The History Channel is building a record for spreading bogus history.
In their former program American Experience about Jesse James, they falsely linked Jesse to the Ku Klux Klan. Worse yet, they put that false information in the materials they distribute to schools to be used with schoolchildren in history classes.
Now comes their production Jesse James’ Hidden Treasure. Also comes more bogus history.
The fake history starts with the opening lines, which claim Jesse stole $5 million. Detailed analysis by reputable historians account a total under $250,000.
From this point on, the History Channel falls off the foundation of factual history into the fantasy lives of treasure hunter Ron Pastore, and Hollywood hopeful Ralph Ganis, who represents himself as an historian.
Pastore’s record of treasure hunting includes digging up a deceased individual to prove he is the real Jesse James, grabbing the deceased’s dna to no avail, and operating a small town museum filled with fake artifacts, that his Oklahoma neighbors ruefully call his “fifteen minutes of fame.”
Ganis is a former career Air Force serviceman, with a claimed service record that doesn’t jibe with Air Force verifications. He was a mercenary in the unjustified Iraq War. He, too, has put fake and questionable artifacts in museums. Now, Ganis hopes to cut a swath in Hollywood as a Jesse James authority, based on two books he’s self published that are debunked by professional historians.
Pastore and Ganis are made for one another. Hardly a line in the History Channel script doesn’t begin with the phrase “Pastore believes…” The books by Ganis are filled with phrases like “It is believed…” and “It is possible…” To these two, facts are irrelevant. Truth requires no logic, nor explanation. Just take their word for it.
For all that Pastore and Ganis present, everything is secret, or a former secret, apparently known only to them. Astoundingly, all of the secrets they know have eluded the most intense scrutiny and investigation by professional investigators, criminologists, forensic scientists, historians, writers, and educators, for over 125 years.
Once more, Ganis introduces his fantasy of Jesse being part of the KKK. But no explanation follows. Just like Pastore, who doesn’t explain his fantasy of why Jesse hides treasure in Kansas, or why and how Jesse buried and hid gold coins in jars manufactured after 1910, thirty years after Jesse died. Logic? They don’t need no stinkin’ logic!
The failures and inconsistencies in the multiple fantasies of Pastore and Ganis are cumulative and monumental, if not pathetically pathological. Their script is expected to be debunked, dismantled and de-constructed, line by line, in a different kind of forum, yet to come.
When the message is so bad, the usual caveat warns against shooting the messenger. In this case. the lie that is being put to factual history is so egregious that The History Channel well deserves to be shot, as do their guns for hire.
DOWNLOAD a .pdf transcript of the program
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Stray Leaves Daily
Daily updates from the family of Frank & Jesse James with stories, photos, & two searchable genealog
VIDEO of the Clay County Board of Commissioners bestowing honor upon our James colleague & friend Charlies Broomfield. Recognition begins at 2:00 min. mark.
Congratulations Charlie!!
We have hints from the Clay County Archives in charge of James Farm in Kearney, Missouri, that a road leading to the farm will be renamed Charles Broomfield Rd. Charlie was a Clay County Commissioner who took an active role in arranging the sale and transfer of James Farm from the James family to Clay County.
Cant say that I understand the significance of this.
Do you have the address of Jesse & Frank James Cabin in Paseo Robles, California?
SLAVE TRADERS AMONG OUR JAMES FAMILY . . . For a decade Stray Leaves has been researching this most distressing discovery. Finally, it’s time to bring this story to light. There’s much to report. The entire story will take time to tell. As we begin, we are also compelled to reconcile what this history means for us. More specifically for those who are now known to descend from these slave traders, whom it can be assumed never knew of this element of their ancestry, but also for the James family as a whole. The resolution will not come easy.
Forks of the Road Slave Market – Violence In Silence
ericjames.org
“Just at the Forks, where the Washington and Kingston, or Palatine roads converge, stood a low squatty frame building used during the winter monthsI ran a DNA test on all the James names I could find in these stories and didn't get 1 DNA match. My DNA is closer to Jesse than that James line is. I am looking into it being through Robert Thomason (step grandfather of Jesse Woodson James) and Julia Ann Singleton (Aunt to Jesse Woodson James).
I am a descendant of Betty G Woodson.
Waterproof, La in Tensas Parish to be more exact.
Tensas Parish. J. G. James and M. Kerrigan.
The King family. Descendants of Viking slayers. archive.org/stream/Kingswood/Kingswood%20reduced_djvu.txt
"In the middle of 1864, Captain Jason W. James was on scouting duty in the southern part of Madison Parish. About eight o'clock one morning he and his company arrived at the Plantation home of Hr. Joshua James on Roundaway Bayou, who also owned the Ione Plantation in Tensas Parish." You will have to read the rest. I am not posting it here. 😲 😲 😲 sites.rootsweb.com/~lamadiso/articles/ward/chap05.htm
And I do believe this James line is connected to Lucille Ball.
And speaking of slave traders. Nicholas Trammell is mixed in with the Carrigans somehow. www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/trammell-nicholas
And I am a descendant of Elizabeth Woodson Thomas. Wife of Captain Edmund King.
I am also showing DNA matches to the James grandparents of Jesse Woodson James and all 8 of his great grandparents. This is what I need help figuring out. All of my James DNA matches will be in the replies to this comment. In this screenshot they are all the white ones
The sons of Colonial Edmund King.
I am a descendant of Mary Joicy who was widow Woodson, mother of Elizabeth Woodson Thomas.
By the way I am not a Kerrigan by DNA. I am a Carrigan. Civil War name change. Descendant of William Michael Carrigan and Nancy Holt. Nancy Holt was the daughter of Michael Holt III and Rachel Rainey. youtu.be/IsK2eSTVW8A
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When this happens, it’s usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it’s been deleted.Where does Lucille Ball fit?
FIND-A-GRAVE BLUNDERS LEAVE JAMES FAMILY HOWLING . . . Can you spot the errata in this Find a Grave post for the grandfather of Frank & Jesse James? The most glaring deception is the photograph!
History tells us the photograph was invented about the time John M. James was dying. Neither history, nor the administrator of this posting, Charlotte Raley McConaha, can tell us is how photographic technology made its way from France to the distant American frontier to take a photo of John M. James, months before his demise.
Another imprecise miscalculation in this post is the attribution of the middle name “Martin” to John M. James. The name never has been proved by evidence. To guess the name is unreliable and wrong.