General Chat

Rita, I've been through this sort of thing more than once. What I can't understand is anyone wanting to do such an intensely personal thing publicly.

And still they come roughly 400 FLRs so far , people who could have posted for free on Missing you, the tills must be ringing ! Ker-ching !

GR missed a golden opportunity to share the cost of sponsorship with Kleenex tissues !

So, the people on this programme are 'after their 15 minutes of fame'?
They 'could have found the information themselves'?

Well, we all also have access to nuclear physics - doesn't mean we know HOW to access it, or understand it.

Those of us who have been doing genealogy for years know the ways and means, others don't.

My late father in law, a shy retiring men, despite his rather high-faluting career, could have been a candidate!
When he was dying, he wanted to meet his first born son, conceived when he was 19, to a 35 year old widow,
This was pre-internet - over 30 years ago - ex & I knew notihng about birth records, etc.
We didn't even think to ask for the surname of the mother!

His (FiL's) sister knew his name, but wouldn't tell, she was suffering from the early stages of dementia, and was quite paranoid at the time.

FiLs father used to take money to the mother, but FiL had to move away from the village-he joined the Navy and never returned to the village.

Ex and I found him after FiL had died. He would have loved to have met his father.
He's in his 80's now - 20 years older than my ex - but we meet him every year. Still he wishes we'd found him earlier.

Yes, FiL was so desperate, he would have used any means to find his son.

Well quite a few of you seem very cross about this! I myself found it touching.

For the future, the daughter of a friend of mine, a fairly young adult, is expecting a baby. Clearly it was a surprise and she is not with the father. She has decided not to tell him (for now) as he hasn't been in her life for many months and she doesn't want him in it at all.

I can see where she is coming from - doesn't want him or his parents interfering when they don't have any kind of relationship - but I did mention all the good folk on this site looking for absent parents and that her baby, in the future, will want to know about his or her father.

So programmes like this give me food for thought.

Well, there's someone whose life she (unintentionally and blamelessly, of course!) genuinely influenced. How sad.

And how many people who "cared" so much about Baby Jessica even knew he existed?

We can't care about 7 billion people individually.

But allowing ourselves to be manipulated into "caring" about total strangers for no reason ... surely it must affect our capacity to care genuinely about things and people we should care about.

I should make it clearer why it's this aspect of the show in question that concerns me.

If you read the comments by "Genes Reunited" at the GR Facebook page, for instance, that is all they're about.

"Hope you have your tissues ready for the last in the series of Long Lost Family."
"... it looks like there'll be an emtional reunion." (Followed by promotion of the GR website for finding relatives.)
"Hands up who's crying when Carole met not one, not two but three siblings!"
"Getting ready to tune in to Long Lost Family. Get the tissues ready!"
"Susan's story is heartbreaking."
"I suspect tissues will be needed before too long!"
"Just about wiped the tears away to type!"
"We have the tissues ready!"
"Tune in at 9pm on ITV1 and don't forget to bring the tissues!"
"Watching Long Lost Family last night was incredibly emotional, tissues were on hand!"
"We hope you all have your tissues ready for this week's episode of Long Lost Family which is on ITV now!"
"Luckily we had a box of tissues ready!"

I'm sorry, but gag me with a spoon.

Strange that you mention the little girl Janey, as it's not long ago I came across her name whilst googling. There was a similar accident in Italy 30 years ago,sadly with a tragic end, I had forgotten the little boy's exact name in the years since, but not the event or how I watched and hoped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Rampi

I read about the death of one of Jessica's rescuers, I don't think it's necessary to name him here so have edited "There have been some casualties related to the rescue. xxxxxxx one of the paramedics who played a critical role in extracting Jessica from the well, committed suicide in 1995. Psychologists have suggested that he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder brought on by the rescue. " I wonder if it had been a less high profile thing, part of his regular job whether the stress would have been lessened? If the world is watching, then the pressure is greater.

There's a thread on the board now about the death of Jeff Conaway. Rather than put these comments in that thread, where they might be thought inappropriate, I'll add them here, where I think they are appropriate.


I remember him from Taxi, one of the somewhat better products of the US network sitcom mill.


http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Taxi-Grease-star-Jeff-Conaway-dies-at-60-1399078.php

"He was taken to the hospital unconscious on May 11 and placed in a medically induced coma while being treated for pneumonia and sepsis, which is blood poisoning caused by a bacterial infection. Conaway had failed to seek medical aid, instead trying to treat himself with pain pills and cold medicine ..."

Now there's a side effect of prescription drug addiction I hadn't thought of -- people not seeking care for genuine serious medical conditions.

And he was a victim of the horrific "reality" show industry:

"Conaway is the second person who appeared in the VH1 reality series 'Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew' [Drew Pinsky, yet another spin-off of the Ophrah Winfrey we-all-care industry] who later died. In March, former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr, who was on the show in 2009, was found dead in Salt Lake City. The month before, police there had arrested him on suspicion of possession of medications without a required prescription."

"Conaway told the Los Angeles Times in a January 2011 article that series producers asked him to 'give them drama.' But he also said he welcomed the support he received from those who viewed his struggle."

"Give them drama." Pure exploitation. Pure manipulation of the audience.

Viewers of these shows enjoy the manipulation; they get their immediate fake-emotion fix. They feel all warm inside from "caring" about some total stranger.

I say fake emotions, because the viewers don't actually *care* about the people in them, as stories like this demonstrate. How on earth *can* you care about somebody you have never met, know nothing about, and will never hear of or from again?

This is just pseudo-caring, about people whose stories advertisers are using to get us to buy their products. And we play right along.

If the whole thing doesn't work out like a fairytale and they commit suicide, will the viewers care? Will they feel *responsible* for what happened? Not likely. But they will be. They were participants in the events that lead to it.

Fake emotion fixes and fake caring.

Baby Jessica profited handsomely from it.

"Since she was pulled from the 8-inch pipe in October of 1987 when she was a 18-month old toddler, Jessica McClure Morales hadn’t returned to that well until she went there with a TODAY crew. Indeed, she had never appeared live on television or *given a free interview* with the media. ... Donations for her poured in after her rescue. The money — estimated at the time to be between $700,000 and one million dollars — was put into a trust fund that she will be able to access when she is 25."

USA Today actually put her 22nd on the list of people who had the most impact on (USAmericans') lives in the past quarter century. Bizarre. She had no impact on anybody's life, in truth.

Imagine if we put all this caring, and all that money, someplace where it would actually do some good ...

I agree to a point Uggers,but I didnt find what I watched a show of entertainment,,,,,,it was a documentray programe,,


oh you lucky person Uggers ,,,,have a good night and be a devil}}}

the on screen reunion is I assume the price the participants HAVE to pay in return for the finding service... far be it from me to say what I think that amounts to... I would be interested to know if any party asked for a private reunion and was refused.

Kay, it's for a tv programme - same difference isn't it? My point is why would anyone be able to access data not available to the rest of us? Not ignoring you if you reply - there's a night out with my name on it

wouldn't the 'acreditted agencies' be working for the TV programme though Kay.

lol Island - what a thought! I blame the people themselves rather than the producers - they must be serious attention seekers to put such deeply private stuff on view for all.

Uggers,,,,,not a tv programe....re-read}}

FMP records only go up to 1960 on migration,,,,but accredited gov aproved agencies can go beyond this time.......

I dunno Uggers, maybe they think Cilla is going to jump out and say "Surprise Surprise" :S
i think some people must be easily swayed by tele producers.


edit. Shucks,my slow typing puts meout of sync again :D :D

Don't be vague, Kay :)

and which data?

which accredited agencies Kay?

accredited agencies have access to certain data......

Kay, I'm a bit alarmed by that - why would a tv programme be allowed access to information that the public isn't ?

I can think of few things worse than being reunited with long lost relations on telly - why would anyone do that? It might be joyous or emotional difficult or intense but why why why would you want other people to watch something so personal?