How "Who do you think you are" picks it's celebrities

With the tiny url supplied by fellow blogger Dick Eastman via Leslie, I found the article and have posted it below for all of you:

With NBC’s celebrity genealogy show “Who Do You Think You Are?” beginning its third season Friday, stars of stage and screen are beating a path to the show’s producers seeking help in solving family mysteries.

But a lot of the show’s research into celebrity family trees doesn’t make it on the air. Sometimes researchers either hit a dead end or the stories they uncover don’t make for compelling TV.

“There certainly are quite a lot of A-listers who we’ve had to go back to and say, ‘Look, we’re really sorry, but we’ve spent four months and there’s just nothing,’” said executive producer Al Edgington. With other celebrities, researchers only need one or two months to dig up some amazing stories, he says.

The popularity of the show has been a boon for Ancestry.com (ACOM), the online family history service that provides research services and sponsors the show. It sees a noticeable bump in subscribers whenever the show airs.

“Who Do You Think You Are?” saw its ratings rise last year, during its second season, says executive producer Jennifer O’Connell.

Celebrities featured this season include Martin Sheen, Marisa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Reba McEntire, Rob Lowe, Helen Hunt, Rita Wilson, Edie Falco, Rashida Jones, Jerome Bettis, Jason Sudeikis and Paula Deen.

“We really try to have a good cross-section of types” of celebrities, O’Connell said. “We love actors, musicians and athletes. We’d love to get a politician to do the show.”

Her dream subject would be former President Bill Clinton.

“We’re in a lucky position with the show, because many of the celebrities we do the show with approach us,” she said. “They’ve seen the show and they’re interested to find out more about their families.”

Since the U.S. is a country of immigrants, there are lots of great stories to tell, Edgington says.

“Most people who emigrate from one country to another do so because of great hardship,” he said. “People don’t just leave their castles and their villages to come to America. Back in the day, they left because of famine or pestilence or genocide, all the terrible things in history for why people move.”

It tends to be easier to dig up good family records for celebrities who come from wealthier ancestors. Many Americans descended from poor farmers who emigrated from Ireland and Italy, so records can be scant, he says.

“We have an amazing team of researchers who pore through documents and censuses and death records, you name it,” Edgington said. “For every celebrity who is interested we will find everything we possibly can.”

One of the hardest aspects of the show is coordinating with a celebrity’s schedule. Shooting the show requires a commitment of travel and time for celebrities. For instance, actor Martin Sheen had to go with a film crew from Los Angeles to Ireland and Spain and back home in eight days.

“Sometimes we might find a great story in research but we might have to wait another season until a schedule opens up,” O’Connell said. “It’s a big commitment for celebrities. We’re asking them to travel the world and we don’t even tell them where they’re going before we go. Every step of the way is a surprise. So, once in a while we have to tell a celebrity, ‘You’re going to need to get a round of immunizations.’”

The producers typically know the subject’s family history before it’s revealed to them.

For the celebrities involved, the show is “a treasure hunt,” she says.

“We don’t know if we have a fourth season yet. But because the research is so time-consuming … right now we are researching and in touch with a handful of celebrities who are interested,” O’Connell said. “Hopefully people will watch, the network will be happy with the ratings, and we will have a bit of a head start with some celebrities we’ve been working on” for next season.