{"id":396381,"date":"2010-03-06T08:14:28","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T13:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.genealogyblog.com\/?p=7986"},"modified":"2010-03-06T08:14:28","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T13:14:28","slug":"who-do-you-think-you-are-off-to-a-flying-start-with-sarah-jessica-parker-watch-it-on-the-web","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/396381","title":{"rendered":"Who Do You Think You Are? Off to a Flying Start With Sarah Jessica Parker! Watch it on the Web."},"content":{"rendered":"

I was able to catch just a portion of “Who Do You Think You Are?” last night, as we were setting up a FRPC display booth at the annual bountiful Family History Fair. However, it’s recorded on Tivo, and available on the web<\/a>, so I plan to watch it fully the first of the week.<\/p>\n

The following was received from Anastasia Tyler at Ancesty.com:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

An hour doesn\u2019t offer much time to delve into the research processes that genealogists used as they \"Sarah<\/a>traced the family history of actress Sarah Jessica Parker for this week\u2019s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? We sat down with the research team who worked on Sarah Jessica\u2019s family tree to talk about what it took to find her elusive gold miner ancestor. I\u2019ve recapped that conversation here:<\/p>\n

First Steps First<\/strong>
\nSimilar to Sarah Jessica Parker\u2019s own assumptions at the beginning of the show, research on the tree began with vague ideas that her family was comprised of recent immigrants. The team first developed a skeleton of Sarah Jessica\u2019s family history. \u201cWe documented every connection and every life event for her ancestors,\u201d says Natalie Cottrill of ProGenealogists, who appeared with Sarah Jessica in the episode, \u201cfinding information about Sarah Jessica\u2019s family in court records, newspaper articles, books, and personal letters published in books.\u201d And that\u2019s how they found John S. Hodge.<\/p>\n

The First Nugget<\/strong>
\nThe first clue about John S. Hodge\u2019s life came from his son\u2019s obituary, which stated that John S. Hodge died in 1849 on his way to California from Ohio. Since the death date came from an obituary written decades after John S. Hodge died, the team looked for primary sources recorded during or around the anticipated lifespan for John S. Hodge. For starters, the team wanted to determine why the ancestral John S. Hodge was going to California, as the son\u2019s obituary stated. Considering the time period \u2013 1849 \u2013 it seemed probable that John S. Hodge could have been heading to the California gold fields.<\/p>\n

The Right John?<\/strong>
\nThe search led to a John Hodge, who was the right age to be Sarah Jessica\u2019s ancestor, listed as a miner in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census for El Dorado County, California. This record shifted research to determining whether the California John Hodge was the ancestral John S. Hodge, and the researchers turned to records associated with the 49ers. \u201cWe found a letter written by someone in Ohio to John S. Hodge, which had been published in a book,\u201d says Natalie. \u201cOne of my colleagues tracked down the original set of letters, which provided more details, including information about John S. Hodge\u2019s 1950 death.\u201d Estate and other documents further confirmed that the ancestral John S. Hodge and the California miner John Hodge was the same individual.<\/p>\n

If you missed the Sarah Jessica Parker episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, you can watch full episodes online at NBC.com<\/a>. And you won’t want to miss former NFL football player Emmitt Smith set out to discover his slavery roots this Friday, March 12, at 8\/7c on NBC. Lisa Kudrow said his episode is the most compelling of the seven (and, personally, I have to agree). Check out the teaser to the episode featuring Emmitt<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was able to catch just a portion of “Who Do You Think You Are?” last night, as we were setting up a FRPC display booth at the annual bountiful Family History Fair. However, it’s recorded on Tivo, and available on the web, so I plan to watch it fully the first of the week. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}