A new TV show called Find My Past starts on the UK’s Yesterday channel tonight at 9.00 pm.
Many people wonder if they are related to someone who might have been lucky enough, or brave enough, to contribute to a major historical event. In Find My Past, a new genealogy series on the UK’s factual channel Yesterday, ordinary members of the public will get to find out just that.
Presented by TV presenter and Strictly Come Dancing 2009 champion, Chris Hollins, each week Find My Past, a programme in conjunction with Findmypast.co.uk, will take three people on a journey to discover how they are related to someone from a major historical event. The programme will follow each of them as they uncover who their ancestor is and the part they played in history, before uniting them to discover how they are linked.
The contributors will set off on a journey each week to learn more about their unexplored ancestry. Each will go on their own unique path to learn about their ancestor and the event with which their relative was involved. Find My Past will make history personal and ignite an interest in viewers to find out if they too could be related to great people from the past.
The famous events that will feature in the series are The Battle of Britain, Mutiny on the Bounty, Jack the Ripper, Dunkirk, D Day, The Titanic, The Battle of the Somme, The Tay Bridge Disaster, A Victorian Royal Scandal and Emily Davison – the suffragette who threw herself under the King’s Horse.
Battle of Britain
In the summer and autumn of 1940 Adolf Hitler’s main aim was to gain superiority over the British RAF and Flight Command. The Battle of Britain became the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces and was the largest, most sustained aerial bombing campaign to that date. As well as the pilots fighting in the air, there were a huge number of WAAF on the ground helping to mastermind the RAF’s next move.
In Find My Past: Battle of Britain the programme will follow the journey of the grandson and nephew of two RAF pilots, Bobby Oxspring and Claude Parsons, who flew in the same Spitfire Squadron, No 66. They were in the thick of the battle in skies over Britain in 1940 and for them the Battle of Britain had two very different outcomes. The third contributor is the great nephew of WAAF servicewoman E. M. Birch, who was an operation room plotter with the key job of directing the Spitfires from 66 Squadron to intercept the German aircraft. The three contributors will meet experts, eye-witnesses and veterans to discover the pivotal role of their ancestors in this iconic event.
Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on The Bounty is a world famous story and one that has been recreated on film many times over. On 28 April 1789 Captain William Bligh of The Bounty was set adrift in a long boat in an act of mutiny by his First Mate, Fletcher Christian, but what really happened on the now legendary voyage? In Find My Past: Mutiny on The Bounty the ancestors of William Bligh, Fletcher Christian and John Fryer, the ships Master, will learn all that happened on the infamous voyage before revealing to each other their discoveries and deciding which of their famous ancestors was really to blame for the mutiny.
Each episode will unearth emotional stories, shocking details and fascinating facts and will show how easily any one could be related to some of histories most famous people and events. Don’t miss the exciting discoveries in Yesterday’s exclusive new genealogy series, Find My Past, when the series begins today (Thursday 20 October) at 9pm.
