Who Do You Think You Are? Episode 2.07 Gwyneth Paltrow

Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow is one of America's leading movies stars who's appeared in dozens of films, including the recent hit "Country Strong." Nowadays, Gwyneth splits her time between London and New York with her husband, musician Chris Martin of Coldplay, and their two daughters. Gwyneth comes from a family with deep roots in the entertainment business. Her mom is actress Blythe Danner, and her father, the self-proclaimed love of her life until his death in 2002, was producer/director Bruce Paltrow. The two sides of the Paltrow family couldn't be more different: Blythe is a half-German WASP with some kind of Pennsylvania Dutch roots, and Bruce is of Eastern European Jewish lineage. Gwyneth thinks it's a classic American story of different backgrounds coming together. Still, it's hard to know which of the family stories are fact and which are fiction - and how the two combine.

Gwyneth decides to begin her journey with her mother's side of the family. Blythe believes her paternal grandmother Ida May came from Barbados, though it was always Gwyneth's impression that the Danners were deeply rooted in their German heritage. So what's the real story? Armed with beautiful photographs Blythe has sent of the elegant Ida May, Gwyneth heads to the New York Public Library to meet with librarian Myra Liriano to search for records. Myra has found a newspaper obituary for Ida May, who passed away in February of 1967 at age 82. The article indicates that she was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, so she's not from Barbados but maybe her parents - listed as David and Isabel Stout Yetter Danner - were.

Gwyneth meets with Dr. Pat Stafford at the Barbados Department of Archives to hunt for clues. Pat has found the ship's record, actually from October 10th, 1869, which indicates Rosemond would have been born around 1850, a fact confirmed in local baptismal records. Rosemond's parents are listed as Sarah and Samuel, a merchant's clerk. By the mid-1800s, Bridgetown, Barbados was a major Caribbean trading center, and working as a merchant would have been a solid middle class occupation - not the sort of profession where your children would run away. Something must have gone wrong with the family. And in fact, Pat has learned that Sarah died a widow at the age of 42 in 1864. The girls were orphaned when Rosemond was only 13.

Pat recommends that Gwyneth seek out an expert in Barbadian history, so she sits down with Professor Pedro Welsh, who explains that the shipping record holds an unusual wealth of information. He thinks the Stoud daughters opted to travel as the only passengers on a commercial ship because it would have been cheaper, but what led them to emigrate was probably due to an amalgam of circumstances. First of all, emancipation came to Barbados in 1834, conferred by an act of British Parliament, causing many formerly privileged whites to lose their economic and social positions. Rosemond and Martha are listed as seamstress and milliner respectively, which would have been occupations largely held by black women. Also, the female population was quite a bit larger than the male at the time. Thus with little prospect of marriage or job, it's easy to see how the Stoud daughters would have left their island home.

Gwyneth has to think that the act of striking out for America was a very brave move in 1869, and admires the Stoud girls' chutzpah. She always attributed her own strong self-belief to her father's side of the family, but here's an example of that same quality on her mother's side! Gwyneth returns to New York City to focus on her Paltrows, specifically her grandfather Buster, who was not at all close to his immediate family. Apparently he never thought of the house he grew up in as a home, since he felt his mother Ida never really took care of her children. Gwyneth decides to visit her father's sister, Fran Paltrow, to learn more about the mother Grandpa Buster never spoke about.

The 1897 annual report of The Normal College (later renamed Hunter College) shows that Ida was training to be a New York City public school teacher, at a time when many colleges didn't admit Jews. What's curious - it seems that Ida was quite often absent. In the following year's report, Ida is noted as discharged. To find out why, Deborah has checked the 1990 census, which shows that two Hyman family members have disappeared, brother Samuel and mother Rebecca. Deborah has located their death certificates, which indicate that both mother and son died within a month of each other in 1897, the year of Ida's many absences.Wondering if this tragic experience sowed the seeds of Ida's maternal resentment, Gwyneth proceeds to the New York City Municipal Archives to meet with Michael Lorenzini. After sorting through census records, Gwyneth and Michael discover that Ida, who had six children, lost her eldest daughter Helen when she was run over by a wagon at the age of three. Not only that, Ida was very pregnant at the time, and gave birth to another child three weeks later. Being a mother herself, Gwyneth figures Ida's grief over the loss of Helen would have been overwhelming, and wishes she could share her story with Buster. Had he known, perhaps he would have had more compassion for his mother.

Gwyneth switches her focus to the Paltroviches, whom she always heard were descended from a line of rabbis. She knows of only one rabbi, Simcha or Simon Paltrovich - but were there more? She proceeds to the Edridge Street Synagogue to meet with Professor Glenn Dynner who specializes in the history of Eastern European Jews. Luckily, Glenn understands Polish, because he's discovered some extraordinary documents written in that language. A promise of marriage betrothal for Gwyneth's great-great-grandfather Simcha is signed by the district's rabbi - Simcha's father Tzvi Hirsch Paltrovich! Since the majority of records that might mention Tzvi were destroyed during the Holocaust, Glenn is thrilled to have found what's called a memorial book, written by survivors of the period.

The memorial book describes Tzvi as a great holy man and Qabalah master, famous for his learnedness and humanity. A story is related: once when a fire threatened to destroy the town and its citizens were in a panic, Tzvi stepped onto his balcony and calmly waved his handkerchief towards the fire, which soon extinguished. Since that time, it was said fire wouldn't spread much, for Tzvi's blessing would protect the town. Gwyenth is blown away to think her ancestor was something of a miracle worker. But there's more - Simcha wrote a book about his father called "The Crown of Tzvi." The love and respect Simcha expresses for Tzvi touches Gwyneth's heart, as it so much resembles her deep connection to her own father. She knows Tzvi's quest for knowledge and spirituality is alive and well in her own soul.On her way to relate the details of her journey into the past to her mother, Gwyneth wonders at both the lights and darks in her ancestry, and the amazing ways she sees both sides of her family in herself. And as a mother, she's discovered how important it will be to use the stories she's discovered to teach her children where they came from, in hopes they will learn more about themselves from those who came before them.