A few years ago, I read an article about how genealogy is (was?) the 2nd most popular internet hobby (after porn of course). As an amateur genealogist who hasnt worked on her family tree in a long while, I was thinking how great it would be to be able to turn on the television and find such programs that would be entertaining and educational. With all the new resources that have become available in the last few decades, and with more and more information available in this age of technology..... I propose a Genealogy Channel: Family Tree TV would do more than just "how to" do genealogy, although that would be a big part of it. FTTV would have three catagories of programming:

1. How To Programs (How to use the Internet, Gleaning info from Census information, How to access special collections, Genealogy 101, Genetics, Getting around dead ends, heraldry, archiving documents, foreign resources, etc)

2. Cultural Programming (More sociologically oriented, geared to educate people about individual cultures, their daily habits, their records, their homes/architecture, dress, food, etc. )

3. Individual Stories (features/Interviews with genealogist (pro and amateur) about experiences and stories they've come across in their research. Black Sheep Ancestors, War Stories, Love Stories, etc), Renunion stories..

I can see such geneaology entities such as Cyndi (from Cyndi's list), Roots_L/WorldGen Web, Ancestry, and others as hosts/program producers.

And a never ending list of advertisers from those above, and all traditional genealogy companies (Family Tree Maker, Frontier Press, Heritage Press, Ancestory, Lineages, etc.) to associated hobbies such as scrapbooking, photography, computer programs, history buffs, heritage cooking (family recipes), heritage clothing, etc.... etc... (edited to add that facilities and hotels/B&Bs/ etc that cater to family gatherings would also like to advertise!)

Aside question: About the BBC... Do you in the UK get other channels besides the BBC channels? (HBO, Skin-a-max (i mean Cinamax), Food Channel, or other nation's channels?)
-- Alysonwonderland, Dec 20 2006

BBC. http://www.bbc.co.u...tory/familyhistory/
not that I've ever seen it, but I will now [po, Dec 20 2006]

The Beeb obviously understands the interest. http://en.wikipedia...ou_Think_You_Are%3F
[po, Dec 20 2006]

<random aside> Talking of scrapboooking, I visited a scrapbooking shop recently. Wow! Talk about an expensive hobby! I thought it was all about being creative with whatever you have to hand, but it seems there's special stamps, special paper, special pens, special trinkets, special scrap, special everything, and priced to match. </random aside>

Bun for the idea. I'm sure this channel would carve a successful niche for itself.
-- imaginality, Dec 20 2006



random, halfbakery