Tim McGraw Who Do You Think You Are? USA

Country music singer Tim McGraw lives on his farm outside Nashville

where he takes refuge from the spotlight

-and enjoys country living.

-Good shooting there.

How the West was won right here.

Throughout his record-breaking career,

Tim has won numerous music awards

and received acclaim for his performances as a film actor.

Tim's been married to singer Faith Hill since 1996,

and they have three daughters together.

But Tim's life hasn't always been so fortunate.

His youth was marred by chaos

having been raised by an alcoholic father.

The tides turned for him when he was just 11 years old.

Tim found his birth certificate

and discovered that the man he knew as his father

was not his father at all.

On my birth certificate, it said "McGraw"

and it was scratched out and had "Smith" written on it.

Tim's biological father was actually Major League pitcher Tug McGraw.

As a kid, I played baseball like every kid.

And I had three cards on my wall.

I had Tug McGraw.

I remember looking at that card, and, um, you know,

not knowing what to think.

I tried to reach out to him, but for most of my teen years,

he didn't acknowledge that I was his son.

When I turned 18, we were talking just small talk

and I finally just looked at him

and said, "I want to know one thing and I won't bother you again.

"I just want to know do you think I'm your son?"

Ha...

And he said, "Yeah."

It changed who I thought that I could be.

There was this light that I could hold on to

that made me think that I could become something or I could be somebody.

There was something in me that I discovered that I didn't know was there.

It's certainly interesting to me

to go back through my family tree and sort of see what those men were like.

Tim's father, Tug, died in 2004 so to start his journey,

Tim is meeting Tug's older brother, his uncle, Hank McGraw.

Hank is one of Tim's closest connections

to the McGraw side of the family.

So, dude, tell me,

why do you want to get involved in this,

digging up all the stuff from the past?

-You scared what we might find out?

-Yeah!

-There's no telling

what we're gonna find out with these characters!

It's just...it's just always been sort of a black hole for me.

I have a bunch of pictures that might help us.

That's something I want to see, because I have rarely seen any pictures of anybody

-on that side of the family.

-Well, there's some here.

-There's Big Mac.

-Oh, let me see that.

Big Mac was Hank's father and Tim's grandfather.

-I didn't know him very long before he passed away.

-Right.

You've got photos of Big Mac's parents?

We have a few. Andrew and Ella May from "Missoura"

they like to say back there. Ella May Nave. She was the rock.

She was the rock that held everything together.

-Oh, yeah?

-Yeah.

She looks like it. So this is my...great grandmother.

-Great grandmother.

-Yeah.

-Just one great.

So Tim has discovered the name of his great grandmother

and Hank's grandmother, Ella May Nave.

I lived with Grandma until she died.

Grandma used to talk about family picnics

in Lee's Summit, which is just east of Kansas City.

-Well, I guess...

-That'll be your next stop, huh?

A good place for me to start would be Missouri.

Yeah. Good luck up there. I hope you find out, you know,

the secrets that, you know, that you're looking for.

-And let me know.

-I will.

Tim is travelling to Kansas City, Missouri, to start his journey.

According to his Uncle Hank, Tim's great grandmother Ella May Nave

lived somewhere in this area. So Tim is meeting with a genealogist

-at the local library.

-Hi.

-Hi.

-I'm Tim.

-I'm Kathleen.

-Kathleen. Nice to meet you.

'I found out a little bit about my great grandparents,

'about Andrew McGraw and Ella Nave.'

So I'm here to find out more... more about Ella, my grandmother.

-Well, I have a document here.

-OK.

Her certificate of death.

Oh, wait a minute. It's got her parents' name.

David Nave from Missouri and Amelia Chrisman.

I got my great, great grandparents here now.

What is interesting about this is the Chrisman surname.

The Chrismans were very instrumental

-in settling this area of Missouri...

-Mm-hmm.

-..and were pretty much pioneers here.

-That's pretty awesome.

-Why don't I show you something.

-Uh-oh. Computers are out.

I'm scared. I'm kidding.

I'm going to put in your ancestor's name there.

This is going to be interesting.

-And you can just put in "Jackson County".

-OK.

And you can see here how many Chrismans right here.

And all these were the same Chrisman family?

-They're all related.

-That's pretty amazing.

With the information available on the Chrismans in Tim's lineage,

Kathleen has able to take Tim back eight generations

to a man named Isaac Chrisman.

'What I want to know now is who is Isaac

-'and where did he come from?'

-Take a look at this.

What is this?

OK, I'm looking for Chrisman?

-There's Isaac Chrisman.

-Sure.

-Right there.

-And this is a tithable list.

What it was was that the civil government in Virginia

-excised a tax on its men over the age of 16.

-OK.

This particular tithable list

is from the Clinch River area in Virginia.

And, actually, there's a date on it.

-1772.

-Yes.

Wow. That's amazing.

So part of my family was here before...before the Revolution,

-before we were a country.

-Exactly.

So at least we pinpointed so far Isaac Chrisman

was in the Clinch River area in Virginia in 1772.

-That's what we know.

-Fantastic. I guess we're off to Virginia.

Thank you very much for all your help.

-You're welcome.

-You've set us in motion here.

Tim is heading to southwest Virginia,

where his sixth great grandfather, Isaac Chrisman lived in 1772.

'It was pretty cool to go back so far so quickly

'into my lineage and learn that I have ancestors from pre-revolutionary America.

'But now I want to find out all I can about Isaac Chrisman.'

-Tim has arranged to meet historian Stephen Aron.

-We know he's here.

We know he's here in 1772 because that's the date

on the tithable list.

And so I just want to find out more.

Well, I think we have some documents

-that can shed further light on Isaac Chrisman.

-OK.

We have here a map that was done

in 1774 by Daniel Smith, who is the surveyor.

-Right. I love these old maps.

-Well, this is a spectacular map.

There's the Clinch River.

Which runs through this valley.

-Clinch Mountains.

-Yeah.

You can see here - this is Rye Cove or Cove Creek.

Rye Cove is where his property is.

What does that say? Donelson's Indian...?

-Line.

-Line.

-So is this, like, Indian territory?

-That's the idea. Now, we know...

So you weren't supposed to settle past that?

Right. And if you look, he's...

-Right on the edge.

-..right on the edge,

though if you actually look, we have one other map

that might put that into a little context here.

If you look at this, this is the line that's drawn

of the Proclamation of 1763.

Clearly, this line is considerably further east than...

-Than where this property is.

-..than where this property is.

Drawn by the British colonial government,

the Proclamation Line of 1763

was a boundary agreement between the British colonies

and several of the Indian tribes.

To address the rising tension over the colonists' westward expansion,

the settlers were not supposed to make their homes west of that line.

Seven years later in 1770, the Donelson Indian Line was drawn

as a result of a local treaty with a group of Cherokees

and it was much farther west than the Proclamation Line.

By settling on the border of the Donelson Line,

Isaac Chrisman was putting himself at risk,

living on land that many Indians still regarded as their own.

This is really during a tremendous time of change

-when all this was going on.

-And Isaac Chrisman...

Was right at the point of the spear.

-That's a great way to put it - he's right at the spear.

-Yeah.

'Isaac Chrisman had a tract of land

'that was really, really on the boundaries of Indian territory.'

So I'm looking forward to seeing the land, hearing more

about what was going on at that period and what was going on in that particular spot.

We're going to go look at that piece of land that he owned.

Not a lot of farming to be done in this rock here, huh?

That's exactly it.

You can grow some corn here probably in the 18th century.

But it's probably better for hay and cattle.

So here we are.

This is where Isaac Chrisman, your ancestor,

would've stood, 230-some odd years ago in 1774, when he was here.

He would've probably... He was born in 1736,

so he'd been late 30s, 38, 37, somewhere around there.

-Your age?

-Little younger than me! But, yeah...

-Prime of his life.

But, I think, we always have to remember

-that there were Indians here first.

-Sure. Absolutely.

And to be out here, and you're so isolated

in a lot of ways, dangerous. Very dangerous.

He's not just building a home here.

He knows - especially in 1774 - how exposed he is.

He's building a fort.

At this point in 1774, I think most Indians still think

they're in a position to defend this land.

-So he was in a precarious situation out here.

-He's in a precarious situation.

He's got that tough dilemma. If you're sitting in a fort, you have relative security.

But, you know, your livestock is outside the fort,

-your water supplies are outside.

-So they could cut your supplies off.

-Burn your crops.

And you're stuck there, it's just how long can you survive?

-What happened to him?

-Well, I have a piece of information here that might shed some light.

-This is from August 26, 1777.

-Right.

It was part of the inventory and appraisement

of the estate of Isaac Chrisman...

-Deceased?

-Deceased.

Ah. So he was killed. Or he died.

Well, we know by 1777, he's dead.

So we can try to figure out why...how he died.

What happened, that's what I want to know.

Only three years after surveying his land

in Rye Cove in 1774, Isaac Chrisman was dead.

He would've been 41 years old.

Now Tim is heading to Richmond, Virginia,

to try to find out HOW he died.

He's visiting the Virginia Historical Society

to search for any information.

Isaac Chrisman died around 1777.

-I'm curious to find out what happened.

-I think we can help you out

because we do have a document

called the Bickley Report made by a militiaman

who was stationed in this part of Virginia in the mid-1770s.

-Oh, wow. So the same... during the same time.

-Yeah.

Summer, 1776.

According to this report, an alarm went off in the Rye Cove area

to alert the settlers that Indians were in the territory.

They were ordered to evacuate because it was too dangerous for them to stay.

The men and their families - and probably even Tim's ancestor

Isaac Chrisman - were told to head east and go to a safer place - Blackmore Fort.

Senior archivist here has brought a document

called the Reminiscences Of Western Virginia

-by the militiaman John Red.

-Gosh, look how old that is.

"Isaac Chrisman, who built a fort some time before,

"while we were gone to the Indian towns,

"Chrisman and two of his family members

"were murdered by the Indians."

Local legend suggests that one summer day in 1776,

Isaac Chrisman took two of his sons - they were there in the fort with him at Fort Blackmore -

back to Rye Cove to check on his crops. And on the way back,

he was murdered by what we think was a band of Cherokees.

Wow. And two of his sons were killed in that general area that we were at.

Very close to where you... were walking the ground yesterday.

Where we were walking the ground yesterday.

Of course you feel bad for the guy,

but at the same time, you sort of think that he might... he knew what he was getting into.

I mean, he was encroaching on their land.

He was out on the edge where... where not a lot of people were.

He, uh, was sort of playing with fire.

I guess for me, what I want to do is maybe go back, go back further

and see what Isaac was doing before this and see where he came from.

-This is a simplified family tree.

-OK.

You can see that Isaac was the son of Jacob and Mary Magdalena Hite.

And his grandfather was a man named Jost Hite...

-Jost Hite.

-Jost Hite.

..who was a incredibly prominent, well-to-do landholder

in the Shenandoah Valley.

I want you to take a look at these land deeds we've had pulled here,

-mainly from the 1730s and '40s.

-That's a lot of land.

Take a look at just some of the individual transactions.

OK. 120 acres here. 7,000 acres.

1,000 acres. Another 2,000 acres. These are huge. 62 acres. 300 acres.

Do we know how he acquired all this land, where his wealth came from?

-I think you'll probably need to go to the Shenandoah Valley to find that out.

-Oh, really? OK.

-Enjoy the rest of the journey.

-Thank you.

-You bet.

-Appreciate it. Thanks for all the help.

Tim has just found out that Isaac's grandfather

and his own eighth great grandfather was Jost Hite.

So now he is heading across to the Shenandoah Valley

to try to find out more about Jost Hite's life there.

He's meeting Warren Hofstra.

An expert on the history of the Shenandoah Valley.

Your ancestor Jost Hite played a very important role

in the settlement of the Shenandoah Valley.

Well, I know that I saw a lot of land grants.

-I'm curious about how that all came about.

-I can tell you that Jost Hite

-was able to acquire land orders for 140,000 acres...

-Wow.

..from the Colonial Government of Virginia.

-Wow.

-I have to tell you something - he didn't actually own the land.

What he had acquired from the Governor of Virginia

was the authority to distribute up to that amount of land

to settlers looking for land. And by the requirements placed on him,

he had to find one family for every 1,000 acres in the land orders.

So he had to go find these families who were willing to move out here,

which was the frontier at that time,

-to move out here and settle 1,000 acres.

-Right.

But you think about once he met that requirement,

he could acquire some of the land himself,

and he DID become one of the largest landowners

-in this entire valley region.

-Wow.

'When I looked at the breathtaking expanse of land in the Shenandoah Valley,

'and the extraordinary role that my eighth great grandfather

'played in the settlement of the West, it really hit home.

'You can understand why someone would come over a ridge,

'and see this, and think that this was...the Promised Land.'

To find out more about who Jost Hite was and what his early life was like

Tim is off to Washington, DC.

He's visiting the Library of Congress with Warren Hofstra.

-This is such a cool place.

-It is.

Oh, my goodness gracious!

-This is unbelievable.

-Amazing, isn't it?

There are more documents about early American history here

than anywhere else. It's a remarkable national treasure.

I never thought I'd be here to find out something about my ancestors.

-That's for sure.

-Here we are.

We have someone here who can introduce these documents to us.

-What do we have here?

-It's the journal of a young man.

He's travelling along with this surveying party

-in the Shenandoah Valley.

-And what year is this?

The entry we're going to ask you to attempt to read

is from March 14, 1748. It's very difficult to read.

It's so amazing that something could last that long

from that far back. Something about bags.

"Sent our baggage... sent our baggage to the Hites

"from Frederickstown."

Oh, can't touch it. Sorry. It's hard not to touch it, isn't it?

What's that say? "We dined..." It says, "We dined in town

"and then went to the Hites and lodged."

So these are your people. And this is a journal that a young man

who was to play a monumental role

in American history wrote when he was 16.

Do we know who it was?

You want to just read the spine on this?

Oh, my gosh! This is George Washington. That's amazing. Wow.

So George Washington,

-this journal was George Washington at 16 years old...

-16 years old.

-..travelling through the Shenandoah Valley and writing notes about MY ancestors?

-That's right.

-Wow!

Probably my favourite person of history of all time

-is George Washington.

-Model for our nation.

-Absolutely.

What I really want to know now is where Jost came from.

-Well, we have a document here.

-Oh, wow. Now what is this?

-This is a facsimile.

-I see New York.

I see New York, 4th of October, 1710.

And it's a list of people. Among whom, particularly number 66.

Johann Jost... Now it's H-A-Y-D.

-Little different spelling.

-Right.

I wonder... I mean, a lot of names were changed

when they first came over, I guess. Now what is this from?

It's called a subsistence list.

It's a list of people who were being provided support

on immigration to North America by the British government.

So would all these people have come from Britain?

-That's for you to find out.

-So I guess I'm off to New York to find out more about this?

-Yeah.

-Can I take this list with me?

-That's yours to take.

-Fantastic.

Well, I'm going go find out more about Jost Hayd.

-Thank you for everything.

-It's been a pleasure. Safe journey.

-All right.

'Jost was clearly a power player in the 1730s,

'but I just found out that he was on a list

'to get support from the British government just 20 years earlier.

'If he was getting help,

'then I'm guessing he was a self-made man who started out

'with very little.'

Tim has come to New York City to search for the last piece of the puzzle -

where Jost Hayd came from and why he was getting government assistance

from the British in 1710.

To find out more he's meeting Phil Otterness

at the New York Public Library.

I've got this list that shows...

Johann Jost Hayd.

And, um, I'm told this is some sort of subsistence list.

So I'm curious what this is all about, what he was doing here, and how he got here.

I've got another document here. It's another subsistence list.

So it looks very similar to it.

This one though is dated June of 1710.

If you look down on this one, you'll find Johann Jost Hayd as well.

Oh, I do, right here. Same number. 66. Johann Jost Hayd.

It says, "The Palatins hereafter named for themselves

"and their families subsistence debtors to the Queen, most sacred Majesty."

What is "Palatines"? I don't think I've heard that reference before.

Palatines was actually the word that the English used for the Germans.

OK. That's interesting that, you know, Jost Hayd was German -

when I first heard the name, I sort of suspected that -

but how did Jost end up on a debtors' list to the Queen of England?

Well, it's a really interesting story, and it's story that many Americans don't know.

I want to show you something.

This is the cover of a book that was published in 1709.

The title of the book is,

A Complete And Detailed Report Of The Famous Land Of Carolina That Lies In English America.

The Germans referred to this as the "golden book".

One of the most powerful pieces of propaganda that was written in the 18th century.

The proprietors of the Carolinas were trying to draw German settlers.

And it has these wonderful promises of the Carolinas.

And not only that, it's implied in there that the Queen of England

will send anybody who comes to England to America for free and give them free land.

-This is like their golden ticket in a lot of ways.

-That's absolutely right.

This map was actually included in the book

and it's of the Carolinas. Helps to show why it was so attractive to them.

You see, you have this large, empty land, rivers running through it.

It is absolutely enticing to these people.

So Jost Hayd and his family, this must've just seemed like the land of milk and honey to them - Paradise.

-This almost seems unreal.

-Yes.

Lured by the golden book's false promise of free land in America,

Jost Hayd and 13,000 Palatines set sail for London in 1709

believing the British Government would be providing them safe travel to the Promised Land.

The Crown had no knowledge of the golden book

and it had no intention of giving land to the Palatines.

But it found a use for these refugees

and decided to send some of them to America.

After a long and arduous journey,

the Palatines arrived at Governor's Island, New York, only to be betrayed again.

Instead of receiving free property in the purported land of milk and honey,

they were put to work making tar and pitch for the British Navy

to pay back the Crown for its aid in their passage to America.

Shortly after his arrival in the New World,

Jost was able to find his way out of this life of indentured servitude

and was no longer found on any subsistence list.

Some of these German families that were sent up there

managed to find work with the local farmers,

and Jost Hayd was probably one of them.

Tells you that he was very entrepreneurial and very spirited,

that he wanted to find a way to really better himself.

Well, you know he was one of the largest landowners in Virginia,

and that wasn't too long after he had arrived in America as a 24-year-old.

It's pretty incredible. Go Jost!

-Yes!

-Thank goodness for Jost Hayd, you know, or I wouldn't be here.

You might be interested to find out

that there were a couple of other people who were in that migration.

One was a fellow who had the last name of Preslar.

And over time, that name changed a bit.

It changed to Presley. Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley!

-So his ancestors were from this area also?

-That's right.

His ancestors were travelling with your ancestors to America.

Maybe they were jamming, you know, on the boat on the way over. THEY LAUGH

'It's pretty amazing.

'Found out a lot of stuff about Jost Hayd - where he came from, why he came here.

'Jost seemed to be the type of guy who really took some chances and took some risks'

and pushed the envelop. I can see a pattern through the ancestors

that we've discovered and you know, it's definitely people that I sort of know, you know.

My father sort of was a nut, but ambitious at the same time.

There's probably a long list of people who didn't quite get there. But, uh, you know,

you can certainly see a pattern of the people who did succeed.

'Now that I've gone so far back in my father's family history, there's only more thing left to do.'

Tim is back home to see his Uncle Hank and to tell him

what he's discovered during his journey through 10 generations of their family.

Hey-hey.

There's the old guy! TIM LAUGHS

-How are you?

-How was your trip? Good to see you, lad.

-You too. Let's take a walk?

-Yeah.

-Let's go.

'It's been incredible to go back so many generations in my father's family.

'After learning so much about my ancestors from Tug

'to Isaac Chrisman, to Jost Hayd,

'I think that Jost's drive was definitely passed down to my father Tug.

'It's in our blood.'

So I guess the interesting thing about Jost Hayd

is he became this power player in the Shenandoah Valley.

But he started out in southwest Germany -

in a little village in southwest Germany.

He came over and shortly after that is when he ended up in the Shenandoah Valley.

-Opening up the West.

-Opening up the West.

He seemed like he was a pretty industrious guy.

You know, one interesting side note with the boat trip that Jost took

with those immigrants from Germany,

there was another family that was pretty interesting on that boat...

-On the same trip.

-On the same trip.

..and it was the Presley family.

-Not THE Presley family.

-THE Presley family.

-Get out!

-Yeah. It's king of rock 'n' roll.

-I wonder who else was there. The whole band might've been onboard.

THEY LAUGH

It seemed to me that Jost Hayd didn't come to America to be an indentured servant

and just to survive - he came here to make something of himself.

-It's not unlike you, kid.

-I think the spirit's the same for sure.

Yeah, it's a similar kind of drive.

I think that it's pretty interesting to me

to realise that Jost Hayd was here so early in the beginning of this country -

in the beginning of the settlement of America -

and that two of his ancestors

are involved in two of the most American things that there are -

my dad was a baseball player and I'm a country music singer.

And Jost Hayd was one of the first Americans, really.

So I think that that's... For me, that's really interesting.

You know, it's Jost Hayd, baseball, and country music.

It's pretty American.

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