"Who Do You Think You Are?"  Series Three

The third series of the BBC's acclaimed Family History programme moved to BBC1. Celebrities exploring their family trees included David Tennant, Jeremy Irons, Robert Lindsay, Colin Jackson, Julia Sawalha, Barbara Windsor, David Dickinson and Nigella Lawson.  Barbara Windsor opened the series with a true East End journey that took in not only the Pearly Kings and Queens, the workhouse and matchstick girls, but also a trip across the sea to Ireland. Barbara Windsor sought to discover if she really is an East Ender through and through, and the episode began with her search for the skeletons in the closet which made her Mum look down on her father's side of the family.
Born Barbara Ann Deeks in Shoreditch in August 1937 to parents Rose and John Deeks, the much-loved actress began her journey with little knowledge of her family tree beyond her grandparents.  Barbara commented: "I'm a Cockney, I'm from the East End of London but I was always denied the East End because my mother, God bless her, thought it was the best thing. She was a bit of a snob – she wanted everyone to think I came from north London. As far as she was concerned it was very working class and she'd done everything to better herself and get away from that, so ... I've always been denied knowing anything about my past. I want to know do my ancestors come from the East End ... or do I come from anywhere else?" Her parents were second cousins, but her mum looked down on the Deeks branch of the family. Although initially seduced by John's barrow-boy charm, Rose divorced him when he started becoming violent towards her. That was the last Barbara saw of her dad. Beginning with her maternal grandfather, Charlie Ellis, a docker who liked his drink, she said: "When he was tipsy I always knew he was good for a few pennies for a jam doughnut." He entertained in the local pubs as a singer. "I loved Grandad Charlie. He was a real gent, always well turned out, he never swore, a bit of a local celebrity, and I'm sure that's where I got my entertaining gene from." Seeking advice from an expert on the London Docks, Barbara was intrigued to find out more about Charlie's job. He'd started work as a casual labourer in 1916 and became permanent staff 10 years later, constituting a move up the social ladder. But Barbara still wanted to know why her mum looked down so much on her dad's side of the family. Her cousin Gerald told her that their grandmother, whom they called Fat Nan, had been a chorus-line dancer – a "hoofer" – at the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, just before the First World War, when she was aged just 16. Her husband, Jack Deeks, was a costermonger who sold fruit and vegetables (costermongers were the precursors of the Pearly Kings and Queens and wore similar apparel; they had their own slang which prefigured Cockney rhyming slang.) Intriguingly, Barbara discovered a family myth that Fat Nan's mother didn't want her daughter to marry a Deeks either! To follow that line of enquiry, Barbara met Gloria. They both share a great-grandfather, John Deeks. It emerged that the Deeks men were very handsome and charming, but rather given to drinking, which didn't go down well with parents who wanted their daughters to better themselves. From Gloria, Barbara learnt that her great-great-grandfather, John Deeks, had a skilled job – he was a bricklayer. Why then did the family seem caught in a poverty trap? On finding out that her great- and great-great-grandfathers were from the East End, Barbara commented: "What I most loved about meeting Gloria was finding out that I've got two more generations of East Enders in me, as Mummy always denied me being a Cockney, and I feel like I might be a true East Ender." To find out more, Barbara visited the London Metropolitan Archive and found that the East End of London fell into decline in the course of the 19th century as burgeoning industry led to pollution and cramped living conditions, resulting in bad hygiene, poor health and high mortality. John Deeks (1834-1909) would have faced fierce competition for work. By 1889, he was in the workhouse, where he spent much of the last 20 years of his life. None of his 10 children seemed able to help him. Barbara said: "It's just made me sad. I thought going that far back it wouldn't affect me, you know, but it has, 'cause it's me, it's part of me..." Was her mother's family as poor as her father's? Barbara found out that her great-grandmother, Mary Ann Ellis, was a matchbox-maker, probably at the Bryant & May factory in Bow in the early 1880s. She worked from home, on piecework, with her children helping out. Her home was in Old Nichol Street, in one of the worst slums in London. Old Nichol Street was close to where the Deeks lived so the families probably knew each other. Barbara was fascinated to hear that it was more than likely that Mary Ann was involved in one of the first significant strikes in English industrial history – the matchgirls' strike of 1888. She also learnt that 90 per cent of the workers were Irishwomen, and found out from her grandfather's birth certificate that her mother's maiden name was Collins. The 1871 census brought a wonderful surprise – that her great-grandmother hailed from Cork. Barbara travelled to Cork and discovered that Mary Ann's parents emigrated from Ireland to the East End of London at some point between 1846 and 1850 – a period of mass emigration from Ireland on account of the notorious potato famine. She pondered their situation: "I have two thoughts about this: one that it's good that William got his family out, to London, but the other is that he had a very good living, he was lower middle class, a cabinet maker, and I should imagine it was quite a good life, and this beautiful place Cork, look at it... to have to leave this because of famine and go to the slums of London – that must have been so hard. I'm sure he wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it was ... it is a tragedy to leave this beautiful place. I've fallen in love with it." Meanwhile, news came of an even earlier relative, her great-great-great-grandfather Golding Deeks, a bricklayer born in Bures, Suffolk, in 1806. Interestingly, it turned out that the name Golding was his mother's maiden name, and that it was a family tradition to give a boy his mother's surname as his Christian name. Barbara ended her journey feeling proud of her roots, and proud of the fact that her ancestors were all grafters – which explains where she gets her hard-working gene from!
Robert Lindsay
Actor Robert Lindsay was the second  celebrity featured in the series.  Renowned for his role as the long-suffering father of the house in My Family, Robert now journeys back in time to find out more about his own family in Derbyshire.   Robert is intrigued to know more about both his grandfathers' heroic actions in the First World War – and he is not disappointed. His journey takes him to the shores of Gallipoli to get to the bottom of a long-standing family myth.   There is also sadness as he finds out that his grandmother had two daughters, Patricia and Beryl, who died very young. Robert visits Patricia's grave and is astounded and hugely moved to discover that, by sheer coincidence, the day of his visit is the 67th anniversary of her burial, which took place on 20 June 1939.
Robert, whose real name is Robert Lindsay Stevenson, comes from a working-class family which, on both sides, has lived for generations in the small Derbyshire mining town of Ilkeston. Several relatives still live there.   Robert's father, Norman Stevenson, was a joiner before he retired, and his mother, Joyce, worked in a stocking factory. Sadly, Joyce died from a heart attack in 2000. Robert remembers family life in the early years as being about hard work and play in a close-knit community where everyone lived in houses built and owned by the town's principal employer, Stanton's Ironworks, where generations of the family worked.   Robert begins his genealogical journey by talking to his father about the family's history. He shows Robert photos of his maternal grandparents, Hannah and Raymond, both of whom Robert knew as a child. Raymond had served on the battleship HMS Prince of Wales during the First World War and had seen action, during which he sustained injuries which made him deaf. There was a family story that he'd been in a big naval battle, that the ship had sunk and that the rescue ship was also subsequently sunk.   Robert didn't know his paternal grandfather, Jesse, but he finds out that he was a stoical, hard-working man who also saw action in the First World War, fighting with the Sherwood Foresters Regiment as a Private and losing a finger in action at Armentières in 1916.  On discovering his grandfather served in – and survived – the trenches in France, Roberts muses: "I really wish I'd known him now – I really do. I think I'd like to know what really happened to him ... it would help give me more of a picture of him as a human being, as a person."  Invalided out of the military, Jesse returned to Ilkeston but his working conditions were scarcely less dangerous than at the front – he was put to work manufacturing bombs for the war effort.   Robert returns to the story of his maternal grandfather, Raymond Dunmore, and the family myth about his First World War service. Raymond's wife, Hannah, was a large, dark, beautiful woman with a fiery temperament. Raymond was small – just over 5ft tall – and quiet, with an artistic bent: he was a capable painter in oils of landscapes and birds.   To find out more about this apparently unlikely relationship, Robert visits his mother's surviving sisters, Grace and Elsie, who also still live in Ilkeston. From them he discovers that Raymond and Hannah had had two other daughters but, sadly, they'd died at a very young age: Beryl died at 11 months and Patricia at the age of three, both from pneumonia, a common killer of the very old and very young among the poor in the Thirties. Because of the high infant mortality rate of the time, Beryl and Patricia were buried in common graves.   Grace and Elsie also tell Robert that, before she married Raymond, Hannah had a son called Bert. He appeared at the house once, but the sisters never saw him again. Robert tries to find out more about him but, because Hannah never named the father on Bert's birth certificate, he is unable to research this any further.  Taking in all this new information, Robert says: "I'm intrigued now to find out a bit more about the mysterious Bert... and these two young girls. It's something that they haven't wanted to talk about until this moment of release, this programme, me doing this – 'oh, we can now say it', you know. Because no one has ever talked about this as long as I can remember."   Robert is able to unravel the family myth surrounding Raymond, though. He discovers that the ship he served on in the Great War, HMS Prince of Wales, wasn't sunk at all. But she was involved in the disastrous landings at Gallipoli in 1915 and it was there that grandfather Raymond, working on the boats that towed the landing craft carrying the Anzac troops to shore, was injured. It was his tow boat that had sunk, not the battleship, although the injuries he sustained were real enough.  From all he learns, Robert feels impressed by how lucky his parents and grandparents had been to survive the wars and how lucky he himself has been not to have lived through such testing times.   Reflecting on the whole experience of Who Do You Think You Are?, the actor says: "I think everyone should do this, it's very cathartic. It's very good for the soul because you can't run away, your past will always be with you. Families are fascinating and they're full of secrets and surprises. There's no such thing as an ordinary family.  "I feel what I've learned from this is a sense of where I come from and being proud of where I come from. You know, I had to change things because I wanted to be an actor, and therefore I had to change my speech. Little did I know that by doing that I was changing my attitudes towards where I came from and where I wanted to go. I suspect now I should have been a little bit prouder of these people."
Colin Jackson
The World, Commonwealth and European hurdles champion, Colin Jackson, is the third famous face to feature in this series. Although Cardiff born and bred, Colin is fascinated to find out more about his Jamaican roots and, in a first for this programme, he undertakes a DNA test to ascertain his true genetic origins – to discover that he's seven per cent Native American is something of a surprise!   On a journey of discovery that encompasses slavery, emancipation and a link to the Panama Canal, Colin is genuinely moved, but also reassured to find that some of his own personality traits – particularly the determination and focus that led him to win so many titles – were probably passed down through his forefathers.
Born Colin Ray Jackson on 18 February 1967 in Cardiff, Colin feels a Welshman through and through, but he is descended from Jamaican immigrants. For him, the 'Who Do You Think You Are?' journey was a great opportunity to learn about his rich ethnic heritage. He even decided to take a DNA test to find out more about where his roots lay.   While waiting for the results of the test, Colin started his research by talking to his family. The first family member to come to the UK was his maternal grandfather, the splendidly named Everil Emmanuel Augustus Dunkley, known as Dee. He arrived from Jamaica in 1955, settling in Cardiff because of the work opportunities provided by the coal and steel industries.   His wife, Maria Rosyln, was born in Panama and had returned there from Jamaica to look after her own sick father when Colin's mum, Angela, was 14 years old. Unfortunately, their marriage broke down. Dee then moved the children to set up a new life in Wales. Maria Roslyn tried for, but was not able to gain, custody of her children so did not see them for 40 years until she finally visited them in Wales.   Dee's four-bedroom home in Wales had enough space to house Angela, her sister, Winsome, and their brother, Tony. The spare room was let to fellow immigrants and one of them, Ossie, who came over in 1962, fell in love with Angela. Ossie and Angela married and settled down to start a family in Cardiff.   Colin decided to go to Jamaica to look into his father's side of the family. He hadn't been there for many years but, although a bit nervous, was spurred on by the results of his DNA test, which revealed him to be 55 per cent sub-Saharan African, 38 per cent European and seven per cent Native American – the last result coming as quite a surprise!   Colin's seven per cent Native American DNA showed that he is descended from the Tainos. Jamaica was first colonised by the Spaniards and their arrival spelled the end for the native Taino Indians. Some managed to survive inland, but most succumbed to the sword and the diseases brought by the European invaders. When the British took the island from Spain in 1655, they established sugar plantations and began to import slaves from Africa to work them.   The Tainos mixed with slaves who had escaped from the Spanish and who made their own "Maroon" communities, so it's possible that Colin's remote ancestors were Maroons. So successful were the Maroons that in 1739, the British drew up a formal treaty with them in order to legitimise their self-government, although rebellions continued throughout the 18th century. Learning this, Colin wondered whether it could be the root of his own rebellious and determined nature.   On discovering that he has genetic links to the rebellious Maroons, Colin muses: "The fieriness that the Maroons had, first with their fight with the Spanish and then the English, I think I've got that in me now. Because when I lined up on many occasions to compete for Great Britain, it took a lot of heart and soul to get out there and to really be at war with my competitors... I feel really proud that I'm still linked genetically to the first settlers of Jamaica."    At the Spanish Town Record Office, Colin traced his paternal grandmother, Marie Wilson, and her parents, Jacob and Eugenia. Colin's own father still has cousins living on the island – Speedy, Alderman and Justin – and they were able to tell Colin a bit more about his great-grandparents, who had 10 children in all. What's more, it turns out that a sporting streak runs in the family: two close forebears were called Speedy, and a first-cousin-once-removed had been a boxer.   Archives going back earlier than the 1880s in Jamaica are rare, but local genealogist Cynthia Roser was able to track down Colin's' great-great-great grandfather, Adam Wilson Senior, who died in 1849. He was almost certainly born a slave and was the property of the Greenmount plantation and slave owner Valentine Dwyer.   Colin says: "When you actually read that your forefathers actually belonged to somebody, it is something that's fact; I can't hide from that fact. We've all known what happened during slavery so I can't comment too negatively on that as it spoils the whole emotion of the pleasurable side... which is to find my forefathers... to go that far is really special. So yes, I hate the fact they were slaves but it's great to know where they existed and where everything truly began."   Adam would have become emancipated with the Abolition of Slavery by the British in 1834. Following Abolition, the Moravian Church bought a former plantation at a place called Maidstone and converted it into smallholdings for freed slaves to work. Adam had one such plot here and it turns out that he worked hard enough on his land to be able to buy another plot.   After tracking down the land that Adam owned after emancipation, Colin declares: "It's just an amazing feeling to know that this was the land that your forefathers out of slavery first acquired. He had to work hard to get this piece of land, and to be actually standing on it and be looking around the whole acreage... it is very very special; it is a unique experience – words cannot explain how it feels inside. Truly, truly amazing."   Colin then turned his attention to his mother's ancestry. He had a photograph of his maternal grandmother, whose skin was strikingly light. From her birth certificate he learned that his great-grandparents were Richard Augustus Packer and Gladys Campbell, the latter born in 1888. The surname Campbell suggested a Scottish link – already supposed by family tradition – and a little more research revealed his maternal great-great grandparents to be Duncan M Campbell and Albertina Wallace.   There was a sizeable Scottish community in Kingston in the 19th century and, after some initial difficulty, Colin was able to identify his great-great grandfather as a Scot belonging to that community. The family fell on hard times, though, after the earthquake of 1907 that devastated Kingston. He couldn't trace a death certificate for Albertina, nor was he able to establish for sure why Richard and Gladys moved to Panama, although the most likely reason is that they went there in search of work.   At the Miraflor Museum in Panama, Colin looked for evidence that Richard and Gladys worked on the Canal. A search for Gladys drew a blank, but Richard turned up trumps: he was listed as working for six months in 1905 for the canal company as a hospital attendant at $25 a month. He then left its employ, but Colin knew that he and his wife remained in Panama where their daughter, his grandmother Maria, was born in 1921. She was taken by Gladys to complete her education in Jamaica, but returned to look after her father in Panama when he fell ill.   After learning that Richard worked at the Panama Canal, Colin comments: "It is really breath-taking when you see how the whole structure of this canal works. I am pretty proud to be able to say that my forefathers had something to do with it."   As he lays flowers on his grandmother's grave in Panama, Colin reflects on the turbulent times both sides of his family's forebears lived through, and on the rich cultural and ethical cocktail that shaped him: "The whole journey itself for me was fascinating to do and I'm very pleased that I can bring all this to my family."
David Tennant
The Doctor Who star David Tennant follows in his grandfather's footsteps as he traces his family history in the fourth episode. He's certainly a well-known Scot – and very proud of these roots he is, too – but there's also a link with Northern Ireland which results in a sometimes challenging personal journey for him.   David discovers previously unknown family links to the Highland clearances, hears wonderful stories about his famous football player grandfather and beauty queen grandmother, and meets cousins anew over the Irish Sea.
David Dickinson
Antiques expert and TV presenter David Dickinson was adopted at birth, something he only discovered by chance at the age of 11. His adoptive parents told him his birth mother's name, Eugenie Gulessarian, and that she had Armenian roots.    Although he did a little research into his family tree during his twenties, David is very keen to find out more and goes in search of his Armenian heritage. He uncovers similarities with his ancestors, both in looks and the work he undertook in the textile industry during his younger years. He also discovers a long-lost relative who is able to tell him even more about his family.
David's ancestral quest has been especially meaningful for him because he was adopted. His parents, Jim and Joyce Dickinson, adopted him as a baby – something he didn't find out until he was about 11 years old. But he confesses he had always felt different.    From an early age David showed a sharp business instinct, but he didn't immediately go into antiques. When he left school at 14 he first worked as an apprentice in an aircraft factory, though he left after only six months for a job in the textile industry, following – though he didn't know it at the time – in his real grandfather's footsteps.    Once he had discovered, by chance, that he was adopted, Jim and Joyce explained that his birth mother was an Armenian called Eugenie Gulessarian who had lived locally. David was neither distressed nor even particularly surprised by these revelations, and it wasn't until he was in his twenties that he made any attempt to track Eugenie down. Although they corresponded by letter and talked on the phone, they never actually met in person. She died in 1989. David explains: "I think as a little boy, having found out that I came from this Armenian stock I've always wanted to know more about it and as I got into my twenties and thirties I did find out more but eventually that came to a stop. So I'm hoping that this programme will take me the full journey."    David was curious about his birth family and his Armenian roots. When he acquired some photographs of his birth mother, who was known as Jenny, and her parents, Hrant and Marie-Adelaide, he was struck by how similar in appearance they were to him.    And the similarities didn't end there. Hrant had been a successful textiles entrepreneur in Manchester, having arrived from Constantinople in 1904. Manchester had had close trade links with Turkey through the textile industry since the 1840s and when Hrant arrived there was already an established Armenian community. He joined an uncle who already lived in Manchester and was running a family business exporting cotton and other fabrics to Turkey. By coincidence, the address of grandfather Hrant's business turned out to be just a stone's throw from where David worked when he was in the textile trade.    At the local Armenian Church, David found records of Jenny's baptism and those of her brother and sister, John and Marie, as well as an entry for Hrant and Marie-Adelaide's marriage. He also found the address of Hrant's family home in the village of Great Warford, only 20 minutes' drive from David's own home. He paid a visit, and was shown round by the present owner. David admits he is fascinated with grandfather Hrant: "I have always felt I had been close to him as a little boy. And I think I feel a lot of understanding for him. I can see the slight old fashioned-ness. I can see the slight toughness. It is in me ... and I think I've always looked towards him and, as a teenager growing up, I always – rather silly I suppose – I modelled myself on him."    Hrant was not particularly happy, however. His marriage to Marie-Adelaide (who, according to family folklore, was French) was stormy, and there were terrible rows. Finally, Marie-Adelaide left him for a man with whom she'd been having an affair, but Hrant gained custody of the children. When David checked in the Manchester Records Office, he found that his grandmother was born Marie-Adelaide Jackson, the daughter of a Moss Side baker, so there was no hint of French blood. The records further showed that Hrant divorced her for adultery with a man called Frederick Williams.    There was more to come. Through his cousin, Mark Gulessarian, the son of David's uncle, John, David learned from Hrant's will that at the time of his death in 1963 his fortune had declined radically, perhaps on account of the slump in trade that followed the Second World War. He died a relatively poor man.    David travelled to Istanbul to trace Hrant's ancestors. He was told that the Turks' resentment of the Armenians was so strong that thousands died through persecution between 1894 and 1897. Massacres of the Armenians, which occurred from 1915 to 1917, are known as the Armenian Genocide and two million are thought to have perished. In Istanbul, where the Western press was well-established and there was a strong European influence and presence, Armenians could live in relative safety; the massacres took place in the remote east of the country. However, officially, Turkey still fails to acknowledge what took place and discourages research into the genocide.    David is relieved to find out that his great-grandparents didn't die in these massacres. He found a funeral certificate for his great-grandfather, Boghos, from which he learned that he died aged 63 of dysentery at the holiday resort of Yenimahalle, on the Bosphorus.    David enlisted the help of a local historian to find out more about the family business. He discovered that the premises used by his family still exist and are still used by textile traders, though the Gulessarian business petered out in the late Twenties. The chances that any of the Gulessarian family still remained in the city were slim, but David decided to place a series of adverts in the local Armenian newspaper. Initially there was no response, but towards the end of David's visit a gentleman called Hacik Guleser contacted the newspaper. He turned out to be David's third cousin. The family had dropped the name Gulessarian in the Thirties and adopted the more Turkish-sounding name of Guleser.    So, through David and Hacik, the Gulesssarian family line continues. "Most people will have their mother and father, brought up in Doncaster or Yorkshire, wherever it may be, and will know their roots and never question them," says David. "In my case, there has always been a question about my roots because there's never been a certainty what it's all about." As he ends his journey, David concludes: "I've come full circle now. I can sense a certain toughness in them. It's in me. Since I was 11 I've been chasing the Gulesserian name. Maybe I've had something to prove."
Information from BBC Press Office.