The BBC have now released the names of the celebrities taking part in the forthcoming 10th TV series of Who Do You Think You Are?
Much anticipated by family historians, the programme has no schedule date as yet but this is expected to be announced shortly. In the meantime, the celebrities to be featured include Mary Berry, Brian Blessed, Julie Walters, Billy Connolly, Martin Shaw, Tamzin Outhwaite, Twiggy, Reggie Yates, Brendan O'Carroll and Sheridan Smith.
It promises to be another great series and shows that even after a decade, the programme is still as popular as ever with us family historians. Will you be watching this summer and which celebrity are you most looking forward to seeing?
Mary Berry will be one of the celebrities featured on Who Do You Think You Are? this summer
The team behind the Who Do You Think You Are? Live event have just announced the third celebrity appearing at the Olympia Show in February.
Former Eastenders actor Larry Lamb will be appearing in the Celebrity Theatre at 'Who Do You Think You Are? Live' on Friday 21st February along with series creator and Executive Producer, Alex Graham, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 'Who Do You Think You Are?' series.
Alex and Larry (who appeared in the series in 2011) will also be joined by several members of the production team. There will be an in-depth conversation on how the series is made, a look at some personal highlights and the team will reveal some of the secrets from behind the scenes.
Tickets are available on the day but you can guarantee a seat in advance if you wish.
More details can be found on the Who Do You Think You Are? Live website.
The penultimate episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are? features iconic 60s singer, songwriter and actress Marianne Faithfull.
60s iconic star Marianne Faithfull
The programme looks to be concentrating on her maternal side who were of Austro-Hungarian aristocratic descent. The 'von Sacher-Masoch' family contained a number of writers and literary experts and Marianne's grandfather was also a war hero for Germany in the First World War. This partly kept them from Nazi persecution as they had some Jewish forebears in the family but their existence in Vienna in the 1940s was precarious as they quietly opposed the regime, distributing anti-Nazi leaflets.
It promises to be another interesting episode and is on BBC1 tonight at 9pm. If you'd like a preview, there's an interesting article on TheGenealogist at http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/wdytya2013_faithfull.php
Last night's episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' featuring Nitin Ganatra was a real international trip crossing continents. Nitin's family history journey involved visiting both Kenya and India as he explored the lives of his ancestors. It was an emotional journey as the tale showed the hard lives of his forebears as they worked on the Kenyan Railway and also battled to escape famine and ill-health in India at the turn of the century.
To travel back and speak to a village elder aged over 100 years old who remembered the Ganatra family did make the episode particularly fascinating. The poor record keeping in India over the years did make this programme more about what can be discovered through different channels of research, including speaking to elders, rather than the standard record sources we normally see used by the celebrities.
All told it was a very unusual but still fascinating episode. Comedienne Sarah Millican is the celebrity featured next week!
A fascinating and emotional journey with Nitin Ganatra on Who Do You Think You Are?
