Who Do You Think You Are 3rd Season: Family History is a Mystery to be Solved; We Are a Mystery to be Solved

The third season of NBC's Who Do You Think You Are kicks off tomorrow night (February 3) at 8:00 PM..est.

I'm fortunate that both my natural (on one side)  and adoptive families are history oriented. Growing up, I heard lots of stories about my adoptive family and "social ancestors." When I was too young to appreciate them,  I was "subjected" to Sunday afternoons with old people born in the 1870s who liked to ruminate on the Civil War stories of their fathers and World War 1 exploits of  dead cousins.

 I was not so fortunate to have that firsthand history from  my biological family,  but at least  through my 32-year reunion,  I have a basic family picture and structure (some taken from a very detailed paternal family history done by a second or third cousin) that I can research  further.

At one time I had no biological relatives and now I've been able to identify hundreds. I also have hundreds of "social ancestors" via adoption.  Interestingly,  a branch of my adoptive dad's family and a branch of my birthfather's family may be very very distantly related through  the Quaker Lees from Virginia and Ohio. My birthmother's husband may have been related to the Boone branch of the Lees. If I look hard enough, maybe I'll learn that  I'm my own grandmother!

My bio grandmother Miss Violet, 100,  and me, Canton, OH 2007

Watching Who Do You Think You Are?, or simply reading genealogy forums,  I'm surprised aware of how little many families know  about themselves. I expect that adopted  people to a large degree won't know their roots, but I still wonder when people from intact bio families can't name their great grandparents. This invisibleness  has something to do with the re-invention of identity that is ingrained in the American psyche, resulting in the ahistorial notion that   "everything starts with me,"  the progenitor of the "blanks slate" theory of adoption, which says, "everything begins with you." But,  there are other reasons. Some people just don't talk about family history for any number of reasons from so-called family secrets (or embarrassments)  to the bizarre (to me) reason that they're not interested and can't imagine why their children might be. As I worked on adoptive family history last summer I was quite surprised to learn that cousins on both sides of my adoptive family knew very little about their histories, while I was its repository of stories, documents and pictures. Even my birthmother knew little of her history.  She, thought, for instance, that her father was born in Wales, when, in fact, he was born and reared in Somerset, and for some reason claimed he wasn't. It was a strange feeling--me, the prodigal daughter, telling her mother she hardly knew,  her own family history.

Adoptive gggrandmother Rebecca Greiner (1824-1912) and descendants, Salem, OH, c 1908

 I've only seen Who Do You Think You Are? a couple times, but  I find it strangely moving.  Part of that is the adoptee  in me, but the other part is that universal need for rootedness and context.  No matter your birth or family status, genealogy, to me is the unfolding of mystery. The only difference is that biologicals usually have the ability to access their  genealogy if they want and go backwards;  adoptees, under the secret adoption system and its sealed records, don't. By default we are the beginning. Under color of law, we can go forward, but we can't go back..

The Who Do You Think You Are? "cast" this year includes, in no specific, order:  Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt, Blair Underwood, Marisa Tomei, Rob Lowe, Edie Falco, Reba McEntire, Jerome Betis and Rita Wilson.