I've been researching my family tree for a little over 20 years. I've not found any royalty or anything like that, but there are generation after generation of coal miners and farmers etc, and I'm very proud of it. The 'common' workers have always been the backbone of Britain and I love the connection my family have to these things. I've definitely uncovered some skeletons though, including a m*rder-suic*de, and half a dozen other suic*des very closely related to each other between 1900-1940, which I honestly find quite distressing. On a happier note though, there are a lot of musicians/music teachers and a lovely chap who helped create an orchestra for orphans and youngsters in New Zealand ❤
That suicide comment reminded me that heard that suicides are actually often in bunches. Can happen with families or groups of friends. It has to do with all the attention.
Yep my family is the same. The highest anyone raised themselves out of being barefoot peasants and labourers was owning a sweet shop in the Black Country, and I'm proud of it. We're given a narrative of feeling guilty for British history, but generation after generation of either side of my family have nothing to feel shame or sorry for.
I'm American but my tree is full of farmers, lumberjacks and fur trappers. Suicide in three of my grandparents' families and murderers in two families. Of course, many of my ancestors died in massacres in the American colonies
@@nigelsheppard625 Wow, my grandads family are from the Black Country too ❤ I wonder if they'd have been to your families sweet shop? That's definitely something to be very proud of too, working so hard and becoming a business owner 🥰 Plus seeing happy little kids coming in and getting their sweeties ☺️ xxx
Judi Dench discovering that her ancestor was at Helsingor (Elsinore in Hamlet) was astounding! The Stephen Frye episode was heartbreaking. I cried when he told his family about what he’d discovered about their ancestors.
I'll never forget David Tennant being brought to an old church where the remains of the dead where visible, and rushing to reenact "Hamlet" with the first skull he saw. Even better, he got to play the prince of Denmark three years later.
@@mythgreatbritainto be fair, he did it out of habit, having handled a real human skull given to the RSC by an enthusiast who put in his will that his skull should be donated to the company after his death. Tennant after realising what he did was quite mortified! (Intended)
In my research, I found a Japanese ancestor born in 1503, and when he was 19 years old committed murder. He ran away from home, entered a monastery and became a monk. Maybe as self punishment, he later had himself sealed alone inside a windowless suicide boat and cast off into the Pacific Ocean to certain death. After weeks alone at sea his boat broke up off Okinawa where it was spotted by a peasant boy and rescued by the locals. He later helped to establish Buddhism in Okinawa, where temples he started exist today. I visited them. Eventually I hope to find out who he murdered, and pay my respects at the victim's grave.
in my research i found out when my great great grandfather was 65 he married an 11 year old slave girl he bought for the grand sum of a bag of chicken feathers, so yeah, i only exist because an old white guy like kids a little to much in a time when you could literally buy kids my great grandfather also went on to marry an underaged slave, but my great grandfather was also fond of boys, so had 3 "adopted" sons who all died of stds edit: on the plus side, both my great great grandfather and great grandfather were murdered for there crimes by the locals in the town, my great great grandfather was apparently executed slowly and painfully by starving him to death in prison cell
@@bigfrankfraser1391oh my goodness that is some family history. All of our family’s have some nasty skeletons in their closets we just havnt dug them out yet. The only thing we can do is be better than our ancestors and make the next generation even better than us. :) best wishes
I think it must have been good to know that his father couldn’t help it and that his father’s attitude towards him as a son were not real as such. I would feel like that to me I think.
I grew up with a very abusive grandfather. (He once chased me with a pitchfork, trying to stab me.) It was only much later, after he'd passed away, that I learned some of his history. PTSD explained a lot of what I saw with him.
@@SilkeJuppenlatzI have a "shell-shocked" great uncle, my mom's dad's brother, who served in Germany with his brother, my grandpa, in WWII and when they both came home chose to( well not chose, but you know, did) drink himself to death within a few years back. Apparently my grandpa and his sister in law did everything they could at that time to save him. It's crazy because all of the pictures show a matinee idol looking guy. Which they said only made it worse because he could charm people into thinking he was ok, when really he wasn't 😢
My 4x grandfather took off to France with Bonny Prince Charlie after the Battle of Culloden. He left behind a wife and son. After his wife died he came back to Scotland with a French wife and stepson about the same age as his own son. The French stepson was causing trouble in the town getting too friendly with the women and the biological son got the blame. The biological son took his inheritance from his mother and went to England and changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name. The documents for the name change were thrown into the fire by my great great grandfather saying “any name that was good enough for his father was good enough for him” and the papers went into the fire. One day I hope to go to England and find out the real last name.
a great programme indeed. During lockdown, my son and i put our boredom to good use and went about researching my scottish fathers background in order to identify a mysterious extra sister it was rumoured he had. We never did find any evidence of her but we did establish that his great grandfather x12 was Sir James Balfour of Pittendreich who was one of Mary Queen of Scots Advisors and had a major part in the establishment of Scots Law. It was quite a discovery and sadlyone my dad never kew as he died four years ago at the age of 84. I am proud to say he too was a remarkable man having served 33 years of distinction the British Army rising to the honourable rank of Regimental Sergeant Major. After I got this news of Sir James, ii went on to do a Open University course on Mary Queen of Scots in order to understand my ancestor and how he betrayed Queen Mary and kept his head on his shoulders!
I started my ancestry in 2017 as I knew nothing about neither my birth mum or my birth dad’s sides. I had been adopted at 4 and been told a little bit of info about them. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I was going to be related to so many people. I’ve had to keep a notes list of all the famous people in my tree and it’s just blowing my mind constantly. Apparently I’m the 16th Great Grandson of Henry VIII through his illegitimate son, Richard Blewett. I also found my way back to Charlemagne, it just doesn’t stop and every day I get shocked at my findings.
To put relationships in perspective, it has been calculated that there have been 117 billion humans EVER. Now, if you start calculating your own ancestors, you run out of humans between the years 884 and 914. By that time, you would have over 137 billion ancestors. This means, we are all family, all related, and while these programs present interesting ancestors, chances are, a lot, and I mean A LOT of people have ancestry that includes all kinds of nobility, royalty, celebrity and notoriety.
That's right, and that's why some of the reactions to being related to royalty as far back as Edward II are kind of naive and overly dramatized. The only impressive bit is the documentation and record keeping where an individual's lineage can be traced back that far. The history is interesting. But, really, a contemporary individual would likely be more biologically related to the stranger who lives up the street than they would to anyone who lived 500 years ago.
Indeed it does. Regardless, it isn't really relevant to you personally if you are related to a king who lived hundreds of years ago as you are going to share very little of their genetic material this far down the line. Finding out I perhaps am a descendant of Queen Elizabeth the first would certainly be interesting to me, but that's all it would be.
All my relatives came from England on my dad's dad sideand never left England to live elsewhere until one bunch managed to book a trip on a ship and my grandfather and a few of his family survived and since they couldn't afford /feared a trip back, they just settled in the states. Turns out the ship was called the Titanic :O
My tree is a mess with there being so many offshoots because of all the siblings my great-grandfather had and since most of my great-grandparents relatives never came over to the US, the information I can gather online is pretty slim. I need to take a trip to italy and visit the towns they lived in, since most of them are still small and the churches still hold a lot of the information on the family. It'll be a huge undertaking and while extremely fun to do, it's also going to cost a lot of money, but I am looking forward to doing it in the next few years.
If you are young and fit, you could do some WWOOFING for accomodation. Usually on organic farms. 4 hours of work and free meals and place to sleep, you could maybe do two days work, and have a full day to research... then repeat... .
My mom's father is a relative of Winston Churchill. I have a letter from the Churchill estate saying her family has no claim on inheritance from his estate after his death.😢
One of my ancestor is Lord Byron and the whole gang of Byrons! He's technically my cousin 4/5 generations back and I am the 3rd great granddaughter of Henry James Byron, the playwright and actor, who created the Panto character "Widow Twankey". Tracing your family tree is amazing and confusing all at the same time. It gives you a sense of identity and makes you question nature and nurture....
He is considered a national hero in Greece to this day. Greeks made a greek name in his honour, Vyronas (B reads as V in greek). And there is a neighborhood of Athens after him, Vyronas.
@@EleniKallimorou I knew that he was admired in Greece, not to a national hero to this day, thats lovely really I just know he was pretty much banished from England ( being a bi-icon he was too scandalous for the Georgians) so he went to Greece and stood with the Greeks agains the Ottomon Empore. Thats really interesting about Vyronas (B & V) 💜
@@kino360studio4 he really worked for the greek cause, he organised funds, gave publicity to the matter in UK, he payed for supplies from his own pocket, he really did his best for the Greeks, my people couldn't be more thankful. There is a suspicion that he had a lover here in Greece, but Greeks of the time wouldn't care much if he was discreet about it. There was no prosecution by the Ottoman state for homosexuality, so I guess he felt safe in the Balkans. Nobody would drag him to prison for his sexuality.
@@EleniKallimorou 💜 The Greeks were always more modern day thinkers and more inclusive than the British. He was one of the first bisexual icons to be in a public eye. I know that when his body was sent back to England, for his funeral the average person came out to celebrate his life, however the peerage families sent empty carriages as an insult.
Hi. I would be so thrilled, if I were you. I think the main problem with Byron, is he was pretty indiscreet. That was what got him into so much trouble. There was a part of him that loved to shock and test the loyalty and acceptance of people around him. His mother was unbalanced, his nurse - nanny was a hardline religious zealot, but also interfered with him. He really had a lot of baggage from an early age. One of the big reasons for him not being able to return to England, is that he fell in love with his HALF sister. And it seems, both felt the same way. That was such a no no. His sister had married an awful man who gambled, etc etc. And once again, Byron could not be quiet. He told people. The WRONG people. But I really urge you to find a book called The Byrons and the Trevanions. Those two families married each other so regularly, that a half sister, definitely 50% fresh blood, probably seemed quite a break in tradition. He was also a great animal lover. He had a pet bear at university, because they did not allow dogs. I think it was Shelley that said he knew he had the right house for Byron, as there was a dog, a peacock, I think a couple of monkeys on the stairs, when he ascended them to see Byron. Byron's old huge Elizabethan style, ancient carriage was sent to Australia, later, and appears to have fallen apart and allowed to rot away. No sign of it, now. For a while, the current Lord Byron was a quiet West Australian sheep farmer, but he only had 1 daughter, so the title returned to Britain.
Alex Kingston should have received at least an honorary mention. One of her (female) ancestors was the owner of a hotel in which people paid the rooms by the hour, if you catch my drift.
I’m descended from a high king of Ireland who was a Viking king also, St Columba is a grandson of his. I’m also directly descended from a very interesting man called Scipio Kennedy, from Guinea. He was captured as a small boy and taken to the Americas and subsequently gifted to the Kennedy family (Scottish nobility) and stayed there the rest of his life and lived until he was 80, not bad going in the 18th century. He was very well treated. I couldn’t be more Caucasian/Scots/Irish and I’m very proud to be descended from him. For those who have watched Outlander, the character of Ulysses is based on him ❤
Columcille born 521AD, Viking raids started in Ireland in 793AD, and the Danes invaded Ireland in 840AD? Not sure that St Columcille could be the grandson of someone born 300 years after his death in 597AD. Columcille claimed to be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, but he wasn't a Dane (Viking).
In Northern Ireland nothing after 1911 as the public records all burned. The only way to trace back is to go by church records. It took me ages to go back to my Great Grandfather. 😂
@@zirk007there’s this thing called a “joke”, it’s were people say things that aren’t necessarily true and do things “wrong” to illicit a laugh. And have you never seen Monty Python?
My 8th Great Granduncle sold out his father & elder brother( and therefore rightful heir) to Oliver Cromwell. As a reward Cromwell gave said 8x Gr. Granduncle the family’s castles. He later sold one of the castles to former PM David Cameron’s ancestors.
Writing from Canada. Our family can trace back my father’s side to 1666. 10x great grandfather came from France to Quebec as a boat builder. He married a ‘fille du roi’ (King’s daughters), sent over to Quebec by King Louis 14th of France, to marry the settlers. Note- not related to the King. Mostly orphans and widows.
We might be cousins. My maternal grandparents had roots in Quebec. Descended from many filles a marier and filles du roi, as well as many soldiers from the Carignan-Salieres Regiment. These were the people who colonized Quebec for France.
I've been looking into my ancestry using online sources for a bit, found ancestors back to the 1300's. There is a lot you can find online which makes this kind of research kinda easy to do. Once you hit a snag in there not being parents known, it does mean a dead end using this method, and to know more, one would need to go out and get into the records themselves.
@@mythtree6348 I laugh at the turkish ancestry because his great grandfather was a Muslim and I find it ironic as boris is an ignorant and a racist yet he has quite a diverse ethnic background.
My dad researched his line. Cornish! 2 coats of arms going back to 1100s. Had an estate near Penzance Cornwall, but the Welsh widow sold up and went back to Wales in C18th. C19th, 3 brothers all tin miners emigrated to America, Australia and Argentina. Related to the Monocled Mutineer. Fascinating!
I have researched my family tree since 2021 and found out on my mums side I am related to: David and Richard Attenborough, Tom Hanks and Abraham Lincoln both distantly though the Hanks side of their families, The Scottish Wallace family that the famous William Wallace was from. My 4th great-grandfather was a Wallace and I think his ancestors came from Ayrshire and my family have said that is where their ancestors came from and John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams the US Presidents. Several of my ancestors were at the siege of Derry in 1689. One was my 9th great-grandmother and her son, my 8th great-grandfather who was 15 at the time. Others, ancestors of my 4th great-grandmother, were either brothers or close relations and they fled north from the counties of Laois and Offaly after fearing persecution by the British crown and changed their surnames and fought for King William. On my dads side I found out I am related to Che Guevara (My great grandmothers family were from the west of Ireland like Che's Lynch family were), Elvis Presley (I am still looking into Elvis ancestry to confirm it), the famous Scottish Hamilton family who one was Alexander Hamilton, one of the US founding fathers and James Hamilton who settled East Ulster with Scottish settlers in 1600s and I have cousins who are Hamilton's. I also discovered my great-grandfather wasn't my actual great-grandfather and my grandfather was illegitimate and just raised by him and his wife who I may be related to as she has the same maiden name as my great grandmother listed on my grandfathers birth certificate.
Eight years ago, I was battling Stage IV Cancer, and decided to research my family on Ancestry while in bed for two years. I beat the cancer, but along the way found out all kinds of surprises...Danish and Shetland Island ancestors that I had no idea existed, and found out by accident that two of my ancestors were the first serial killers in the Americas! They even have a wikipedia page! That part was kinda horrifying. But my kids have a thorough record now for someday (hopefully many years from now) when I'm gone, and they are excited about what they know, and I now can trace my dad's family back hundreds of years. We never knew anything about them in his lifetime except back to his grandfather. I highly recommend tracing your ancestry. For health reasons AND for the comfort of knowing where you come from
Congratulations on proving to yourself that you are stronger than cancer!! Do you think that since you kept yourself busy investigating your ancestors was a good thing so your mind wasn't just thinking about the cancer?
@@carolinagallegos3926 Definitely. I was thinking about my children. I know so much more now, and so do I. My now 22 year old is the youngest, and he likes to tell his friends that his ancestors were Vikings. It kept me going until I was strong enough to get out of bed
@@joannahimes-murphy6897 and that is why I believe your body strength took over while your brain was keeping busy doing something that was interesting to you and wouldn't allow you the time to worry about the cancer!! You are so inspiring to me and I really believe you can tell others suffering from cancer that they need to keep their mind busy so the cancer isn't what's keeping their mind busy but by doing an activity like maybe searching their own family history to keep them busy, dang, I hope I wrote that right lol!!
@@carolinagallegos3926 LOL. I think I understand what you mean. But honestly, anyone who has had cancer can tell you its life-altering and impossible NOT to worry about it. Especially when you are too weak to move. But my biggest goal was to get better for my kids. God is good
Its interesting to know a little bit of your ancestry. My daughter is related, through Dad, to the inventor of the EKG. Thankfully her grandmother had a chart dating back her ancestry which was passed on to my daughter.
It is interesting to see the reactions of the Brits to having convict ancestors. I am a 6th generation Australian and have two ancestors who were sent out, one from Ireland and one Jewish ancestor from East London for receiving stolen goods. I have often being ridiculed by Brits in Britain and here for having convict heritage however my response has always been that I know my heritage but do they know if they have any skeletons in the cupboard. Convicts were sent out to Australia for 70 years and totalled about 140,000 approx. At the same time in the UK over 200,000 Brits were imprisoned on ships in the UK and after transportation stoped. This doesn’t include those serving time in prisons in the UK. In Australia having convict heritage is treasured as after all our ancestors built the country from scratch and survived harsh treatment and conditions. So if you have convict heritage in the UK from 18 and 19th century, don’t be ashamed, be proud as their crimes were in many cases for survival of themselves and family. The real criminals in my opinion was the society that allowed and ignored the poverty of the time.
And the ones that sent them away were the aristocracy. They did not want an uprising & threats to the aristocracy. Those in Australia were fighters for the common people. & survivors.
I've looked at my Great Uncle, who served with the Australian Army in WW1. All I can say... what a naughty boy. Got VD in Egypt (kept flaring up throughout the rest of his life) Was wounded in Gallipoli. Evacuated to Gibraltar. Got married in London Went AWOL for a month Wounded again in France (appears he was shot in the chest and lost a lung.) Evacuated back to London for the rest of the war Returned to Australia sans wife, where he died of the Spanish Flu shortly after returning home. I've tried tracking down his wife to see what happened to her, but no luck so far.
If the VD kept flaring up throughout the rest of his life, he would almost certainly have given it to his wife and via her, possibly to children as well.
I have a mystery ancestor too. My Great Great Grandfather was Scottish but his parents were both Irish. He was a riveter whilst he was in Port Glasgow. He then moved down to Dunstable/Luton with his wife for a bit, had my Great Grandaunt in Dunstable, went over to New Zealand for some unknown reason, had my Great Grandfather there and then went and worked as a tank erector during the 1943 Iran invasion and died there. I have no idea how he was killed, why he was specifically sent there and not off fighting the Germans and my Great Grandfather died at 64 in 1997, so I can’t even ask him what happened. It’s infuriating that there’s a death record but it doesn’t say what the cause was
This is so fascinating. Most people are related to some form of royalty. My cousins daughter did our family tree on Ancestry and it goes ALL the way back to Pollo (The Vikings). It also included parts of the De Vere Family. It all comes from my grandmothers side and she grew up on the canal’s in Birmingham.
I have recently researched my family tree. My mums side have been in Lancashire for atleast 400yrs. But I am related to Henry Norris (grandfather) Anne Boleyn (cousin) Thomas Cromwell (granduncle) King Edward III (grandfather) Henry II (grandfather) Oliver Cromwell (grandfather) Catherin Howard (cousin) Katherine Parr (cousin) Richard III (granduncle) and Thomas Worsley (grandfather)... who is the current Duchess of Kents relation too....to name a few. I'm also related to King John on both sides of my family, my mums side decend from Henry III, and half of my dad's side (the rest are Irish) decend from Richard Fitzroy.
Of course you and so are thousands of other American and British citizens by the laws of mathematics and the fact the Royal family put it about a heck of a lot. Nothing much to be proud about.
You only have to go back five to six generations to see how many different families you have rattling their skeletons in your family cupboard. We are all related to the Royal family.
My family name goes back centuries and is huge in these parts so tracking down whomever I'm directly descended from could be difficult, I've looked into them myself but it is a hard trail to follow without more money.
4:55 Graham Norton’s great-grandmother was a piker, being 8 months gone when she got married! My paternal grandparents went down the aisle in 1918 eleven days before my oldest uncle was born!
My uncle was on ‘who do you think you are’ that side of the family were always super confident of their Irish roots. He found out that the family legend was just that, that side is English through and through! It gutted my uncle who moved his home back from Ireland to England.
I have been researching for a long time and wish I could go further. I also wish I could be lucky enough to get picked for a show like this to help to go further back.
I was surprised at the reaction to the Orange Lodge. They were common and powerful (Stopped the laws of Manitoba being passed simultaneously in French - though that was guaranteed in the legislation) in Ontario/Canada until recently. The last Orange Parade in Toronto was 1966. Still have a following...
I have great empathy with Sir Patrick in this as my own father suffered from PTSD as well. The man that returned to us from Viet Nam, especially after having been taken prisoner, escaping and being shot, was not the Daddy who I said goodbye to. Interestingly, my mother and her cousin have worked for years on our genealogy and found that we are related the Bordens, as in Lizzie Borden.
Me just commen as muck😂. I was born in the Netherlands and our family tree on both my parents sides have been followed back to the early 1700s in Germany but because of wars lots of historic documents are lost to us! But I'm pretty sure that the largest part of my DNA is from the Germanic tribes. I always thought Boris Johnsons faced reminded me of some...oh yeah he so resembles Willem Alexander the now King of the Dutch.
18:28 Interesting fact which you can see on the document here: That's Kurrent handwriting which was for a long term the standard German form of handwriting. But it was also used in Czechia, Norway, and Denmark.
I have not done much family history stuff, but both my parents have. And I have several stories, like my 3 or 4 times great grandfather who one some land, and he found a place to build his cabin, and as luck would have it, there was already a bunch of logs, seemingly abandoned that he used to build his cabin. Things went well until there was a knock on the door, it was the Native American tribe, who, upon returning from their seasonal grounds discovered that their logs had been used to build a cabin. I can only assume things worked out as I exist.
I tried to research family history, especially since nobody knows what our family name means and isn't very wide-spread, but couldn't find records. We mus heave been a really peasantly peasant family, I guess X)
Most countries have decent records back to the 1800s, it’s recognizing inconsistent spelling and changes in name for cultural/language reasons. It depends on what the one wants to find. My grandparents were great storytellers. I started over 20yrs ago, externally early days of internet research, trying to confirm or denounce the family stories. All have grains of truth more than I would have expected. So far my favourite is the brother I couldn’t find in the 1861 census. Finally found him and discovered he was on the Royal Navy ship that the crew built a local historic lighthouse that year halfway around the world from where he was born, but where my family, his never and niece, ended up immigrating to.
@@rosemarysmith5967 But I also understand in many countries some records were lost e.g. in wars. And in others digitalisation proceeds at a snail's pace. So it's not always easy to research.
I wonder if he has uncombable hair syndrome? It's where the structure of the hair shaft is different than "normal" hair, making it difficult to manage.
My father did a DNA test he is 1c4r from Daniel Boone & is also 3c2r from Pres. Abraham Lincoln. Many people do not know the that these two pioneers were related! My dad's mother's maiden name was Lee. This is why so many historians in the past thought that Pres. Abe was related to robert e. Lee. It is my dad's Lee relatives who Lincoln is related. I call them the "Lincoln Lee's. But also Lincoln's great-great grandmother on his mother's side had a maiden name of Lee.
They could have added better than Whitehall and Dyer. You know how insalubrious royalty is with Dyre amongst your ilk. That was very sad about Stephen Fry's family.
The revelation that Danny Dyer is descended from Edward III was disingenuous. There was nothing special about this - everyone who has English ancestry is descended from Edward III, but not everyone can trace the connection in surviving records. My family has managed to do so, and trace back even further to William the Conqueror, but millions of us are also descended from him.
I have traced my son-in-law's line back to William I the Conqueror, his 26th Great Grandfather and to Charlemagne, 34th Great Grandfather and finally Ferreolus, his 46th Great Grandfather, born about 340--350. I found these connections through watching Who Do You Think You Are, when they did actress Cortney Cox. They mentioned ancestors of hers in the US South, which happened to be ancestors of his. I just took it from there as her ancestors were his ancestors.
I recently discovered I had a relative who ran away from home and joined the Orange Men. Apparently he fell in love with a protestant girl and when he father forbade him from her, the boy simply slipped away in the night. He wasn't seen again for almost 10 years, when he turned up married to the girl, having had 5 children. Some parts of my family still speak about it in whispers.
I was adopted and traced my birth mother when I was 30. She told me who my father was but 30 years and a DNA test later I discovered that I had a different father. I'm hooked on tracing my family history and have been doing my research for over 40 years and yes I believe I have royalty in my ancestors. They all stem from the Cloustons in the Orkneys and include the Scottish Kings Malcolm 1 & Malcolm II who was grandfather to Macbeth, yes that macbeth, The line then also goes back to Norewgian, Sweedish & Danish royalty.
I started researching my family tree this year, come to find out I'm I direct descendant of Obwaandi'eyaag, Chief Pontiac. I always wondered why my very Irish-Canadian family had the odd one that came out so tan...
I am related to Mary Boleyn and the Careys too, and we go way back 😮 ...The Plantagenets, Elizabeth I, Chaucer, Shakespeare, The Spencers (Princess Diana and family), also therefore Winston Churchill. All this after 2 years of Ancestry membership. No scrolls though I'm afraid, too expensive. 2 American Presidents, and Benjamin Franklin's originally British friend who made the silver inkstand for the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I have a Chinese 7th great grandmother and same for an ex African slave who ended up in the Seychelles.
Well, we've always been farmers and innkeepers...all the way back to the 12th century. But I can proudly say that 6 generations back I have a family member by the name of "Mozert" from Augsburg. So I have a bit of Wolfgang Amadeus in me.
When researching my family tree I found a however many times great grandfather who was in the court of Henry VIII and apparently he was not a nice man. More recently in my tree I have evidence to suggest that my great great grandparents on my dads mums side bumped off my 2x Great Grandfathers wife after they started and affair (she was their housekeeper) and she fell pregnant with their first child, my great grandfather.
My family history has been researched by firstly my mother then after her death by myself. And we have found that her maternal granny is a first cousin to D.H.Lawrence and his siblings
Biggest surprise I learnt about my DNA is that I descend from the Kings of Scotland, and my DNA is more Scottish than English, despite me being born and raised in Newcastle
Did an ancestry dna test, found out im related to danny dyer, already knowing im related to jane seymour (or her family) / henry viii's wife, realising im a descendent of a dynasty!
I have done a fair amount of genealogy research. I feel that one of my chief discoveries is that regardless of Ancestry or other records, you need to verify them all. Too many people just make bald-faced lies so that they can get into the DAR., or something. Other times family tales are relied upon. I read an old lady's very confident statement that a relative of mine died at the Battle of Shiloh in the Civil War. He wasn't in the Battle of Shiloh. He died of illness in a prisoner-of-war camp. She wasn't lying; she was mistaken. I did learn that my uncle in the army had been hospitalized for a knee injury. The cause was listed as "hole" "stepped into". Sometimes military records are very explicit.
I was following my family tree on Ancestry and found one that died in the Tower of London. I thought, "What the heck?!" It was Thomas Cromwell! I found in my family line that his grandson, Gregory Cromwell, was married to Elizabeth Seymour- sister of Jane Seymour. So, the only male heir of Henry the 8th was their nephew and all are ancestors of mine. Thomas, Gregory, and Elizabeth were all my great-great-etc. grandparents
Some interesting characters found in my research. Alexander Carew, hanged in the tower of London for treason. Admiral George Carew, and Captain Roger Grenville who both went down with the Mary Rose. Further back showed a direct line to Edward the first and William the conqueror.
You can do it yourself, it's not difficult to find out a lot via a DNA test and online records. I found out, amongst other things, that I have, by marriage, a Norwegian bigamist, who married 2 sisters who were distant cousins of mine, along with his first wife he had 19 children between them, this was in Utah and at that time it was entirely legal, turns out I have a lot of Mormon's in the family, something none of my immediate family knew anything about
You can do it yourself. I did. I started mine in 2021 with no prior knowledge how to do it and now have extensive family research, records, photos and a big family tree. My mum and I did DNA tests with Ancestry and I have made an extensive family tree. I found out I may be related to Billy Connolly through my maternal great-grandmother as my DNA matched to one of Billy's nephews and he matched to several people I am related to through my great-grandmothers family. I found out that my mum is related to Tom Hanks through his Hanks side of the family and that I am also related to Abraham Lincoln due to his mother being a Hanks from the same family. My mum is also related to David and Richard Attenborough and the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright. I also found that several of my ancestors fought in the Siege of Derry for King William in 1689. My 8th great grandfather who was 15 at the time and his mother, my 9th great-grandmother were in Derry city during the Siege and left after the siege ended. My dad's family are related to the Scottish Hamilton family, including the US founding father, Alexander Hamilton and that my dad is also related to Che Guevara which was interesting to find out. Although I did also find out my 2nd great-grandparents were 1st cousins. Not something I wanted to find out but what can you do? They both had one sibling who married each other and had children.
@@DynamixWarePro Ancestry iis excellent great links, it was through a link from them to Croziers blue book and armoury in Boston public library that I really got lots of info going back to the bristol which followed the welcome ship with William penn, combine that with the public records office and a bit of commitment and you can really do a ot, im glad I did it
Researching my family tree i found out that a 16 times great grandmother of mine is Margaret Boleyn, paternal auntie to Ann Boleyn. Also, Edward 1st is my 24 times great grandfather.
About the poor young WW1 officer, whose tank got stuck or broke down and then felt so ashamed... That haunts me, too. He had so little life experience, he had no idea many could 'fail' go on, do great things. So sad
This is the reason my Dad didn’t want his ancestors researched.He didn’t have any reason to think anything like that but guess it was just incase the news wasn’t good he didn’t want to know.
I've been researching my family tree for a little over 20 years. I've not found any royalty or anything like that, but there are generation after generation of coal miners and farmers etc, and I'm very proud of it. The 'common' workers have always been the backbone of Britain and I love the connection my family have to these things. I've definitely uncovered some skeletons though, including a m*rder-suic*de, and half a dozen other suic*des very closely related to each other between 1900-1940, which I honestly find quite distressing. On a happier note though, there are a lot of musicians/music teachers and a lovely chap who helped create an orchestra for orphans and youngsters in New Zealand ❤
That suicide comment reminded me that heard that suicides are actually often in bunches. Can happen with families or groups of friends. It has to do with all the attention.
Yep my family is the same. The highest anyone raised themselves out of being barefoot peasants and labourers was owning a sweet shop in the Black Country, and I'm proud of it. We're given a narrative of feeling guilty for British history, but generation after generation of either side of my family have nothing to feel shame or sorry for.
I'm American but my tree is full of farmers, lumberjacks and fur trappers. Suicide in three of my grandparents' families and murderers in two families. Of course, many of my ancestors died in massacres in the American colonies
@@nigelsheppard625 Wow, my grandads family are from the Black Country too ❤ I wonder if they'd have been to your families sweet shop? That's definitely something to be very proud of too, working so hard and becoming a business owner 🥰 Plus seeing happy little kids coming in and getting their sweeties ☺️ xxx
That's wonderful! What a precious heirloom is the knowledge. Better than any old pearls.
Judi Dench discovering that her ancestor was at Helsingor (Elsinore in Hamlet) was astounding! The Stephen Frye episode was heartbreaking. I cried when he told his family about what he’d discovered about their ancestors.
I'll never forget David Tennant being brought to an old church where the remains of the dead where visible, and rushing to reenact "Hamlet" with the first skull he saw. Even better, he got to play the prince of Denmark three years later.
Yes, great. Play with peoples remains.
@@mythgreatbritain humans play with people's remains every day
@@mythgreatbritainto be fair, he did it out of habit, having handled a real human skull given to the RSC by an enthusiast who put in his will that his skull should be donated to the company after his death. Tennant after realising what he did was quite mortified! (Intended)
Seems a bit ignorant to be uncomfortable holding your ancestor's sash after that😂
@@ULHISYou have no idea what the orange order is or what it stands for, right?
In my research, I found a Japanese ancestor born in 1503, and when he was 19 years old committed murder. He ran away from home, entered a monastery and became a monk. Maybe as self punishment, he later had himself sealed alone inside a windowless suicide boat and cast off into the Pacific Ocean to certain death. After weeks alone at sea his boat broke up off Okinawa where it was spotted by a peasant boy and rescued by the locals. He later helped to establish Buddhism in Okinawa, where temples he started exist today. I visited them. Eventually I hope to find out who he murdered, and pay my respects at the victim's grave.
That's a cool story. I hope you get that chance, some day.
centuries passed do you think there is a burial site?
in my research i found out when my great great grandfather was 65 he married an 11 year old slave girl he bought for the grand sum of a bag of chicken feathers, so yeah, i only exist because an old white guy like kids a little to much in a time when you could literally buy kids
my great grandfather also went on to marry an underaged slave, but my great grandfather was also fond of boys, so had 3 "adopted" sons who all died of stds
edit: on the plus side, both my great great grandfather and great grandfather were murdered for there crimes by the locals in the town, my great great grandfather was apparently executed slowly and painfully by starving him to death in prison cell
@@bigfrankfraser1391oh my goodness that is some family history. All of our family’s have some nasty skeletons in their closets we just havnt dug them out yet. The only thing we can do is be better than our ancestors and make the next generation even better than us. :) best wishes
@@bigfrankfraser1391great heavens lad.
Go find help if you find an urge incase its hereditary ahaha
Patrick Stewart's one I found particularly impactful. So much more relevant for him and probably so conflicting for Patrick to learn.
I think it must have been good to know that his father couldn’t help it and that his father’s attitude towards him as a son were not real as such. I would feel like that to me I think.
I grew up with a very abusive grandfather. (He once chased me with a pitchfork, trying to stab me.)
It was only much later, after he'd passed away, that I learned some of his history. PTSD explained a lot of what I saw with him.
@@SilkeJuppenlatzI have a "shell-shocked" great uncle, my mom's dad's brother, who served in Germany with his brother, my grandpa, in WWII and when they both came home chose to( well not chose, but you know, did) drink himself to death within a few years back. Apparently my grandpa and his sister in law did everything they could at that time to save him. It's crazy because all of the pictures show a matinee idol looking guy. Which they said only made it worse because he could charm people into thinking he was ok, when really he wasn't 😢
PTSD was rampant after both World Wars but these were generations who were advised to suck it up & get on with life.
Jesus the transition from Stephen Fry's segment discussing Auschwitz to "NUMBER 10!" was a bit clunky to say the least.
Yeah! I think you can tell that there was a few years between recording 11 and 10!
My 4x grandfather took off to France with Bonny Prince Charlie after the Battle of Culloden. He left behind a wife and son. After his wife died he came back to Scotland with a French wife and stepson about the same age as his own son. The French stepson was causing trouble in the town getting too friendly with the women and the biological son got the blame. The biological son took his inheritance from his mother and went to England and changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name. The documents for the name change were thrown into the fire by my great great grandfather saying “any name that was good enough for his father was good enough for him” and the papers went into the fire. One day I hope to go to England and find out the real last name.
a great programme indeed. During lockdown, my son and i put our boredom to good use and went about researching my scottish fathers background in order to identify a mysterious extra sister it was rumoured he had. We never did find any evidence of her but we did establish that his great grandfather x12 was Sir James Balfour of Pittendreich who was one of Mary Queen of Scots Advisors and had a major part in the establishment of Scots Law.
It was quite a discovery and sadlyone my dad never kew as he died four years ago at the age of 84. I am proud to say he too was a remarkable man having served 33 years of distinction the British Army rising to the honourable rank of Regimental Sergeant Major. After I got this news of Sir James, ii went on to do a Open University course on Mary Queen of Scots in order to understand my ancestor and how he betrayed Queen Mary and kept his head on his shoulders!
I started my ancestry in 2017 as I knew nothing about neither my birth mum or my birth dad’s sides. I had been adopted at 4 and been told a little bit of info about them. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I was going to be related to so many people. I’ve had to keep a notes list of all the famous people in my tree and it’s just blowing my mind constantly. Apparently I’m the 16th Great Grandson of Henry VIII through his illegitimate son, Richard Blewett. I also found my way back to Charlemagne, it just doesn’t stop and every day I get shocked at my findings.
Im also a descendant of R. Blewett. Hello Cousin.
@@Corgio22 Hi back cousin, if you would like I could do my line down from him and see where your line branches off
I really liked the Kim Cattral episode about her grandfather.
I like Kim Cattral!
@@lordeden2732 Samantha Jones, every gay man’s hero!
Loved that one!!
Clearly, Judy Dench was born to do what she does.
The best bit was Danny Dyer telling the crew to ‘get off my land’!😅
To put relationships in perspective, it has been calculated that there have been 117 billion humans EVER. Now, if you start calculating your own ancestors, you run out of humans between the years 884 and 914. By that time, you would have over 137 billion ancestors. This means, we are all family, all related, and while these programs present interesting ancestors, chances are, a lot, and I mean A LOT of people have ancestry that includes all kinds of nobility, royalty, celebrity and notoriety.
And infamy.
That's right, and that's why some of the reactions to being related to royalty as far back as Edward II are kind of naive and overly dramatized. The only impressive bit is the documentation and record keeping where an individual's lineage can be traced back that far. The history is interesting. But, really, a contemporary individual would likely be more biologically related to the stranger who lives up the street than they would to anyone who lived 500 years ago.
108B 👍
Today's population makes up 6.5% of that 108B .
We should be nicer to each other we are family
Indeed it does. Regardless, it isn't really relevant to you personally if you are related to a king who lived hundreds of years ago as you are going to share very little of their genetic material this far down the line. Finding out I perhaps am a descendant of Queen Elizabeth the first would certainly be interesting to me, but that's all it would be.
I love this show. I know my 10 times great grandfather was Edward Doty, a servant who came with his master on the Mayflower.
Hey cuz, the Texas branch or the Yankees?
All my relatives came from England on my dad's dad sideand never left England to live elsewhere until one bunch managed to book a trip on a ship and my grandfather and a few of his family survived and since they couldn't afford /feared a trip back, they just settled in the states. Turns out the ship was called the Titanic :O
OMG. 👍🏻
My tree is a mess with there being so many offshoots because of all the siblings my great-grandfather had and since most of my great-grandparents relatives never came over to the US, the information I can gather online is pretty slim. I need to take a trip to italy and visit the towns they lived in, since most of them are still small and the churches still hold a lot of the information on the family. It'll be a huge undertaking and while extremely fun to do, it's also going to cost a lot of money, but I am looking forward to doing it in the next few years.
If you are young and fit, you could do some WWOOFING for accomodation. Usually on organic farms. 4 hours of work and free meals and place to sleep, you could maybe do two days work, and have a full day to research... then repeat...
.
My mom's father is a relative of Winston Churchill. I have a letter from the Churchill estate saying her family has no claim on inheritance from his estate after his death.😢
One of my ancestor is Lord Byron and the whole gang of Byrons! He's technically my cousin 4/5 generations back and I am the 3rd great granddaughter of Henry James Byron, the playwright and actor, who created the Panto character "Widow Twankey". Tracing your family tree is amazing and confusing all at the same time. It gives you a sense of identity and makes you question nature and nurture....
He is considered a national hero in Greece to this day. Greeks made a greek name in his honour, Vyronas (B reads as V in greek). And there is a neighborhood of Athens after him, Vyronas.
@@EleniKallimorou I knew that he was admired in Greece, not to a national hero to this day, thats lovely really I just know he was pretty much banished from England ( being a bi-icon he was too scandalous for the Georgians) so he went to Greece and stood with the Greeks agains the Ottomon Empore. Thats really interesting about Vyronas (B & V) 💜
@@kino360studio4 he really worked for the greek cause, he organised funds, gave publicity to the matter in UK, he payed for supplies from his own pocket, he really did his best for the Greeks, my people couldn't be more thankful. There is a suspicion that he had a lover here in Greece, but Greeks of the time wouldn't care much if he was discreet about it. There was no prosecution by the Ottoman state for homosexuality, so I guess he felt safe in the Balkans. Nobody would drag him to prison for his sexuality.
@@EleniKallimorou 💜 The Greeks were always more modern day thinkers and more inclusive than the British. He was one of the first bisexual icons to be in a public eye. I know that when his body was sent back to England, for his funeral the average person came out to celebrate his life, however the peerage families sent empty carriages as an insult.
Hi. I would be so thrilled, if I were you.
I think the main problem with Byron, is he was pretty indiscreet. That was what got him into so much trouble.
There was a part of him that loved to shock and test the loyalty and acceptance of people around him. His mother was unbalanced, his nurse - nanny was a hardline religious zealot, but also interfered with him. He really had a lot of baggage from an early age.
One of the big reasons for him not being able to return to England, is that he fell in love with his HALF sister. And it seems, both felt the same way. That was such a no no. His sister had married an awful man who gambled, etc etc. And once again, Byron could not be quiet. He told people. The WRONG people.
But I really urge you to find a book called The Byrons and the Trevanions. Those two families married each other so regularly, that a half sister, definitely 50% fresh blood, probably seemed quite a break in tradition.
He was also a great animal lover. He had a pet bear at university, because they did not allow dogs. I think it was Shelley that said he knew he had the right house for Byron, as there was a dog, a peacock, I think a couple of monkeys on the stairs, when he ascended them to see Byron.
Byron's old huge Elizabethan style, ancient carriage was sent to Australia, later, and appears to have fallen apart and allowed to rot away. No sign of it, now.
For a while, the current Lord Byron was a quiet West Australian sheep farmer, but he only had 1 daughter, so the title returned to Britain.
Alex Kingston should have received at least an honorary mention. One of her (female) ancestors was the owner of a hotel in which people paid the rooms by the hour, if you catch my drift.
A brothel madam, yes.
Is there something wrong with the word brothel?
@@kingy002 You have to have some flair. Just calling it a brothel is so dreary and to the point.
😮 speed sleeping!?
funny that she became famous playing a woman who was "generous" with her favours 😉
The Alan Cummings episode remains the most gripping one I’ve seen. I’m so pleased to see it made the list
I’m related to Horatio Nelson on one side and a pirate called Jared on the other. It’s no wonder that both sides were British Navy men!
I’m descended from a high king of Ireland who was a Viking king also, St Columba is a grandson of his. I’m also directly descended from a very interesting man called Scipio Kennedy, from Guinea. He was captured as a small boy and taken to the Americas and subsequently gifted to the Kennedy family (Scottish nobility) and stayed there the rest of his life and lived until he was 80, not bad going in the 18th century. He was very well treated. I couldn’t be more Caucasian/Scots/Irish and I’m very proud to be descended from him. For those who have watched Outlander, the character of Ulysses is based on him ❤
Columcille born 521AD, Viking raids started in Ireland in 793AD, and the Danes invaded Ireland in 840AD? Not sure that St Columcille could be the grandson of someone born 300 years after his death in 597AD. Columcille claimed to be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, but he wasn't a Dane (Viking).
i think someone is telling porkies. Its not possible to go back further than 1800 in ireland,1750 if you are lucky. All the records are burned!!
In Northern Ireland nothing after 1911 as the public records all burned. The only way to trace back is to go by church records. It took me ages to go back to my Great Grandfather. 😂
Number 09: to be fair, nobody ever expects the spanish inquisition!
Have you not watched Qi? Stephen Fry stated in an episode that they gave notice well ahead of arrival
@@zirk007there’s this thing called a “joke”, it’s were people say things that aren’t necessarily true and do things “wrong” to illicit a laugh. And have you never seen Monty Python?
My 8th Great Granduncle sold out his father & elder brother( and therefore rightful heir) to Oliver Cromwell. As a reward Cromwell gave said 8x Gr. Granduncle the family’s castles. He later sold one of the castles to former PM David Cameron’s ancestors.
Writing from Canada. Our family can trace back my father’s side to 1666. 10x great grandfather came from France to Quebec as a boat builder. He married a ‘fille du roi’ (King’s daughters), sent over to Quebec by King Louis 14th of France, to marry the settlers. Note- not related to the King. Mostly orphans and widows.
We might be cousins. My maternal grandparents had roots in Quebec. Descended from many filles a marier and filles du roi, as well as many soldiers from the Carignan-Salieres Regiment. These were the people who colonized Quebec for France.
I've been looking into my ancestry using online sources for a bit, found ancestors back to the 1300's. There is a lot you can find online which makes this kind of research kinda easy to do. Once you hit a snag in there not being parents known, it does mean a dead end using this method, and to know more, one would need to go out and get into the records themselves.
Boris is related to Mad King George III, why am I not surprised...
His great grandfather was a turk. That's the biggest shock!😂😂
@@sashsash6679 I dont know why we laugh about these horrific people tbh.
@@mythtree6348 I laugh at the turkish ancestry because his great grandfather was a Muslim and I find it ironic as boris is an ignorant and a racist yet he has quite a diverse ethnic background.
Much like Miguel Portillo Blyth the Spaniard.
That’s a slam on George III. He couldn’t help being inbred and having bipolar disorder. Boris has only himself to blame.
My dad researched his line. Cornish! 2 coats of arms going back to 1100s.
Had an estate near Penzance Cornwall, but the Welsh widow sold up and went back to Wales in C18th.
C19th, 3 brothers all tin miners emigrated to America, Australia and Argentina.
Related to the Monocled Mutineer.
Fascinating!
I agree with Lesley Garrett about the poisoning. It wasn't an accident.
Jack Whitehall’s dad is the star of this show 🤣🤣🤣
I'm sorry. I'm not a Brit so most of these mystery cases I don't know. 💙😍👏🏻I enjoyed watching this video.
I have researched my family tree since 2021 and found out on my mums side I am related to: David and Richard Attenborough, Tom Hanks and Abraham Lincoln both distantly though the Hanks side of their families, The Scottish Wallace family that the famous William Wallace was from. My 4th great-grandfather was a Wallace and I think his ancestors came from Ayrshire and my family have said that is where their ancestors came from and John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams the US Presidents.
Several of my ancestors were at the siege of Derry in 1689. One was my 9th great-grandmother and her son, my 8th great-grandfather who was 15 at the time. Others, ancestors of my 4th great-grandmother, were either brothers or close relations and they fled north from the counties of Laois and Offaly after fearing persecution by the British crown and changed their surnames and fought for King William.
On my dads side I found out I am related to Che Guevara (My great grandmothers family were from the west of Ireland like Che's Lynch family were), Elvis Presley (I am still looking into Elvis ancestry to confirm it), the famous Scottish Hamilton family who one was Alexander Hamilton, one of the US founding fathers and James Hamilton who settled East Ulster with Scottish settlers in 1600s and I have cousins who are Hamilton's. I also discovered my great-grandfather wasn't my actual great-grandfather and my grandfather was illegitimate and just raised by him and his wife who I may be related to as she has the same maiden name as my great grandmother listed on my grandfathers birth certificate.
Eight years ago, I was battling Stage IV Cancer, and decided to research my family on Ancestry while in bed for two years. I beat the cancer, but along the way found out all kinds of surprises...Danish and Shetland Island ancestors that I had no idea existed, and found out by accident that two of my ancestors were the first serial killers in the Americas! They even have a wikipedia page! That part was kinda horrifying. But my kids have a thorough record now for someday (hopefully many years from now) when I'm gone, and they are excited about what they know, and I now can trace my dad's family back hundreds of years. We never knew anything about them in his lifetime except back to his grandfather. I highly recommend tracing your ancestry. For health reasons AND for the comfort of knowing where you come from
Congratulations on proving to yourself that you are stronger than cancer!! Do you think that since you kept yourself busy investigating your ancestors was a good thing so your mind wasn't just thinking about the cancer?
@@carolinagallegos3926 Definitely. I was thinking about my children. I know so much more now, and so do I. My now 22 year old is the youngest, and he likes to tell his friends that his ancestors were Vikings. It kept me going until I was strong enough to get out of bed
@@joannahimes-murphy6897 and that is why I believe your body strength took over while your brain was keeping busy doing something that was interesting to you and wouldn't allow you the time to worry about the cancer!! You are so inspiring to me and I really believe you can tell others suffering from cancer that they need to keep their mind busy so the cancer isn't what's keeping their mind busy but by doing an activity like maybe searching their own family history to keep them busy, dang, I hope I wrote that right lol!!
@@carolinagallegos3926 LOL. I think I understand what you mean. But honestly, anyone who has had cancer can tell you its life-altering and impossible NOT to worry about it. Especially when you are too weak to move. But my biggest goal was to get better for my kids. God is good
Its interesting to know a little bit of your ancestry. My daughter is related, through Dad, to the inventor of the EKG. Thankfully her grandmother had a chart dating back her ancestry which was passed on to my daughter.
Captain Picard really looks a lot like his father. Sorry Jean-Luc, but us fans will not fault appreciating you always. Sincerely, Belgium.
Leley Garrett was NOT overjoyed, she was incredulous. 😡
Boris' family really loved giving their kids the Jimmy Saville haircut... Jesus
HAHAHA!! I was thinking the same thing!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Makes Boris even creepier
It’s part of the initiation process. 😈
Please stop blaspheming!
😂😂
My 23rd great-grandfather is Robert the Bruce. We're still working on a potential other connection to the royal family.
Grear 👏👏 you and at least 80,000 others
Course they are.
Me to through the marriage of Walter High Steward of Scotland to his daughter Marjory
So you’re French.
It is interesting to see the reactions of the Brits to having convict ancestors. I am a 6th generation Australian and have two ancestors who were sent out, one from Ireland and one Jewish ancestor from East London for receiving stolen goods. I have often being ridiculed by Brits in Britain and here for having convict heritage however my response has always been that I know my heritage but do they know if they have any skeletons in the cupboard. Convicts were sent out to Australia for 70 years and totalled about 140,000 approx. At the same time in the UK over 200,000 Brits were imprisoned on ships in the UK and after transportation stoped. This doesn’t include those serving time in prisons in the UK. In Australia having convict heritage is treasured as after all our ancestors built the country from scratch and survived harsh treatment and conditions. So if you have convict heritage in the UK from 18 and 19th century, don’t be ashamed, be proud as their crimes were in many cases for survival of themselves and family. The real criminals in my opinion was the society that allowed and ignored the poverty of the time.
And the ones that sent them away were the aristocracy. They did not want an uprising & threats to the aristocracy. Those in Australia were fighters for the common people. & survivors.
Sad but accurate truth:
Most non Aborigine Australian's ancestors are convicts and some settlers.
I've looked at my Great Uncle, who served with the Australian Army in WW1. All I can say... what a naughty boy.
Got VD in Egypt (kept flaring up throughout the rest of his life)
Was wounded in Gallipoli.
Evacuated to Gibraltar.
Got married in London
Went AWOL for a month
Wounded again in France (appears he was shot in the chest and lost a lung.)
Evacuated back to London for the rest of the war
Returned to Australia sans wife, where he died of the Spanish Flu shortly after returning home.
I've tried tracking down his wife to see what happened to her, but no luck so far.
Ooh I like a mystery, got any names? The certificates are cheaper and easier to get in England and Wales these days btw.
If the VD kept flaring up throughout the rest of his life, he would almost certainly have given it to his wife and via her, possibly to children as well.
I have a mystery ancestor too. My Great Great Grandfather was Scottish but his parents were both Irish. He was a riveter whilst he was in Port Glasgow.
He then moved down to Dunstable/Luton with his wife for a bit, had my Great Grandaunt in Dunstable, went over to New Zealand for some unknown reason, had my Great Grandfather there and then went and worked as a tank erector during the 1943 Iran invasion and died there. I have no idea how he was killed, why he was specifically sent there and not off fighting the Germans and my Great Grandfather died at 64 in 1997, so I can’t even ask him what happened. It’s infuriating that there’s a death record but it doesn’t say what the cause was
This is so fascinating. Most people are related to some form of royalty.
My cousins daughter did our family tree on Ancestry and it goes ALL the way back to Pollo (The Vikings). It also included parts of the De Vere Family. It all comes from my grandmothers side and she grew up on the canal’s in Birmingham.
I have recently researched my family tree.
My mums side have been in Lancashire for atleast 400yrs.
But I am related to Henry Norris (grandfather) Anne Boleyn (cousin) Thomas Cromwell (granduncle) King Edward III (grandfather) Henry II (grandfather) Oliver Cromwell (grandfather) Catherin Howard (cousin) Katherine Parr (cousin) Richard III (granduncle) and Thomas Worsley (grandfather)... who is the current Duchess of Kents relation too....to name a few.
I'm also related to King John on both sides of my family, my mums side decend from Henry III, and half of my dad's side (the rest are Irish) decend from Richard Fitzroy.
Picked up from other people’s “research” on suspect Ancestry trees?
Of course you and so are thousands of other American and British citizens by the laws of mathematics and the fact the Royal family put it about a heck of a lot.
Nothing much to be proud about.
I didn't have to guess who would be number 1, I knew it would be Danny Dyer
I knew that from the Big Fat Quiz of the Year…
You only have to go back five to six generations to see how many different families you have rattling their skeletons in your family cupboard.
We are all related to the Royal family.
But why? He nothing special!
My family name goes back centuries and is huge in these parts so tracking down whomever I'm directly descended from could be difficult, I've looked into them myself but it is a hard trail to follow without more money.
4:55 Graham Norton’s great-grandmother was a piker, being 8 months gone when she got married! My paternal grandparents went down the aisle in 1918 eleven days before my oldest uncle was born!
My uncle was on ‘who do you think you are’ that side of the family were always super confident of their Irish roots. He found out that the family legend was just that, that side is English through and through! It gutted my uncle who moved his home back from Ireland to England.
I have been researching for a long time and wish I could go further. I also wish I could be lucky enough to get picked for a show like this to help to go further back.
I was surprised at the reaction to the Orange Lodge. They were common and powerful (Stopped the laws of Manitoba being passed simultaneously in French - though that was guaranteed in the legislation) in Ontario/Canada until recently. The last Orange Parade in Toronto was 1966. Still have a following...
It's not woke, he'll hate it
@ziggypop8106 Orangemen were far worse than not woke. Determined bigots. I'm.sure you're familiar
I have great empathy with Sir Patrick in this as my own father suffered from PTSD as well. The man that returned to us from Viet Nam, especially after having been taken prisoner, escaping and being shot, was not the Daddy who I said goodbye to.
Interestingly, my mother and her cousin have worked for years on our genealogy and found that we are related the Bordens, as in Lizzie Borden.
Amazing!!
Is Boris Johnson physically incapable of combing his hair?😂
@@JKPippa He does 'comb' it, but by rubbing an inflated balloon all over instead 🤣🤣
King Edward III
NICE ONE BRUVA
Me just commen as muck😂. I was born in the Netherlands and our family tree on both my parents sides have been followed back to the early 1700s in Germany but because of wars lots of historic documents are lost to us! But I'm pretty sure that the largest part of my DNA is from the Germanic tribes.
I always thought Boris Johnsons faced reminded me of some...oh yeah he so resembles Willem Alexander the now King of the Dutch.
18:28 Interesting fact which you can see on the document here: That's Kurrent handwriting which was for a long term the standard German form of handwriting. But it was also used in Czechia, Norway, and Denmark.
I have not done much family history stuff, but both my parents have.
And I have several stories, like my 3 or 4 times great grandfather who one some land, and he found a place to build his cabin, and as luck would have it, there was already a bunch of logs, seemingly abandoned that he used to build his cabin. Things went well until there was a knock on the door, it was the Native American tribe, who, upon returning from their seasonal grounds discovered that their logs had been used to build a cabin.
I can only assume things worked out as I exist.
Only in England can you be called.. Sir Malcom Bollock
How can you show BBC footage?
They don't allow anyone to publicly broadcast their footage
I tried to research family history, especially since nobody knows what our family name means and isn't very wide-spread, but couldn't find records. We mus heave been a really peasantly peasant family, I guess X)
Most countries have decent records back to the 1800s, it’s recognizing inconsistent spelling and changes in name for cultural/language reasons.
It depends on what the one wants to find. My grandparents were great storytellers. I started over 20yrs ago, externally early days of internet research, trying to confirm or denounce the family stories. All have grains of truth more than I would have expected. So far my favourite is the brother I couldn’t find in the 1861 census. Finally found him and discovered he was on the Royal Navy ship that the crew built a local historic lighthouse that year halfway around the world from where he was born, but where my family, his never and niece, ended up immigrating to.
@@rosemarysmith5967 But I also understand in many countries some records were lost e.g. in wars. And in others digitalisation proceeds at a snail's pace. So it's not always easy to research.
Why does Boris Johnson always look like an unmade bed?
Frankie Boyle said you would only have to blow on his hair to be able to tell the time in cunt land. Which is a much better estimation of the maggot.
I wonder if he has uncombable hair syndrome? It's where the structure of the hair shaft is different than "normal" hair, making it difficult to manage.
He's probably never learnt how to make one, would be my guess.
I had mine done, but they couldn't find anything and refunded me...
Lol. Sorry, but that made me laugh 😅😅😅
That thumbnail looks like Stephen Fry is discovering that one of his relatives is Hugh Laurie in drag.
Well you never know!😂
It has been confirmed that I can trace my heritage back to King Arthur’s chamber pot lady. And, I found a spork and pulled it out of the mud. 🤔
B****it!
We're all related to Adam and Eve, if you think about it.
11:46 that change in moods was so sudden it was practically a jump scare.
My father did a DNA test he is 1c4r from Daniel Boone & is also 3c2r from Pres. Abraham Lincoln. Many people do not know the that these two pioneers were related! My dad's mother's maiden name was Lee. This is why so many historians in the past thought that Pres. Abe was related to robert e. Lee. It is my dad's Lee relatives who Lincoln is related. I call them the "Lincoln Lee's. But also Lincoln's great-great grandmother on his mother's side had a maiden name of Lee.
I grew up in the Newport area, and there's a lot of things and places, named in honour of John Frost.
They could have added better than Whitehall and Dyer.
You know how insalubrious royalty is with Dyre amongst your ilk.
That was very sad about Stephen Fry's family.
I think they were the Lams? And I thought Like Lambs to the slaughter, before Stephen.
William the Conqueror was my 26th great grandfather
The revelation that Danny Dyer is descended from Edward III was disingenuous. There was nothing special about this - everyone who has English ancestry is descended from Edward III, but not everyone can trace the connection in surviving records. My family has managed to do so, and trace back even further to William the Conqueror, but millions of us are also descended from him.
You're all a bunch of Danny Dyers?
Did you see the full programme? It was a complete shocker for all, including him
I have traced my son-in-law's line back to William I the Conqueror, his 26th Great Grandfather and to Charlemagne, 34th Great Grandfather and finally Ferreolus, his 46th Great Grandfather, born about 340--350.
I found these connections through watching Who Do You Think You Are, when they did actress Cortney Cox. They mentioned ancestors of hers in the US South, which happened to be ancestors of his. I just took it from there as her ancestors were his ancestors.
I recently discovered I had a relative who ran away from home and joined the Orange Men. Apparently he fell in love with a protestant girl and when he father forbade him from her, the boy simply slipped away in the night. He wasn't seen again for almost 10 years, when he turned up married to the girl, having had 5 children. Some parts of my family still speak about it in whispers.
I was adopted and traced my birth mother when I was 30. She told me who my father was but 30 years and a DNA test later I discovered that I had a different father. I'm hooked on tracing my family history and have been doing my research for over 40 years and yes I believe I have royalty in my ancestors.
They all stem from the Cloustons in the Orkneys and include the Scottish Kings Malcolm 1 & Malcolm II who was grandfather to Macbeth, yes that macbeth, The line then also goes back to Norewgian, Sweedish & Danish royalty.
0:45 was there ever an explanation as to why she was so happy about this?
I started researching my family tree this year, come to find out I'm I direct descendant of Obwaandi'eyaag, Chief Pontiac. I always wondered why my very Irish-Canadian family had the odd one that came out so tan...
I am related to Mary Boleyn and the Careys too, and we go way back 😮 ...The Plantagenets, Elizabeth I, Chaucer, Shakespeare, The Spencers (Princess Diana and family), also therefore Winston Churchill. All this after 2 years of Ancestry membership. No scrolls though I'm afraid, too expensive. 2 American Presidents, and Benjamin Franklin's originally British friend who made the silver inkstand for the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I have a Chinese 7th great grandmother and same for an ex African slave who ended up in the Seychelles.
Well, we've always been farmers and innkeepers...all the way back to the 12th century.
But I can proudly say that 6 generations back I have a family member by the name of "Mozert" from Augsburg. So I have a bit of Wolfgang Amadeus in me.
It's a shame that they don't help the infamous people like myself, I would love to know more about my family.
It is SO STRANGE to see Graham Norton without grey hair and a beard 4:28
Seen Britain's true monarch? By Tony Robinson, M Pinsent must be related to them. they are in Australia (And D Dyer=Plantagenet)
When researching my family tree I found a however many times great grandfather who was in the court of Henry VIII and apparently he was not a nice man. More recently in my tree I have evidence to suggest that my great great grandparents on my dads mums side bumped off my 2x Great Grandfathers wife after they started and affair (she was their housekeeper) and she fell pregnant with their first child, my great grandfather.
Who was your ancestor at king Henry'sCourt?
My family history has been researched by firstly my mother then after her death by myself. And we have found that her maternal granny is a first cousin to D.H.Lawrence and his siblings
Biggest surprise I learnt about my DNA is that I descend from the Kings of Scotland, and my DNA is more Scottish than English, despite me being born and raised in Newcastle
I would want to do my dna after learning this , too.
So, if Matthew Pinsett is descended from Edward I and Danny Dyer from his grandson Edward III, does that make them very, very distant cousins?
I did some research and one of my ancestors was called “Fanny Fiddler” 😂
One of my ancestors was called "Cloak Pawn" Not sure what that was about 😅
Interesting point Boris or Starmer! Depends if you are a pensioner or being laid off work in 2025 due to the pending recession.
Did an ancestry dna test, found out im related to danny dyer, already knowing im related to jane seymour (or her family) / henry viii's wife, realising im a descendent of a dynasty!
I have done a fair amount of genealogy research. I feel that one of my chief discoveries is that regardless of Ancestry or other records, you need to verify them all. Too many people just make bald-faced lies so that they can get into the DAR., or something. Other times family tales are relied upon. I read an old lady's very confident statement that a relative of mine died at the Battle of Shiloh in the Civil War. He wasn't in the Battle of Shiloh. He died of illness in a prisoner-of-war camp. She wasn't lying; she was mistaken.
I did learn that my uncle in the army had been hospitalized for a knee injury. The cause was listed as "hole" "stepped into". Sometimes military records are very explicit.
I was following my family tree on Ancestry and found one that died in the Tower of London. I thought, "What the heck?!" It was Thomas Cromwell! I found in my family line that his grandson, Gregory Cromwell, was married to Elizabeth Seymour- sister of Jane Seymour. So, the only male heir of Henry the 8th was their nephew and all are ancestors of mine. Thomas, Gregory, and Elizabeth were all my great-great-etc. grandparents
My family on my mother's side has been traced back to Kings of Norway.
Some interesting characters found in my research. Alexander Carew, hanged in the tower of London for treason. Admiral George Carew, and Captain Roger Grenville who both went down with the Mary Rose. Further back showed a direct line to Edward the first and William the conqueror.
Looks like the sangreal may be real.
I'd LOVE to get my ancestry done. Been asking the family for years
You can do it yourself, it's not difficult to find out a lot via a DNA test and online records.
I found out, amongst other things, that I have, by marriage, a Norwegian bigamist, who married 2 sisters who were distant cousins of mine, along with his first wife he had 19 children between them, this was in Utah and at that time it was entirely legal, turns out I have a lot of Mormon's in the family, something none of my immediate family knew anything about
You can do it yourself. I did. I started mine in 2021 with no prior knowledge how to do it and now have extensive family research, records, photos and a big family tree. My mum and I did DNA tests with Ancestry and I have made an extensive family tree. I found out I may be related to Billy Connolly through my maternal great-grandmother as my DNA matched to one of Billy's nephews and he matched to several people I am related to through my great-grandmothers family.
I found out that my mum is related to Tom Hanks through his Hanks side of the family and that I am also related to Abraham Lincoln due to his mother being a Hanks from the same family. My mum is also related to David and Richard Attenborough and the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright. I also found that several of my ancestors fought in the Siege of Derry for King William in 1689. My 8th great grandfather who was 15 at the time and his mother, my 9th great-grandmother were in Derry city during the Siege and left after the siege ended.
My dad's family are related to the Scottish Hamilton family, including the US founding father, Alexander Hamilton and that my dad is also related to Che Guevara which was interesting to find out.
Although I did also find out my 2nd great-grandparents were 1st cousins. Not something I wanted to find out but what can you do? They both had one sibling who married each other and had children.
@@DynamixWarePro Ancestry iis excellent great links, it was through a link from them to Croziers blue book and armoury in Boston public library that I really got lots of info going back to the bristol which followed the welcome ship with William penn, combine that with the public records office and a bit of commitment and you can really do a ot, im glad I did it
Yes, believe everything your overlords tell you. There's a good girl.
Researching my family tree i found out that a 16 times great grandmother of mine is Margaret Boleyn, paternal auntie to Ann Boleyn. Also, Edward 1st is my 24 times great grandfather.
My family and I have tried to research. We keep getting stuck. We live in Australia and there is only a certain amount of digitised information.
I found out im related to William Wallace via my Crawford ancestry link on my mothers side.
I remember the Matthew Pincent episode… and literally shouting at the to… no way no way…. 😢
About the poor young WW1 officer, whose tank got stuck or broke down and then felt so ashamed... That haunts me, too. He had so little life experience, he had no idea many could 'fail' go on, do great things. So sad
Nice empathy number one.
My daughter researched us and found we are distantly related to Marie Antoinette.
My family on my mums side are related to George Washington - something she found out recently
This is the reason my Dad didn’t want his ancestors researched.He didn’t have any reason to think anything like that but guess it was just incase the news wasn’t good he didn’t want to know.