Mark the date. BBC1’s family history show Who Do You Think You Are? returns on Thursday and for actress Vicky McClure, getting the dates down accurately is pretty important.
In the opening episode of the new series, the Line Of Duty star discovers who his great-grandfather Thomas is, a sailor who left for Canada almost a century ago, before Vicky’s beloved “Nonna” was born.
In one of the painstaking bits of archival detective work that make this show such a popular format, Vicky pores over navigational charts with an expert. She deduces that the old man set sail in January 1925, returned home to his wife Ruby the following July – and Nonna was born in December.
When she finally understands the full implications, Vicky’s jaw drops. “He can’t be my Nonna’s father!” she gasps.
Danny Dyer traced his ancestry to East London, in Newham and Poplar, where many of his ancestors worked on the docks.
Danny Dyer discovered that his line of descent dates back to the 16th century, and to Henry VIII’s brutal advisor, Thomas Cromwell.
It’s a moment that sums up the appeal of this show, which first aired 20 years ago and regularly attracts five million viewers. The rush of emotion, the whiff of scandalous gossip, the satisfaction of deep investigation and the thrill of a story well told combine to make this show an unmissable television experience.
One famous moment exemplifies the phrase Who do you think you are? at its finest. In 2016, Danny Dyer traced his ancestry to East London, in Newham and Poplar, where many of his ancestors worked on the docks.
It’s no surprise that the actor, best known for his role as landowner Mick Carter in EastEnders, comes from such stock. But what stunned him, and us, was the discovery that his line of ancestry goes back to the 16th century and Henry VIII’s brutal adviser Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell’s son Gregory married Elizabeth Seymour, sister of Henry’s favourite wife Jane. And those girls were direct descendants of Edward III, who ruled England for half a century from 1327.
Dyer’s manly delight at learning that he was only 22 generations removed from the throne was a joy to behold. “It can’t be,” he marvelled. “A direct descendant of Edwood the Furd? It’s nonsense, isn’t it? I think I’ll treat myself to a ruff, a huge ruff, and go bowling and if anyone asks me, I’ll explain.”
What makes Danny unusual is that he can prove an unbroken line of descent: no gaps, no guesswork.
Dame Judi Dench was keen to learn how her father, Reginald, earned his Military Cross and Bar in the First World War.
The reality, as scientist Adam Rutherford has explained, is that we all share a handful of common ancestors, some anonymous and some famous. It turns out that anyone with a general British lineage is descended from Edward III… as well as his own royal ancestors, including William the Conqueror and Alfred the Great. We’re all as real as Danny Dyer.
Of course, we are all descended from countless peasants of the Middle Ages. What makes Danny so special is that an unbroken line of descent can be proven – no gaps, no guesswork.
More than 160 celebrities have appeared on the show, starting with Bill Oddie, Amanda Redman and Sue Johnston in 2004, with Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm, Olympian Jessica Ennis-Hill and singer Olly Murs among the contestants this time around.
But it has also inspired countless ordinary Britons to investigate their personal history. According to a YouGov survey, an estimated 4.7 million people in the UK have paid for private DNA tests to discover their genetic ethnicity. It is a huge and lucrative industry – a full subscription to Findmypast.co.uk costs almost £200 a year.
The National Archives of Victoria’s census pages have been downloaded online more than 386 million times. When the 1911 census was made public in 2011, there were 24 million searches made on it in the first month alone. Seven in ten people say they are interested in finding out more about their family tree, and I am one of them: during lockdown, I searched through court records and yellowing newspaper cuttings to piece together the facts about my great-great-grandfather Thomas Courtain Chivers.
In the late Victorian era, he was the coroner’s officer in East London, officiating at murder inquests and trials for nearly 50 years. He was also the undertaker for Poplar, so it’s likely he buried many of Danny’s ancestors.
In the TV series, comedian Paul Merton found himself in a Cardiff cemetery, standing by an unmarked grave, under an umbrella and in a downpour. His grandmother, the wife of a World War I veteran, died in childbirth. Merton looked devastated and it was a sad reminder that not every family story ends with a coat of arms.
During a visit to the College of Arms, Andrew Lloyd Webber took the opportunity to suggest that it was about time he was given an official family crest. He imagined something feline, in honour of his musical Cats. “We need to stop people having too many domestic pets,” the college’s heraldry expert replied tartly.
As Lord LW already knew his family tree, the BBC’s experts treated it as a challenge and unearthed a colourful collection of ancestors whose existence he had never suspected. Among them were a Victorian missionary whose life was dedicated to saving East End prostitutes and a soldier who fought at Waterloo.
Pictured: Dame Judi Dench on family holiday in France. From left to right, her sister-in-law Daphne, her brother Jeffrey, her father Reginald and Dame Judi Dench
Sometimes archivists only have to go back a generation. Charles Dance revealed that he knew little about his mother’s past and barely remembered his father, who died in 1949, when little Charlie was not yet four years old.
The episode was a series of captivating surprises, as the actor discovered that his father, Walter, was 25 years older than he thought and had fought in the Boer War, as well as being the father of two daughters whose existence Charles had never suspected.
Dame Judi Dench was left keen to learn how her father, Reginald, had earned his Military Cross and his honours in World War I. She was shocked to discover that on her mother’s side she was descended from a lady-in-waiting at the Danish royal court in the 16th century.
Kate Winslet also discovered a Scandinavian ancestor, although hers was a Swedish peasant imprisoned for stealing potatoes.
Her three-great-grandfather was a former grenadier who became head warder at Dartmoor Prison, while both Twiggy and Tracey Emin knew ancestors who were sentenced to hard labour.
Journalist John Simpson’s great-grandmother, Lela, was a bareback rider in a Wild West show. She would pose in front of a lens, surrounded by electric glass bulbs, while her marksman lover, Sam Cody, shot out the lights. Lela wore red tights so that if she cut herself on flying shards of glass, her blood wouldn’t show.
She was also a test pilot for an early biplane designed by Cody. What a girl!
Wildlife presenter Liz Bonnin was horrified to discover her three-times great-grandfather Francois owned a plantation in the Caribbean that held slaves, including girls as young as 13. “Stop filming,” she ordered the cameraman through angry tears.
Television baker Dame Mary Berry was delighted to discover a 19th-century Norfolk breadmaker. Sir Ian McKellen was delighted to hear about his grandmother’s Victorian actor uncle, Frank Lowe, who made his name on the stage in melodramas.
And actor Mark Gatiss, who enjoys gothic and macabre stories, was thrilled to hear about an Irish ancestor who once killed a vampire and buried its corpse head first under a large stone.
It’s a fascinating story, but what Who Do You Think You Are? shows is that we are all descended from extraordinary people. Of course they are remarkable: they lived through plagues and civil wars, the Industrial Revolution, religious unrest and empire-building. And they were all survivors, living at least long enough to have children of their own.
Discovering their names and remembering them again is not just entertainment. It is an act of homage. After all, we owe our lives to these people.