General Chat

'Long Lost Family'?

Whilst I love to see the happiness of the people involved, I get this little nagging voice that says...'Yes but, father disappeared, he had time to find his son/daughter before this, and make it 'right''.

I own it is in part because I have a son who doesn't see his father and I do wonder if in the future there may be a reunion, which will 'skim over' all the years in between as if nothing had ever gone 'wrong'.

Maybe it's just me being overly sceptical tonight lol, I know it CAN work out well from someone close, but by the same token I know someone who found a birth parent and there was really no 'connection' and they drifted apart again.

I have to admit to not watching it at all, it just didn't appeal to me.

We haven't watched it at all either, so you are not alone Anninglos.

I've not watched any of them either, don't really go for sentimental stuff. However It makes you realise how easily people can be 'lost', and how important it is to try to keep in touch, even if it's only a Christmas card every year.

I mentioned something similar a couple of weeks ago. To be honest I feel a bit like a curtain twitcher.

I know of two people who traced their birth familys, both adopted under completely different circumstances and both have completely different lifestyles although they are friends. One was encouraged by the other to trace their birth mothes..

All went well for both of them for a while but contact dwindled over time for seperate reasons.

I suppose it was a good outcome for both of them in the end because in both cases "gohsts" were laid to rest.

I guess sometimes people don't really want a close relationship - they just want answers. Either they get the answers and drift apart or they don't get answers and it continues to cause animosity.

Sue

I can't see it, of course, being in one of those foreign countries, but I've been given an opinion by someone whose opinion I respect:

"It's awfull!"

Tabloid television, from what I can tell.

The sort of thing that Jerry Springer would have reveled in, on US television. Is Jeremy Kyle sort of a rough equivalent? A show where people's lives are picked over and judged by an audience of vultures. Whether the audience is cheering or jeering, they're still vultures.

The only reason I care is the effect it has had on this site.

Advertising the show and using it as a marketing tool for the site, i.e. for selling "memberships", seems to be the owner corporation's single focus these days.

The site doesn't function, in technical terms -- there is some new (or old) technical problem every single day. The discussion boards system is prehistoric, the privacy protection is appallingly negligent, etc. etc.

And the site is functiong less and less in content terms -- people are being sucked in and trapped into the "Living Relatives" board where they will get no help from other members, even when what they're really after is family history help, because most of us lose the will to live just looking at those posts.

The Find Ancestors board has slowed to a crawl, the new boards structure has done nothing to stem the flow of help requests to inappropriate boards with the foreseeable multiple posting, and morale among us usual suspects is reaching a nadir.

Can I blame it all on finding lost families?

Well, on its sponsor, anyhow. And I do.

I have not watched it; I have not wanted to see it.

I have read about it - in television programme guides, and on genes reunited's page on facebook. I have felt uneasy, I think that is the right word. I am sure that it is good to have answers, it must be wonderful to have happy outcomes. However, from what I have read, it does seem to give the impression that all is wonderful and evermore shall be so. Then people post in find living relatives board hoping to find someone quickly.

I think that people should be told that the results of searches are not always as the searcher would wish for. Also, I think that procedures that were used should be described.

Its not a show, its a programe and not aired in front of a live audience, of events filmed over a period of time,the parts seen by the viewer are done with full agreement of all parties,,,,,,,,whys, where and what arent entered into fully and only skims the surface of whats gone on behind the scenes in many weeks of preperation.

its cant be in anyway compared to the dross that JK and Springer doll out.

JKM,,
~~~~~

IT does give a text update on the present situation in each case,but the only people a viewer sees is mainly 4 people, 2 who its about and the 2 presenters,,,,its not recorded in a tv studio....the nitty gritty is not shown the viewer.

but it's appealing to the same 'instant gratification' as Springer and Kyle's reunion shows I feel ? I'm not saying that it isn't satisfying to think it's a happy ending and they all live happily ever after ...but it's not 'real'...it's edited within an inch of its life as witnessed by the over long pause while the camera man zooms in on Davina's earnest look, cue 'do you want to see a photo?" ... and there's not a dry eye in the house.

I would have liked to see one at least of the programmes dedicated to advice and sources of info, and HOW to go about finding people and then approaching them, and taking things slowly.

To be fair, it does give inklings of how they find the person. Tonight for instance, they found 20 Patrick Lewises, but only one was of the right age.
Have to admit I watch it because of the 'could have been' /could be in the future factor.
After my daughter's father & I split up, I stayed in Hampshire, he moved to Dorset. To give him his due, he came every other Friday tto pick them up. Then, when they were in their teens, he moved to Essex, (strangely where they were born) and still lives there. However, we (yes me included) still meet up regularly - even though one daughter now lives in Brighton.
My daughters are also still in contact with their stepbrothers from when their father was married to their mother - ex and second wife haven't been together for over 15 years!

My grandaughter has a different father to the half brothers she lives with - and her real father also has a son - her 'other' half brother.
She visits him regularly - and her 'live in' half brothers play with him.
9 year old grand daughter also regularly sees - and is bestest friends with the 12 year old daughter (not ex's) of my ex's current partner!

Is this odd, or is it because we (our family) believe children are innocent when it comes to the foibles of adults?

It would only have taken me and my daughter to have 'taken a stand' for 3 children to lose contact with their real fathers, and in the case of my grandaughter a half brother (pain in the neck though he is at the moment! LOL) as well.

"Its not a show, its a programe"

Forgive me if the difference eludes me.

Television show = television program, or programme, if you prefer.

I'm not especially interested in having my dialect critiqued by someone who happens to speak a different one, thanks all the same.

"Live audience" had nothing to do with my point. The audience is the viewers. Or have I got that wrong too? I'll have to tell Nielsen, with its "audience share" numbers.

The dross that barrel-bottom talk shows dole (or do we say doll?) out appeals to the voyeur and the judgmental in their audience. I think the difference here may be one of degree.

Call it tabloid television, call it reality television -- it's cheap to produce and it pays big dividends for sponsors in this case.

And sorry, but that's my opinion. This is simply a marketing vehicle.

All commercial television and radio are. The broadcaster is paid by the sponsor to deliver the sponsor's target clientele to see/hear the sponsor's commercial content. The program content is just the hook.

This just strikes me as a particularly blatant example.

Wish I could critique a programme I'd never seen...........


TBH, a lot of TV is done on the cheap - 'Grimefighters', 'The Only Way is Essex', My Big Fat Gipsy Wedding, 'One Born Every Minute' and all those other progs about hospitals and the police, to name but a few.

critique please....

When I said "Call it tabloid television, call it reality television -- it's cheap to produce and it pays big dividends for sponsors in this case" perhaps it wasn't as obvious as it was that I was talking about all shows of the genre.

Will that do?

I haven't seen it but I know what it's about.

I described a case I know personally in a thread here a little while back. A family reunion held on television -- the 60 Minutes show in the US. The missing family member was the youngest child in a family I knew well: the family of the man I was living with at the time.

So I'm not totally clueless, and this particular show is not the first or only one that has ever trod this ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0U66s5WEs0

It's not like the idea is original.

Check out the number of first time posters on FLR who have forked out for membership in the hope of a reunion.?

Egg zactly.

And check out how precisely NO help or guidance they are getting from the site management for their money.

There are places all over the internet where these kinds of notices can be placed for free. In the UK, I believe "missing you" is probably the biggest site, and it seems to be much more ... coherent.

Mind, I still don't agree that anyone should be publishing allegations of unwed parenthood, adultery, family abandonment, etc., about unsuspecting third parties. Some of the stories may not even be true, and even if they are, there are a lot of other people who could be hurt by the publication who are not given a thought.

People can search for their missing parents / children / whatever without specifying the relationship, let alone going into all the details of how it came about or broke down.

Now I ask , are they genuinely looking for a relative or just wanting their 15 minutes of fame on TV on the back of watching this series ?

{ I can tell you a day of filming for channel 4 was probably one of the most exhausting days ever, !}

No 'fly on the wall' tv programme is unedited, it is cut and recut for maximum effect , twas ever thus right back to the 70s when 'The Family' was one of the first, ditto 'seven up' and subsequent '14/21 up'... etc

I can critique every hospital programme based on one..it's going to be births, deaths, operations and exhausted nurses looking worried, and patients in pain, with relatives pacing corridors... and the obligatory child hanging on by a thread . Voyeurism of the worst possible kind I think, suitable watching for hypochondriacs, those with Munchausens by proxy, and those who would have been a Dr/ nurse...if only....

Ditto 'road wars' 'police camera action' LOL I gave son a potted version of a half hour show in 2 minutes this evening when he turned one of them on, though I say it myself my version was much more entertaining ;-)

well whilst i don't feel weight has anything to do with it , I guarantee you will not see any reunions in a homeless hostel between someone living rough on the streets and the family he hasn't seen for 10 years since he hit the bottle..... sober now or otherwise.