Who Do I Think I Am?

NBC heavily promoted its "heartwarming" new ancestral-search show Who Do You Think You Are? during the equally warm and fuzzy Olympics.  (Alas, it runs on Friday nights, so I'll likely watch it via On Demand.)  The premiere episode featured fellow Cincinnati native Sarah Jessica Parker finding out that she has Puritan ancestors, including one who was accused of witchcraft and narrowly escaped the hangman's noose. 

Make no mistake, this is a reality TV show, complete with obviously staged moments of "shock" and "delight."  (Not to mention lots of conspicuous product placement for Ancestry.com.) When SJP finishes her quest and goes to her mother's home to tell her all she has learned, they beam at each other and even shed a few tears.  Hmm.  When I was at mom's over Christmas and dug into some of the family papers and photos for my book research, there was a little less beaming and a tad more muttering under the breath (mom) and cursing (me--I couldn't get the stupid scanner to work).  Good thing mom and I are not famous actress and mother-of-famous-actress types, and thus have no cameras following us around.

Still, the new show is clearly an improvement over squat women getting punched in bars (c.f. The Jersey Shore).  I have high hopes that the nation will be swept up in a craze for genealogy and wacky true family tales, thus increasing interest in my memoir (not to mention decreasing interest in overly-tan people with strange hair and few apparent manners).