Allison Janney's Family Tree: Who Do You Think You Are? Review

Allison Janney on Who Do You Think You Are?, reviewed

Allison Janney is probably more familiar to many viewers through her work than as a person. She won an Oscar for I, Tonya, got her big break on The West Wing, and has long played a snarky delight on Mom. In this episode of the NBC genealogy series, which aired in July 2022, she steps out of character and talks about herself. She admits early on that she agrees with a quote about her: “Allison, you are going to be successful in spite of yourself.”

That line sets up the episode’s portrait of early Allison Janney. She was told she was not pretty enough, that she needed to be more edgy, or simply that she was too tall. In spite of it, she built a successful career and now wants to know more about her past. The family search that follows is the reason to watch, and it turns out to be a story about people who also succeeded against bad odds.

The early Allison Janney the episode sketches is a woman who heard a lot of reasons she would not make it. That context makes the genealogy land harder, because the research supplies more than names and dates. It supplies a family history of people who were told to stay put, did not, and ended up shaping the places they reached.

Allison was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and her family soon moved to Dayton, Ohio. Her maternal grandparents were Hal, known as Big Hall, and Sippy. Sippy was her favorite grandmother, rebellious and full of naughty adventures. Every year Sippy and Hal vacationed in Bermuda, and Sippy died there at a relatively young age. That is why Allison chooses to work with Ancestry on her mother’s side of the family.

Eight generations back to Stephen Hopkins

With the help of Ancestry genealogist Joseph B. Shumway, Allison traces her lineage through eight generations to the seventeenth century. Her early family arrived from England, and there is talk of the Great Migration and the Mayflower. Getting to that point is far more of an adventure than anyone could have expected.

Her ancestor Stephen Hopkins arrived on Bermuda in 1609, more than a decade before the Mayflower sailed, after a detour on a ship called the Sea Venture. He was aiming for Jamestown when the ship wrecked, leaving him separated from his wife and young child. Allison wants to know how he got from there to Massachusetts.

Bermuda, the Sea Venture and the mutiny

Allison travels to Bermuda herself. At the National Museum she talks with historian Michael Jarvis, who tells her about Hopkins and the crew of the Sea Venture. A hurricane steered them off course. Shipwrecked, they found a paradise uninhabited by humans, rich with fish, birds and edible plants. They thrived for a couple of months before accepting that rescue was not coming and that they would have to leave the island on their own.

That is where things got complicated. A document from Sir Thomas Gates, Virginia’s governor designate, shows what was at stake. He wanted to finish the voyage and ordered the crew to do so. Jamestown was only a couple of years old, and he wanted the prestige of running a new colony. The crew wanted to stay and try their luck on Bermuda.

A legitimate mutiny followed, fomented in part by Hopkins. He had been working as a clerk for a minister, and the men loved and respected him. He tried to persuade everyone to ignore Gates’ wishes. In response, Gates had him shackled and sentenced to death.

The men loved Hopkins enough to plead successfully for his life. Afterward there was no more talk of staying in paradise. They stripped the Sea Venture to build two smaller vessels, Deliverance and Patience, and left Bermuda in 1610 after ten months, bound for Jamestown. The voyage also led to the later colonization of Bermuda. It was coincidence that Sippy died on the island where her ancestor was shipwrecked, but it fired Allison’s imagination.

Jamestown and the starving time

Next, Allison goes to Jamestown to meet James Horn, who knows the area’s history. It was the first permanent English settlement in America, and its history is tragic. Part of the fleet Hopkins was on arrived in 1609, by which time the colony had depleted provisions and wounded men. Up to 500 men lived in the fort. According to an account from George Percy, conditions went from bad to worse.

The English traded for a while with a massive contingent of Native people, but things went well only until the Native people realized the settlement was not temporary. The English were suddenly trapped behind their own walls, and the situation escalated. The roughly 500 men dwindled to about 60, and those who remained were skeletal from starvation. There is even evidence of cannibalism.

This is the sight that greeted Hopkins after his island detour. At first he tried to abandon the horrific colony, but he was brought back by a longboat packed with provisions. Allison wonders why he later left Jamestown. Correspondence from Horn explains it: in 1613, his wife died in England, leaving their daughter Constance without parents. Records also show that Stephen remarried, to a woman named Elizabeth Fisher.

Plymouth, the Mayflower and a hard-won legacy

In Plymouth, Allison meets Dr. Donna Curtin. A weathered transcript about the Plymouth families shows that Stephen lived there with Elizabeth, and a Mayflower manifest shows they had several children, two with his first wife and a couple more with his second. Despite the chaos of his life, Stephen had a truly unusual journey: he had a foothold in the establishment of three English plantations. Like many Mayflower pilgrims, he was drawn by the promise of land as well as religious freedom.

Ironically, after the Sea Venture, the Mayflower almost crashed as well. It ended up docking in a different region than planned, and the passengers refused to leave the ship until they had written the Mayflower Compact, a kind of proto-Constitution and an early expression of representative government. Hopkins served as an elected official and lived a life of surprising prosperity, and perhaps a bit of providence. In him, Allison sees an echo of her own resilience, and she leaves with a new appreciation for her ancestry.

Stephen Hopkins’ journey, step by step

1. 011609: Hopkins sails for Jamestown aboard the Sea Venture, which a hurricane drives onto Bermuda.
2. 02On Bermuda: the survivors find an uninhabited island, and Hopkins helps stir a mutiny against Sir Thomas Gates.
3. 03Gates sentences him to death, but the crew pleads for his life and he is spared.
4. 041610: after ten months, the survivors leave in two new ships, Deliverance and Patience, for Jamestown.
5. 05Jamestown: he finds a starving colony, tries to leave and is brought back by a longboat with provisions.
6. 061613: his wife dies in England, he later remarries Elizabeth Fisher, and the family ends up in Plymouth.
7. 071620: the Mayflower sails and the Compact is written; Hopkins lives out his life in the colony.

Allison Janney’s Who Do You Think You Are? verdict

The episode works because the history is dramatic and the star responds to it honestly. The hurricane, the shipwreck, the mutiny and the death sentence would make a good adventure story on their own. Seeing them tied to a woman whose grandmother loved Bermuda gives the story a human center.

It also finds a theme without forcing it. The actress who was told she was too tall and not edgy enough learns that her ancestor kept finding a way through a series of disasters, and the comparison is allowed to land without much commentary.

Verdict: one of the stronger episodes of the season, and a good one for viewers who are curious about the Sea Venture, Jamestown or the Mayflower. The research is thorough, the locations are well chosen, and the ending feels earned.

The episode makes good use of its locations. Bermuda offers the shipwreck story with a museum and a historian, Jamestown offers the sobering part, and Plymouth offers the closing payoff. Each stop adds a different tone, and the structure keeps the story moving without leaning on dramatic music or manufactured tears.

Viewers who like the format will see the usual mechanics: a celebrity with a family question, a professional genealogist, a trail of documents, and a historian at each location. What distinguishes this installment is that the documents tell a story with real stakes. A death sentence, a starving fort and a signed compact are not routine record finds.

Sources

• Who Do You Think You Are? (American TV series), Wikipedia — Checked against: series format and episode air dates.