thank me for thinking of her.  She's gone now also, but on Valentine's Day I think of her.

"Who Do You Think You Are?" - Marisa Tomei

This week's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? focused almost entirely on the question of what actually happened to Marisa Tomei's great-grandfather Francesco Leopoldo Bianchi.  In the opening segment Tomei went to New York to meet with her parents, Gary and Addie, and brother, Adam, and discuss the story that her mother's grandfather had been murdered in 1910.  He supposedly had been shot in a bar, with the cause being fooling around with someone else's woman or that he owed money to somebody.  Tomei's mother also wondered what had happened to her grandmother after Bianchi was killed and how that affected her father, who was 2 years old at the time, and uncle, who was only 1.  Addie had a family tree on Ancestry.com, which was prominently displayed.  The tree showed Bianchi and Adelaide Angiola Canovaro, Addie's grandmother.  Both sides of the family were from Tuscany, Italy.

After meeting with her parents, Tomei and Adam talked about how her mother had never discussed the murder but now was interested in learning more about it.  Adam said, "I suspect that you're gonna find out that there is something else" to the story about the murder.  So we had our sledgehammer cue that the story wasn't going to be quite what the family thought it was.  Foreshadowing is one thing, but I really wonder about the script writers on this show.

Tomei immediately went to Italy to begin her research, unlike the rest of us, who would have probably had to settle for hiring a researcher remotely.  Considering the information she later finds, though, it is possible she might not have been able to accomplish it without going in person.  Because we didn't see any of the research being done, we don't know if the researchers had any indices available or if they had to go page by page through the records.  She went first to Cecina, where the Bianchi family was from.  At the Cecina Municipal Cemetery and Archive she met with guide Fabio Di Segni (who actually has a film company).  In this segment Di Segni's dialog was accompanied by subtitles, which I didn't see the need for.  I thought his English was easily understandable.  Tomei and Di Segni went inside to meet with Loris Gagliardi, the caretaker for the cemetery.  Gagliardi spoke only in Italian; his dialog was translated in subtitles.  Tomei asked whether there were any documents relating to her great-grandfather's death in 1910.  Gagliardi said he would check and pulled out several folders.  He said there was nothing for 1910 and that he would look in 1911.  In that folder he found a record saying that Bianchi's body was transported to Cecina for burial on March 10, 1911 and that he had died of illness on March 7.  A translation was already prepared for Tomei to read (it appeared that her Italian skills are pretty basic).  It looked pretty silly to go through the motions of looking through the folders to see if there was a record and then conveniently have the translation ready.  After Tomei had read the translation, Gagliardi put everything back in the folders, so Tomei left without any copies.  I guess she's going to rely entirely on her memory for all the details she learned.

Tomei went to visit her great-grandfather's tombstone.  There were two photos on the tombstone, which they didn't pay any attention to.  I would be really excited to see photographs, and I wanted to see some longer close-ups.  Maybe the family already has plenty of photos of Leopoldo?  We learned that Adelaide is buried with Leopoldo; I think her stone said that she died in 1978.  Tomei talked about how Bianchi dying of illness didn't agree with the family story and then said disingenuously, "I think there are many more details to be had about Leopold's death."  Well, yeah, I guess, or we wouldn't have had an episode, would we?  Tomei decided to go to Elba, because Leopoldo and Adelaide had lived there and she thought maybe Leopoldo had died there.  She also wanted to look for records on Adelaide's side of the family.

The island of Elba is most famous for being the place where Napoleon spent his first exile.  I didn't know that it was so close to the Italian coast.  Tomei and Di Segni went to the parish church in Rio nell'Elba.  They talked about how important the church had been in people's lives, and Di Segni told Tomei that this church went back to the year 1200.  Inside the church they met with Leonardo Biancalani, the parish priest, who brought out several baptism registers for them to look through.  They made a big show of browsing through the registers as if they were looking for records relating to the Canovaro family, but when they reached a register with the birth of Alesandro Canovaro in 1641, Di Segni said that it was the last book with information about a Canovaro, making it obvious he had already looked at the records.  We were told that research in the parish records had found ten generations of Canovaros going back to Alesandro.  Then they just walked out of the church, again with no copies of the records.  What is with these people?

The next stop was the Elba Historical Municipal Archive in Portoferraio.  There they met with Dr. Gloria Peria, coordinator of the archive.  She spoke only in Italian (I was happy to learn that I remember enough Italian to understand almost everything she said), but surprisingly her comments were not translated in subitles; Di Segni acted as intepreter for Tomei.  Inconsistencies like that drive me crazy.  Peria had found the marriage record for Leopoldo Bianchi and Maria Adelaide Canovaro; they married June 25, 1904 in Elba.  She had also found a "family certificate" for Bianchi which stated that he was a merchant in the kiln business and that he and Adelaide moved back to Cecina on August 12, 1910.  Adelaide's family was also in the kiln business, so it appeared likely that's how she and Bianchi met.

The teaser before they cut to a commercial showed two newspaper articles, one with the word "omicido" in the title, which is "homicide" in Italian, so I knew when we returned we'd hear about the murder.  And indeed in the next segment Dr. Peria showed a newspaper article about Bianchi being killed in Castiglioncello by a man named Terzilio Lazzareschi, who was from Ponsacco.  It was not the article with "omicido", so the second one was still coming.  But we weren't going to see it in Elba.  Tomei said that she knew "for sure it was a treacherous murder" (what, from one newspaper article?) and decided to go to Castiglioncello, where the killing occurred.  Di Segni stayed in Elba to look for more information on the Canovaros, which confused me, because it had become obvious that Tomei did not speak enough Italian to have extended conversations without an interpreter.

When the next segment began the interpreter question became clear.  She met in a café with Steven Hughes, a professor of history and Italian duel expert (now that's a cool specialty!) from Loyola University in Maryland.  He showed Tomei the second newspaper article, "Omicido à Castiglioncello."  It told how Lazzareschi, a kiln operator and a well-off man, shot Bianchi outside Pilade Morelli's Café at 6:00 p.m. on March 7.  I had been wondering why they were meeting in a café, and that question was answered when Hughes told Tomei that it was supposed to be the café where the shooting occurred.  (They didn't bring this up in the episode, but I considered whether the café had been misremembered as a bar in the story that had come down through the family.)  Lazzareschi said he had been insulted and beaten, and so he shot Bianchi.

Hughes next showed Tomei a translation of the indictment against Lazzareschi from the Court of Appeal, dated July 17, 1911.  Lazzareschi claimed self-defense, but Bianchi was shot from behind; the gunshot went from the rear of his head through his eye.  Hughes then explained the connection between the two men, which was that Lazzareschi had bought a kiln business from Bianchi's father Dionisio Bianchi, with the deal brokered by Leopoldo Bianchi, apparently with the provision that Bianchi's brother Tito be hired (or possibly kept on) as an employee.  Lazzareschi had fired Tito claiming he had shown disloyalty, which would have been an issue of honor in the culture.  No information was given on the show about whether the claim was true.  After Tito was fired, the Bianchis came after Lazzareschi and beat him up, including injuries to his face.  There were laws in Italy about damaging someone's face, and it was considered a serious offense.  So Lazzareschi sought revenge.

From Castiglioncello Tomei traveled to Lucca, where Lazzareschi was indicted, to learn details of his trial.  She spoke with Francesco Tamburini, a professor of political history at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Pisa.  They met at the Archivio Di Stato.  Tomei was astounded and dismayed to learn that Lazzareschi had been acquitted of voluntary homicide.  Tamburini explained that Lazzareschi had been able to hire the best lawyers available, Gattai and Lami, and compared them to O. J. Simpson's "Dream Team."  The judgment against Lazzareschi was to serve 38 days (which may have been time served?) and to pay 87.84 lire and a portion of the court costs.

A surprising footnote to the trial was a request that Lazzareschi made to the jury after the verdict.  He stated that he had had 500 lire in his billfold when he had been arrested, which had been deposited with the Pisa postal administration.  Of that, 380 lire was used to pay for the court costs.  He wanted the rest of his money back.  So after all of that, the main thing on his mind was money.  Between that and shooting a man in the back of the head, not exactly an honorable man.  Tamburini explained that even though he had been acquitted, the code of honor that men followed at the time meant that he would not have been accepted by people anymore, because he did shoot a man from behind.  He disappeared from local records and probably left the area.

Tomei mused over how she had had romantic notions about the murder but hearing the details had made it all too real.  She then headed back to Elba to meet with Di Segni, who had news about the Canovaro family.  Before he talked about the Canovaros, Tomei told him about the revelations from the court records.  Di Segni compared the name Lazzareschi to the word lazzarone, which he said was a "bad man."  (I looked it up in an online Italian dictionary; some of the synonyms were scoundrel, rogue, and villain.)  Then Di Segni told Tomei that he had found an 83-year-old woman, Rosetta Vanucci, who remembered Adelaide.  She had not been feeling good that day so was not able to meet with Tomei, but she wrote a letter.  She explained that she is the daughter of Bruna Bianchi, the youngest sister of Leopoldo (so she's Tomei's first cousin once removed).  She wrote about how after Bianchi had been killed Adelaide had met a marine in Genoa and had married him, and that they had had a good life together.  Her second husband took good care of her sons.  Tomei's grandfather Armondo had worked with his stepfather on boats.  Leopoldo's brother Guido sponsored Armondo to come to the U.S.  Di Segni had taken a photo of Vanucci, and she had given him a photo of Adelaide to give to Tomei.  While I would have probably tried to extend my visit so that I could meet this new cousin before I left, it's likely that the requirements of the program didn't permit Tomei to do so.  I hope they connected directly later.

At this point Tomei returned to New York to tell her mother all that she had learned.  She explained that Leopoldo had not been up to anything bad but had been defending his brother, and that he had not endangered his family.  Addie was surprised at how relieved she felt to learn that it had not been his fault.  She said, "Oh, my poor grandmother," but for some reason no discussion about Rosetta Vanucci's letter made it into the final edit.  At the end Tomei said that she now felt much more of a connection to Leopoldo.

My prediction count now is either two for two or one and a half for two.  I said that we might go back to Italy for Tomei's episode, but I said Lowe was my pick for a scandal.  I'm not sure if the murder qualifies as the scandal.  We'll have to see what other stories unfold.

I was struck by a couple of things with the commercials that ran during this episode.  Not surprisingly, an Ancestry.com ad annoyed me.  Okay, I know, they're all annoying, but this one really hit me wrong.  It's a woman who gets all excited about deciding to look on Ancestry for information about her family, and she says something to the effect that "there aren't that many records."  A major part of Ancestry.com's marketing is that they have the largest collection of genealogy records available online; why in the world would they have an ad saying that there aren't records?  Especially since the woman didn't find her great-grandfather in a record, but in someone else's online family tree?  Are we now to believe that the records on Ancestry aren't important, and that we should all be focusing on the trees that other people post?  Gee, does that mean Ancestry won't be acquiring the 1940 census when it's released on April 2?

The other thing I noticed is that there seemed to be an inordinate number of commercials for other NBC programs.  At one point I saw three in a row.  I don't think commercials for in-house programs generate revenue; if anything they would shift money from one part of the books to another, just shuffling things around.  Given the reports that viewership is down from last year for the first two episodes, it makes me wonder if NBC is having problems getting advertisers besides Ancestry.com to pony up.  Just my humble opinion.

How "Who Do You Think You Are?" Chooses Its Celebrities

The Investor's Business Daily blog has a short article about how Who Do You Think You Are? chooses the celebrities for its episodes.  It mentions how celebrities are coming to them to have the program work on their family histories.  It says the research is done beforehand and that not everyone has a story they deem worth telling, which we have heard about before, but also talks about some of what the celebrities go through to appear on the show.  The only celebrity I have heard named who was rejected for the show was Michael Parkinson, who was turned down for the British version of the program.  I wonder who the American producers have had to turn away?

It would appear that the reason this was covered on IDB was because Ancestry.com is now publicly traded, as its stock exchange abbrevation is given a link.  An interesting note is a reference to the fact that WDYTYA had an increase in ratings last season, but no discussion about the lower ratings for this season's two episodes.