Finding Your Roots - Andy Cohen

This post has mostly been written in advance of the airing of Finding Your Roots - Season 7 - Episode 2 with Andy Cohen. Not sure whether or not I should say this, but the episode was recorded back in 2019. Andy is my fourth cousin, and information got shared. I kept quiet. I didn't want to get anyone in trouble. But the episode has now aired. I’ve made some edits as naturally not everything that got shared with Andy made the show. There wasn’t enough time.

I actually learned from his family that his genealogy was being researched when the research began, so I have an idea how long that research can take. It was long enough I wondered if they had given up on finding anything of interest. I'll leave it at that. I was not contacted in any way by any of the researchers during the research of the episode.

I will say, though it won't be mentioned in the episode, unless they went back and recorded an extra scene [which didn’t happen] that Andy's bout with Covid this year gave me a personal scare. We may not be close cousins genetically, but we went to school together a year apart, and our families are close.

How are we related? Those who watched the episode and have been followers of my blog may have recognized the surname I have often spelled (C/K)r(u/oo)van(t/d). Almost every conceivable permutation exists on at least one branch of the family. The family surname comes from the town of Kruvandai in Lithuania. The town's name comes from the Lithuanian word for 'bloody' and was named for a bloody battle. My second great grandfather, Moshe Leyb Cruvant, and Andy's second great grandfather, Samuel (Simon) Cruvand, were brothers.

Here's some links to a few past blog posts that touch upon some of the same people, places, and events from the show.

• The fire that destroyed the Cekiske Synagogue
• Images of the synagogue that was built in its place. 
• The Obituary and Will of Louis Cohen (Andy's great grandfather, and husband of Sarah Cruvand)
• Simon Kruvant breaks his leg.

I believe the only post I’ve made since the recording of the episode which referenced Cekiske, and the Cruvant family in Lithuania, was the one I made a couple weeks ago about the synagogue in Burlington, Vermont. There will be more.

Finding Your Roots: Jewish DNA

In Ashkenazi Jewish DNA and the Potential to Piece Together Shattered Family Branches Cece Moore, the Genetic Genealogy consultant for the television series, Finding Your Roots, discusses the DNA results they left out of the episode on Dershowitz, King and Kushner.

The episode that aired last week with Carole King, Alan Dershowitz and Tony Kushner did not include any DNA research, but that doesn’t mean that I hesitated to delve into their genetic genealogy. In fact, a short segment featuring Alan is included in the special DNA-themed last episode scheduled to air on November 25.

The article shares the results for all three, and further discusses the difficulties in using Jewish DNA to find cousins. However, Moore indicates she was able to use the results to find cousins for at least two of the three. She also shares a heartwarming story of a family reunification.

Finding Your Roots: Sting, Deepak Chopra and Sally Fields

Last night I watched the latest episode of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. "The British Invasion."

Once again, several of the stories had similarities to my own family. Some of my British Denyer cousins migrated to Australia. I don't know their motivations. I have Loyalists in my tree who settled in Ontario, and while I don't believe any of my ancestors were on the Mayflower in 1620, I do have several who immigrated prior to 1650. (Betts, Chamberlain, Horton, Langton, Hallock, Swayze, Kinge, and possibly Van Every.) Unfortunately, I didn't find the Native American ancestry in my DNA that I expected to be there.

I was disappointed in Sally Field's lack of recognition when she heard her ancestor's name. It's been long enough since American History class for me, that I couldn't have provided too many details, but I instantly recognized the name, and the portrait shown was also familiar. I was worried for much of the episode that they wouldn't be able to provide Deepak Chopra with any ancestors he didn't know already. (Of course, if that were true, he wouldn't have been selected for an episode.) I was very impressed by Sting throughout his portions of the episode.

View the episode below. You can read the transcript here.

Finding Your Roots: Kushner, King, and Dershowitz

My wife and I sat down last night to watch Tuesday night’s episode of Finding Your Roots. I prefer the series to Who Do You Think You Are?

1. I like how there is no pretending that the celebrity is conducting the research. The show is presented realistically, telling the viewer that a staff of genealogists has conducted research, and the information is presented to the guest stars in a “This Is Your Ancestry” format.
2. There is a greater diversity of guests.
3. The show appears to be less of an advertisement for Ancestry.com

In last night’s episode, we even got to see a database hosted by JewishGen appear on the screen. The website wasn’t mentioned on the show, but the database JRI-Poland was clearly visible, and anyone interested could easily find it online.

Last night’s episode was especially moving for me. The stories of Carole King, Alan Dershowitz, and Tony Kushner felt very familiar. Not because I’m related to them, or because I knew about their genealogies. I’m not, and I didn’t. But their stories are very similar to the stories of my ancestors. During the Holocaust, instead of deaths to firing squads, many of my Lithuanian cousins faced townspeople with axes. Most of my 19th century immigrant ancestors crossed the ocean in the steerage section, and originally settled in depressed slums. My maternal second great grandfather would have likely been sent back to Transylvania if he hadn’t had cousins sign affidavits. And just as Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was able to surprise one of the guests by tracing one branch of their family to the late 1790s, a cousin of mine has been able to research one of our branches (the Cruvants) back to the late 1790s. Many of the European records have been destroyed, but not all of them.

Some may have noticed one aspect of most episodes was missing. Professor Gates didn't discuss DNA testing results with any of the three guests. My guess is that the tests were done, but for all three of them, the results were the same: 100% (or close) Ashkenazic Jewish. The primary reason genealogists do DNA testing is to find cousins to help them in their research. The primary interest for most of the guests on these shows is their ethnic breakdown. For many of Jewish descent, the ethnicity results yield no new information.

You can view the full episode here or watch it below.