Book Review : Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History,

Last February it was announced
"Ancestry.com and NBC Team Up to Introduce New 'Who Do You Think You Are?' Series

This series was a big hit in UK. Lisa Kudrow, the former "Friends" star, is not only the subject of one of the episodes of "Who Do You Think You Are?" but one of the executive producers. She was captivated by the original British version of the show.

"I fell in love with the show," she said. "I thought it was fantastic and wanted to know why we don't get to have that in the U.S."

The series of 7 celebrities interviewed as they find their ancestors is very well written and researched. Not only are we treated to seeing these celebrities find their families------we are introduced and treated to meeting the true heroes (IMHO)of this series the well known, educated, devout, dedicated genealogist from all over the world.

In the episode with Emmett Smith ---yes the big hunk of a football player meets with
Megan Smolenyak!!!

As these stars, producers, genealogist collaborated to create this great series ---- Of course it followed that Megan Smolenyak with her easy, smooth contemporary style helped us out with a companion book to this very demanding and sometimes confusing subject of genealogy.

In the Genealogy Community Daily family researchers were anxiously anticipating their book arrivals. The genealogy blogs, facebook, and twitters were ablaze with praise for this book. So it was ironic when Megan posted recently:

Megan Smolenyak: Could I ask y'all a favor? If you've read my #WDYTYA companion book, would you mind sharing a review on Amazon.com? Thanks! #genealogy

Did we forget to tell Amazon how much we appreciated the book??!?? That was very amiss of us. Amazon.com was faithful to early efficient delivery. We did not have long from release date of the book to the airing of the first episode of "WDYTYA" to get our copies in our hot little hands.
Why were we so excited to receive this book? and Who is Megan? I copied the following from Megan's website.......


http://www.honoringourancestors.com/aboutus.html

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak (yes, that's her real name) is a genealogical adventurer who loves solving mysteries, making unexpected discoveries and pushing the boundaries of conventional genealogy. Since 1999, she's worn many hats in the family history world, including Chief Family Historian and spokesperson for Ancestry.com the largest genealogical company in the world, creator of RootsTelevision.com a pioneering online channel of free videos and winner of four Telly Awards and founder of UnclaimedPersons.org a volunteer group that assists coroners and medical examiners.

A popular writer, speaker and TV guest, she does all she can to get the g-word out there and inspire others in their quest for roots. Megan is a Huffington Post contributor, and was determined to be the most influential Twitter user on the topic of genealogy. Her most recent book is

Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History, companion guide to the NBC series.

Meagan's companion book to this series allows the reader/viewer a more thorough understanding to the introduction of genealogy. Megan uses a straightforward gentle approach to a study that can be very demanding and confusing.

Many genealogy resources are dry, technical and presumptuous. I have for years been reading and digesting pompous outdated, and difficult to comprehend accounts of family historians written over the last four centuries. In my particular case, especially my REED family, either wrote in such a pompous, higher than almighty manner explaining how we can trace our lineage to Noah (no I am not kidding!!!) or the back country language of the previous centuries. This companion book was a refreshing welcome respite from my heavy reading.
This book is a basic, measured variation written for the contemporary reader.


Thank you Megan for bringing it all down to the basics and writing this wonderful companion book. There is a lot of technicality that went into the "telling of these histories". You did a great job of helping us to enjoy and share this series even more.