Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59465 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-01-09
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 70 minutes

DVD Description
'How to Trace Your family' featuring highlights from the first series.

Synopsis
Explore the world of genealogy and learn how to trace your family history. Follow celebrities as they search into their past and find out interesting and surprising facts about their ancestors. Celebrities featured include: David Baddiel, Jeremy Clarkson, Leslie Garrett, Ian Hislop, Sue Johnstone, Bill Oddie, Amanda Redman, Vic Reeves, Meera Syal and Moira Stuart.

Customer Reviews

Best of maybe ... not enough substance!
There is too little information in this compilation for it to be any more than a teaser for people interested in taking up family tree research. Most people could probably guess that birth, marriage and death records, and census records are an important part of the research process. However, this programme simply states that and does little if anything to give viewers any practical guidance on getting started with their use.

For example Jeremy Clarkson, one of the featured researchers, made a couple of quick appearances in the programme and then just turned up with a huge scroll on which is printed a comprehensive family tree. How did he get there? The programme omits to tell. Don't waste your money.

Incomplete, truncated, misleading DVD release
This was an excellent series on the BBC and I eagerly awaited the DVD of the first series. What a huge disappointment. 10 hours of TV reduced to 76 minutes! What is the point of that? The person who put this DVD together clearly had no idea why people were interested in this programme. It was not the superficial and obvious suggestions made on researching family trees that made this programme such gripping viewing but the drama of the pursuit. TV viewers enjoyed the journey they took with the featured celebrites as they discovered more about their family history. Anyone with a bit of commonsense would have realised this. This DVD is therefore a huge blunder on someone's part and a missed opportunity. Don't waste your money on this dreadful DVD release. Instead, write to the BBC and ask them to release the programme itself on DVD. This is what I and the other people who bought this release thought they were getting.

Seriously short on expectations
I saw 3 or 4 of the first series, particularly enjoying the Bill Oddie story, and when I saw the COMPLETE SERIES 1 being released on DVD on Amazon, I thought it ideal to fill in the gaps.Now it has arrived, it is more HOW to research your family history with admittedly interesting extracts from the individual episodes.

If it was described by Amazon as what it actually is, I would not have bought it - poor show Amazon in not getting things right and misleading a long term customer.My delivery note dated 16th January STILL describes the item as COMPLETE BBC TV SERIES 1!