Media Reviews

ANCESTRY ACADEMY

THROUGHOUT THE BIBLE, we can nd many stories of families and their ancestors. For instance, in the Gospel of Matthew, we nd the genealogy of Jesus (1:1–16). And chapter four of the Book of Genesis details the descendants of Adam and Eve. All of this information helps to piece together the stories that make up the history of our faith.

Much like those in the Bible, we, too, have our own family histories to uncover. And with those histories come stories, some known but also many unknown. ose lost stories are only discovered, however, with some digging.

Ancestry Academy (AncestryAcademy.com) is a free resource of the website Ancestry.com. e academy features videos that can help people learn how to research and nd information—both good and bad—regarding their families. e videos cover topics such as how to use vital records in your search, how to nd military veterans, or tips for navigating wills and probates.

Many of the videos direct viewers to Ancestry.com, which is a paid service, to nd more in-depth information. But signing up for the paid service is not necessary. Ancestry Academy also o ers a number of suggestions for ways to conduct free searches on your own, such as by using church and state records. It also gives tips on how to go about that process.

Looking into your family’s history can be a daunting but very rewarding task. A er all, our families make up the stories of our lives. Luckily, there are resources available—such as Ancestry Academy—to help make the journey a little less confusing and overwhelming.

RESEARCHING YOUR HOME

When we think of genealogy research, we typically think of people. But another aspect of the research focuses on either the actual homes in which we currently live or ones in which our ancestors lived. Homes, a er all, have stories too.

In the video “Discovering the History of Your House,” genealogist and house historian Marian Pierre-Louis explains the process of researching your current home and any other homes in which you are interested. e process, she says, is very similar to that of researching family genealogy.

Reasons for doing such research, Pierre-Louis explains, include seeking National Historic Register status, learning about former owners, or even to prevent demolition. Over the course of the 11-video series, the viewer is taken step-by-step through the process of how to do the research.

But even if you aren’t interested in doing any research yourself, the videos are interesting enough in themselves. It is worth watching them just to learn about what they reveal, such as the progression of how information was gathered and when street names began being documented. An interesting tidbit from the 1930 census is that it was noted whether the homeowners had a radio in the house.

In the nal video of the course, Pierre-Louis says that it’s not only houses that people can research. ey can also look into the history of a particular church or other building. Most of the records, she says, are readily available, and within those records lie the stories.

FLOOD IN THE DESERT

American Experience on PBS • May 3, 9 p.m.

The St. Francis Dam collapsed on March 12, 1928, killing over 400 Californians. The dam’s engineer, William Mulholland (right), was haunted by the tragedy for the rest of his life.

“MAN MUST CONQUER NATURE” is a quote attributed to Communist leader Mao Zedong. is narrow-minded approach to the natural world should chill a Franciscan heart. William Mulholland (1855–1935), a UK-born, self-taught civil engineer, however, would have likely agreed. His St. Francis Dam in California’s San Francisquito Canyon, nished in 1926 to address Los Angeles’ growing water needs, collapsed on March 12, 1928, killing hundreds. Mulholland ignored one simple truth: Nature will always have the nal word.

“Flood in the Desert,” American Experience’s quietly riveting examination of this disaster and its ripple e ect generations later, is another impressive addition to the program’s canon of documentaries. And the central message of the lm is still applicable to a 21st-century audience.

Just before midnight on March 12, as the St. Francis Dam started to erode, the power across the city of Los Angeles ickered. Mulholland, the mastermind behind the dam’s conception and construction, slept through the electrical hiccup. By morning, some 430 people would be swept away by over 12 billion gallons of water. e precise death count will never be known.

Mulholland came from humble Irish beginnings to amass profound in uence in early 20th-century California. His engineering plans for the St. Francis Dam, as much a vanity project as one of necessity, were not peerreviewed—likely in deference to his power. Mulholland would endure water wars with White settlers in the Owens Valley as well as Northern California’s native Paiute people, whom the colonists displaced. But by 1924, construction on the dam began. Tragedy followed four years later.

“Flood in the Desert” manages to check several boxes in a scant 52 minutes. On the surface, the documentary examines the ingenuity—and blind arrogance—needed to harness an element as formidable as water. But a deeper dive examines how the quest for power always comes at the expense of the powerless. And human-caused disasters aren’t relegated to the history books. e Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and California’s Camp Fire in 2018 show what little we’ve learned in the following decades.

Mulholland spent the rest of his life in seclusion, reportedly haunted by the tragedy. But he was introspective when questioned about it: “If there is an error of human judgment,” he said, “I am the human.” THE RISE AND FALL of Joseph McCarthy has been likened to a Shakespearean tragedy—or comedy— depending on your political persuasion. But under the steady hand of American Experience, the life of the disgraced Wisconsin senator is handled with evenness and authority.

FIRST AIRED IN 1993, “Goin’ Back to T-Town” examines “Black Wall Street,” a community of thriving Black-owned businesses in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that was the site of one of the worst acts of racially inspired domestic terrorism in our nation’s history. is should be required viewing for all Americans.

L. FRANK BAUM created one of the most enduring stories in all of children’s literature with his Oz series, but his own life was no stroll down the yellow brick road. American Experience’s measured and deeply engrossing exploration of the author’s life is worth a revisit.