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?
The next episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' continues tonight on BBC1 at 9pm. The celebrity featured this week is a star of Eastenders and numerous films, Nitin Ganatra. He moved with his family to the UK from Kenya when he was aged 3, so tonight's programme has a real international feel to it covering both Africa and Asia as Nitin pieces together his family tree.
It promises to be another interesting episode. I've enjoyed the series so far, with both personal, emotional and historic family history journeys featuring in the series so far. The Nick Hewer feature last week had some interesting historical elements and tonight's show looks like being similar. Will you be watching?
If you'd like to read a bit more about Nitin Ganatra, there's a featured article on TheGenealogist at http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/wdytya2013_ganatra.php
Tonight's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? features Eastenders actor Nitin Ganatra
