I follow a few other ancestry writers and one of them, Trisha, introduced me to a great show on BYU TV called “Relative Race”.
Four teams, in cars, start out from the same location in different directions with an individual time allotted that includes a challenge once they get to the town of their relative.
Using only paper maps from one location to the next, their clock stops when they get to the home of their relative.
They introduce themselves, and ask “whose relative are you?” On some teams, it might be only one person searching for relatives, on other teams, both.
They meet and visit with their relatives, and it looks to me like on some occasions they meet the relative at an Airbnb set up by production.
That night, the teams get on a Group FaceTime type chat, Dan the host comes on and he will announce the winner for the day. They are the team that came closest to their allotted time. The loser is the one who took the longest. If they are last for the day, they get a strike. 3 strikes and you’re out. Goodbye, go home (although they still got to meet the relatives just not on camera). Season 16, appears to be different and the team with 3 strikes still travels, but maybe they just don’t get a chance for the $10,000 prize at the end when they do the big, final challenge. I’m at that episode now!
Did I mention, they give up their phones and only have flip phones? Yes! They can text each other, which on occasion they do. Dan texts them in the morning with their next destination, welcomes them when they arrive to the town with their challenge location, and when that’s complete gives them the relative’s location.
The race is run primarily on the East Coast. But one season had them all over the United States and then flew the people who ended up in California back to the final location. This season they started in Alabama. One team has gone to Louisiana and Texas, another upper Florida and Georgia, another North Carolina, to Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and another to North Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana.
The teams themselves and the family they are seeking tugs at my heart strings. It isn’t run-of-the-mill relatives they are looking for, it is FAMILY. The majority were adopted at birth or a very young age. Some knew they were adopted, some only found out a few years ago. You hear their stories at the beginning of the season and again throughout the season but not to excess.
Maybe I enjoy this show because we found out my mother had a different father than her siblings! She had passed away years before we found out, but it made me wonder if there were differences in looks and personality that made anyone go “hmmm”.
Obviously, DNA testing is done prior to all this and family members contacted to see if they would be willing to meet with the contestant. Once they are selected, I’m sure they are situated for maximum show drama impact!
In earlier seasons, teams weren’t always very nice to each other. A team each season would really be looking to get the edge on everyone else. Sometimes the daily winners get to put a time penalty on another team and they would target a team to ensure a strike. but every season the show evolves and those types of “rewards” have gone by the wayside.
You can find BYU TV in your streaming channels if you have a Smart TV or you can watch episodes on YouTube through the Relative Race channel.
If you love heartwarming family reunions with a little suspense thrown in, you will enjoy this show!
Here’s a link to Trisha’s blog post about her love for the show!
Have you ever watched it and if so, did you enjoy it?
Thoughts From The Passenger Seat 