I never thought that this was something I’d end up doing on this blog – reviewing a Who Do You Think You Are? episode. But it has happened – last weekend’s episode took place partially in Latvia!

The celebrity in question was Rashida Jones, an American actress, daughter of music mogul Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton. The episode was looking at Rashida’s maternal ancestry. They followed her maternal grandmother’s ancestry back to her Jewish roots in Ireland, but the family had arrived in Ireland in the mid-1800s from Latvia.

When in Latvia, the show traced Rashida’s ancestry to the town of Aizpute in western Latvia, and to a time before surnames, revealing that Benson – a name that the grandmother had taken on to disguise her Jewish ancestry, but what also turned out to be her mother’s maiden name – was the first and only surname that the family had in fact known. After these revelations, Rashida turned to finding out what happened to her family that had stayed in Latvia while her great-great-grandfather had left, and learned that all of them perished in the Holocaust. The episode closed with Rashida and her mother Peggy visiting the memorial at the site where their relatives were likely to have been killed at Rumbula in 1941.

For those of you who have watched genealogy programs before, and have also conducted your own research, you’ll of course know that these shows are greatly simplified – nothing is ever that easy! I wonder how many hours of work it took to find out that the Bensons were from Aizpute. The easiest way would have been if the Irish records had a death record for one of Rashida’s ancestors that mentioned the specific birthplace in Latvia, or if there were Irish immigration records that mentioned where in Latvia they were from. If none of the Irish records mentioned anything, it would have been a long process looking through all of the Latvian Jewish records to find the place of origin.

There were some technical mistakes on the show – they mention the “National Archives” and then the “State Archives”, seemingly referring to them as the same thing. They are and they aren’t. The National Archives, from my understanding, is the umbrella group encompassing all of the archives in Latvia, while the State Archives is just one of those archives. Which is where the mistake comes in – Rashida was not at the State Archives, she was at the State Historical Archives, which is around the corner from the State Archives – location shots show her entering the front door of the State Historical Archives, and in the reading room of the State Historical Archives. Most information of genealogical interest will be at the State Historical Archives, and that is where I do my research (and, in fact, I have sat in the very place that Rashida sat!). I worry that this sort of mistake might lead those in search of their Latvian roots to the wrong archival authority, but I’m sure that the State Archives is used to such inquiries and knows to direct them to the State Historical Archives instead.

I’m also wondering, and maybe some of you American readers can enlighten me, but I’m wondering why Americans often pronounce Latvia as “Lot-vee-ah”, instead of “Lat-vee-ah”. I hear “Lot-vee-ah” frequently from Americans, not just in this show. Is there a reason for this unusual pronunciation? Rashida and the narrator used “Lot-vee-ah”, even though the locals in the episode said “Lat-vee-ah”, which is closer to the Latvian pronunciation.

I’m glad that the show took the viewers outside of RÄ«ga, because all too often people focus on RÄ«ga because it is the capital city, and rarely move out of there when visiting the country. But there is so much more to see in the country than just the capital. In terms of genealogy, this is particularly important to show – while certainly some people will have ancestral ties to RÄ«ga, when compared to the number of people who have ancestral ties to elsewhere in Latvia, this number is quite small. Do not assume that just because your ancestors are from Latvia, that they have to be from RÄ«ga!

I’m also glad that in terms of the Second World War, the show only discussed the events of the Holocaust and as they related to this specific family, rather than trying to paint a bigger picture of the Second World War. The Second World War in Latvia is an extremely complex matter that could not be accurately discussed in such a short time slot, so it is a good thing that they decided to leave it aside and only looked at Rashida’s family. I will try to write some posts about the Second World War in Latvia in the future, but it is a difficult time period to fairly describe such that it makes sense for the Western reader, because unlike the “good guys” and “bad guys” fighting in Western Europe at the time, Eastern Europe had “bad guys” and “worse guys”, which label belonging to which power (the Nazis or the Soviets) depending on the particulars of each family’s ethnic, religious, political and class backgrounds. But I will try.

Did you watch the Rashida Jones episode of Who Do You Think You Are? What did you think? Curious about the documents they looked at? Leave your questions in comments below!

“Who Do You Think You Are?” – Rashida Jones Episode Review
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9 thoughts on ““Who Do You Think You Are?” – Rashida Jones Episode Review

  • May 10, 2012 at 2:36 pm
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    I’m looking forward to seeing this when it is aired in the UK. Good review Antra, sounds as if they could have done with your knowledge to guide them with accuracy.

  • May 11, 2012 at 12:32 am
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    I don’t know why, but I have always been fascinated by Latvian culture since I was a child. I am American and of full Polish-ancestry. I may have Latvian ancestry, but I highly doubt it. That said, this one particular episode really piqued my interest. I am glad that they didn’t go too deep into the WWII in Latvia as it IS complicated, as you have pointed out.

    I just wanted to comment on your pronunciation of Latvia. I come from Chicago, and though Latvian community isn’t as large as say, Polish, Irish or German, we have quite a few of them and many have left their presence in the city. Every Latvian-American I have known (all were from Chicago) pronounced it (LAT-vee-ah). The one time I did hear someone say LOT-vee-ah was in Seinfeld in which one of the characters was dating a Latvian woman. I found the pronunciation odd, but I attributed it to a New York accent. I believe Rashida Jones is also from New York and perhaps the narrator of the show as well. I believe it is just a New York accent.

  • May 11, 2012 at 2:43 am
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    Thank you for this – I now know to look out for it when it is on in the UK. Have only just discovered your blog but it has been so helpful. And the info on the various archives is what I am just trying to get my head around. I really am finding research such a struggle – goodness knows how you are meant to read the handwriting on the scanned censuses and locate relatives – even when you know roughly where they were. It’s a mammoth task but fun, nonetheless. Maybe I will get a chance to drop in to the archives myself this summer. Thanks for sharing your experience – it is such a help.

  • May 11, 2012 at 7:36 am
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    Very happy to see some mainstream TV footage of the town of Aizpute, so close to where my ancestors are from 🙂

  • May 13, 2012 at 1:14 am
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    I’m sorry I missed that episode of WDYTYA (oh well, surely there will be repeats).. but I shared your post on Google+. I sort of drifted away from watching the program because they always make the research results appear by magic, and the Ancestry commercials get so tedious. The LOTvia pronunciation is strange, eh? It’s too bad they don’t pay attention to important detail like which repository they are in!!

  • May 15, 2012 at 9:05 pm
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    Love the blog entries on Latvia “LAt-v-a” (long A with a short “a” at the end), you should think of adding the google +1 tag to your entries, they can easily be shared on google+, thanks for sharing your thoughts. My grandfather was from Russia, Lativa before WWI and it has been a journey discovering his roots.

  • May 18, 2012 at 12:31 am
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    I think the last couple of sentences of this blog entry are a great and brief summation of the complexities of WWII in Latvia. As I’m sure you are aware, there are people on all sides that sometimes get particularly emotional to the extent it blinds them of the gray areas that are often present in war.

  • Pingback: Family History Through the Alphabet – A is for Archives « Discovering Latvian Roots

  • August 31, 2015 at 11:21 am
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    I don’t know where else that I may be able to email you. My maternal grandfather, Adolph Rumba from Riga,, Latvia, escaped during WW1 from a Russian U-boat that landed against the cliffs of the Highlands in Scotland.
    He married a Highlander woman and emigrated to Canada where he spent time in Winnipeg, MB and eventually moved to a hamlet in Alberta. I lived all my life in Edmonton, AB and moved to West Kelowna BC a year ago. I obtained my grandfather’s death certificate where his nationality is listed as Russia as at that time, Latvia was under Russian rule. Do you know where I can find out how to obtain his birth certificate and or baptism certificate (he was Lutheran.) With thanks, Gloria

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