U.S. Season 4 Details

Ashley,

That is good news for all of us.

Looks like Cindy Crawford's being featured, and they filmed in one of my beloved stomping grounds! :)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151587447121602&set=a...

More news -- show returns in July on TLC: http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/tlc-bringing-nbcs-who-do-you-thin...

We now have the full list of the Season 4 subjects, but no episode list by air date:

* Christina Applegate (connected into the big tree)
* Kelly Clarkson
* Cindy Crawford (connected)
* Zooey Deschanel (connected)
* Chelsea Handler (NOT connected)
* Chris O'Donnell
* Jim Parsons
* Trisha Yearwood (NOT connected)

Applegate, Crawford, and Deschanel are in the 5,000+ range in terms of connection. Handler and Yearwood have tiny trees, so between them and the other three not on the site yet, we've got some building to do.

(Actually, Yearwood IS connected, but only as the wife of Garth Brooks. Her only listed blood relatives are her parents.)

Trisha Yearwood is connected to the Geni World Family tree now on both her mother & father's side. Her earliest American immigrant was Samuel Paulk

His descendant won land in the Georgia land lottery for revolutionary war service.

Thank you, Erica!

She may have Jamestown Colony arrivers too - the profiles are sketchy. As always, interesting trees.

I love WDYTYA!!! Can't wait for the new season to air and to find out if I have any new cousins!

I'm starting work on Kelly Clarkson. Still need volunteers for Chris O'Donnell and Jim Parsons.

Not touching Irish! I'll give a look at another Southern gal though

yeah Chris O'Donnell Irish and German... two black holes

Kelly Clarkson is in, but through data conflicts I don't know how to resolve, so not exactly a victory. I have more paths I'm working on that might hopefully be more fruitful?

There's tons of initiating info on Jim Parsons at http://ethnicelebs.com/jim-parsons. Looks like he should be an easier one to tackle, for anyone who wants to pitch in.

And funnily enough, it was Kelly Clarkson's German ancestry that I was able to go back the farthest with. On those rare occasions where you can find German trees, they're not so bad! I just wish I found them more than once every few years. ;)

They're going to be focusing on Clarkson's ancestor who was at Andersonville. I haven't figured out who he is yet.

The first episode will be Kelly Clarkson, followed by Christina Applegate. Guess I picked a good one to start with, then, but I also need to get cracking with filling in those gaps!

I really need help with sorting out the tree conflicts with Clarkson's profile, particularly the Lewis area. It's beyond my skill set. Can anyone help?

I have Clarkson as good as she's going to get, I believe.

Here's the current episode order. We're up to the first four airings being scheduled.

Ep 4-01 | 23/Jul/13 | Kelly Clarkson
Ep 4-02 | 30/Jul/13 | Christina Applegate
Ep 4-03 | 06/Aug/13 | Chelsea Handler
Ep 4-04 | 13/Aug/13 | Zooey Deschanel

Looks like no weeks off are planned.

Can we please get someone to help with Handler? I believe they will be focusing on her Jewish ancestry.

I have just updated the project to include the order of the 1st 4 episodes of season 4.

Thanks, Kevin! :)

It looks from the ads like Christina Applegate's paternal grandmother, Lavina Applegate Walton, is going to be a focus of next week's episode. Looks like something shocking and emotional happened either with her or to someone in her line. We have nothing on her beyond her surname.

Drats...I dont get TLC

Ashley,

No problem. To me it looks like the reason behind it has to do with a divorce.

Kevin

Fay, they are selling the episodes for $1.99 USD each on iTunes. They're releasing each episode there about a week in advance, so I might actually cave and buy the Applegate episode in advance to help the tree. Maybe we should do that for Handler as well.

Kevin, I think you're right. It looks like there's also domestic abuse. But I still can't find a thing on her anywhere. :/

I have started work on Jim Parsons. (Tagging Private User since she was looking for things to help with.)

Brian Lane Duke built a large tree that has Parsons' direct ancestors in it, but he has been inactive for a few years and, for some baffling reason, the "Abandoned Tree" link isn't appearing on his profile. I reeeeally don't want to have to duplicate all of those profiles, so I'm hoping against hope that he'll respond to my merge requests. :/

I have managed to Parsons myself out, but I'm pretty sure they're going to focus on Joseph Wesley Parsons. He was one of the original Texas Rangers and a Civil War veteran, and there's a lot of info on him in news articles, on FindAGrave (check his wife's profile: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=73210015), and elsewhere.

From a bio of the wife, Dee:

"She and Mr. Parsons, a Civil War Veteran and early Texas Ranger, had a prominent part in the early development of the western part of Texas. During this period, marauding Indians on several occasions stole their horses and cattle. Locasta, an earnest Christian of the early Cumberland Presbyterian Church, made her home a rallying place for the delegates to Presbytery, many of whom travelled hundreds of miles on horseback or stagecoach."

I am stopping my work on this tree for now, so if someone wants to take over, go for it.

Jim Parsons is now connected to the World Family Tree through Alfred Allen Bishop

Thanks Private User

I'm looking at Cindy now and not seeing the obvious connection to CT (yet). I watched the preview and they show her looking at a list of "Prowse" saying she can't believe that was 1,000 years ago.

http://www.geni.com/merge/compare/6000000018445552721?to=5354387246... a merge here

Andrew Jackson Burleson
Son Of John Garvin Burleson and Rachel Edney Burleson (Bishop)
Brother Of Alfred Jonathan Burleson; Alfred Jonathan Burleson; Andrew Jackson Burleson; Andrew Jackson Burleson; Dora Ellen Burleson and 24 others

Is a private tree

I have a theory regarding Cindy Crawford and the CT connection that is actually causing me a good deal of personal excitement. :-)

As Wendi indicated, you can see in the trailer for upcoming episodes that Cindy Crawford is examining a list of 15th century Prowse ancestors. This is her link to British royalty, as the Prowse family has a well-documented heraldry.

So what is Cindy's connection to the Prowse family? Well, as it happens, her ancestor Agnes Prowse is the mother of Thomas Trowbridge, the original Trowbridge immigrant who settled in New Haven, CT around 1640. (Cindy has several generations of Trowbridge ancestors leading up to Thomas Trowbridge and the Prowse family.)

Thomas didn't stay in Connecticut. He went back to England to fight in the English civil war and left his children there under the protection of a man named Henry Gibbons, who ended up stealing their inheritance and leaving them penniless. Luckily, the children were able to successfully sue him. The children subsequently moved to Massachusetts.

Near as I can tell, Thomas Trowbridge is the only link between Cindy Crawford and her Prowse ancestors who settled in Connecticut.

Needless to say, if my theory pans out, I'll be very happy. :-)

Thanks Bill - I was able to merge the Burleson tree in. The generations below however are in the privacy zone. Still it expands the tree for Jim Parsons if traveling "up," nice work ... And keep it coming TEXAS. :)

Thank you *so much*, Erica Howton. I kinda got overwhelmed with the Parsons tree last night and was happy to put it aside. Thank you for keeping things on track. :)

Lisa Kudrow is being interviewed on CNN right now and just said that the the Zooey Deschanel episode will focus on her Quaker ancestry. She hinted that it will be about how progressive women's rights were within the Quakers and how involved they were with abolitionism. So I'm guessing she's got a female Quaker abolitionist somewhere in that tree.

Geoffrey David Trowbridge, you're amazing! I bet you're right. :) What a cool find.

By the way, I really love that our focus this season is on figuring out the featured ancestor(s) before the episode airs. In the past, we just built what we could and didn't worry about the particular ancestors featured. It's a lot more fun this way, especially since Amanda can feature the ancestor when she does the blog post. She did that with Kelly Clarkson and Pvt. Isaiah R. Rose, USA, and Isaiah actually shot into the top 10 profiles on Geni himself. It was neat to watch. :)