Art,

After watching the program again and jotting down notes, it occurred to me that the program would have "sold" better if they'd just let Marjorie act as his genealogical coach throughout the whole process. It was apparent that he was assisted along the way, so why not let an expert guide and explain each step to him and the viewing audience on-camera? Although in real life this may/may not happen, it would have given the viewing audience more of a sense of the why and how of African American genealogical research. Where there were gaps or steps not explained in the process, Emmit's personality and candid reactions to what he heard helped to pull these parts together.

What bothered me about the whole segment was that they used the statements of two experts who provided limited conjecture (breeding and white paternity), when there were many other plausible alternatives to Mariah's parentage. I thought they were insensitive and felt that Marjorie could have done a better job (although I do not know her work) at explaining the parts about slavery. I got the sense that off camera she may have walked Emmit through some part of it, but that we didn't get to see that exchange.

What we saw instead were men who stated that Mariah was probably bred (like livestock) and that her father was possibly the white man who enslaved her. She could have been a child born under any number of circumstances that didn't include either of these two horrific scenarios. I imagine the historians may have genuinely believed what they said, or that the statements were added for effect, but to me it does a disservice to genealogists, to the descendants especially, as it paints a picture that leads to an unqualified dead end. It also bothered me that one historian said that they'd reached the end of Mariah's story because there were no more records. He should have qualified that with something like "we couldn't find more records within the time alloted for this research project, but additional research may provide more leads," as that is a more accurate statement. We well know that it takes more than months or even a few years to trace some parts of our lineage. We also know that records on our ancestors have a way of turning up in unexpected places and years following periods of intense research.