Britain's best-loved celebrities trace their family tree to reveal the surprising, extrordinary and often moving stories of their ancestors.

One of the aims of the series is to show how an alternative way of looking at the history of modern Britain and to inspire viewers to consider their families contribution to the making of Britain. For this reason, each celebrity has been chosen so that their journey unlocks a different them in British history.

• Barbara Windsor - discovers that art runs in the family
• Robert Lindsay - uncovers tales of military survival
• Colin Jackson - finds a history that stretches from the island of Jamaica to the valleys of Wales
• David Dickinson - voyages to Istanbul in search of a lost Armenian past
• Nigella Lawson - finds herself in a tale of rags to riches; Julia Sawalha digs deep into Huguenot and Bedouin cultures
• David Tennant - goes back in time to explore his Celtic roots
• Jeremy Irons - researches a family legend of one ancestor who came to Westminster on a donkey