I watched this the other night and was sorely disappointed with yet another "celebrity" spending a whole hour of TV time and finding out very little. :(
We now know he had forebears who ran a sheep farm in the Highlands, the last 2 who ran it being brothers. He also has a kirk minister in another line. But how he confirmed all this remains a mystery.
And the rest??? There were 13 children in the last generation to run the farm, some of whom went to USA. What happened to them all? Does Mr Mitchell have family in America/rest of the world? A great opportunity to show "how to" with Scottish research went a'begging. Never mind where to look for emigration material etc. etc.
What a stroke of luck for him that there were some records in the Duke of Sutherland's papers pertaining to the farm.
And as for his ancestor the minister from Sleat, Skye - good job that's what he did for living and left a trace of himself and his works. I wonder if the BBC's researchers ever found out that the majority of OPRs in Skye are non-existent (particularly in the north). It would be handy to have pointed that out to future researchers who turn up plain ordinary Skye ancestors and get completely stuck.
These programmes are getting less and less helpful to researchers.
We now know he had forebears who ran a sheep farm in the Highlands, the last 2 who ran it being brothers. He also has a kirk minister in another line. But how he confirmed all this remains a mystery.
And the rest??? There were 13 children in the last generation to run the farm, some of whom went to USA. What happened to them all? Does Mr Mitchell have family in America/rest of the world? A great opportunity to show "how to" with Scottish research went a'begging. Never mind where to look for emigration material etc. etc.
What a stroke of luck for him that there were some records in the Duke of Sutherland's papers pertaining to the farm.
And as for his ancestor the minister from Sleat, Skye - good job that's what he did for living and left a trace of himself and his works. I wonder if the BBC's researchers ever found out that the majority of OPRs in Skye are non-existent (particularly in the north). It would be handy to have pointed that out to future researchers who turn up plain ordinary Skye ancestors and get completely stuck.
These programmes are getting less and less helpful to researchers.
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