Tracing Your Roots is the series that helps put branches on your family tree.
Each week Sally Magnusson follows the ancestral trail back in time to uncover colourful stories and hidden slices of social history. Resident genealogist Nick Barratt is on hand with tips and inspiration to help you explore your own family's lineage.
Programme details
3 September 2008
Secret Wars
This week, Tracing Your Roots is on the trail of untold war stories.
For many, the work their ancestors did in wartime is still a mystery, either because it was done undercover or because it was in a sector given very little credit.
Nigel West, espionage historian, joins Sally and Nick to try to unravel wartime mysteries that have gone unsolved for decades.
Stories in this week’s programme…
Was my grandfather a spy in South America?
Anne Lloyd Hirst’s grandfather had a successful career in naval intelligence in both world wars, but it is his time in between, running a radio station in Buenos Aires, which really intrigues her. Was it simply a cover for intelligence work? Espionage expert Nigel West is on hand to help decode what Paymaster Commander Lloyd Hirst was doing.
Eric Russell lives in California, making his search for information about his great uncle Bill all the more complicated. Bill Underwood’s plane flew on a secret mission from an English airbase, crashed in France, and the crash site was recorded by the Germans: yet Eric and his family have worked their way through the maze to piece together what they think Uncle Bill was really doing.
Jennifer Cranfield has researched all the names on her Warwickshire war memorial, and discovered as she did so that not every one of the village of Fenny Compton’s war dead is recorded there. She set out to find out why not - and discovered a mystery man on the war memorial in the process. Was he a spy?
Ann Bennett’s great aunt was a nurse in World War One, but a single caption on a family photo is all that suggests she was decorated for her bravery. Tracing Your Roots finds out whether Sue Wadsworth was ever given the credit she fully deserved.
To learn more about Sue Wadsworth's nursing service in Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps click here.
And check medal records for yourself at The National Archives. Just follow the link to Documents Online.
The BBC is planning a pan-BBC Remembrance campaign to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Armistice. Click here to learn more.
Tracing Your Roots is the series that helps put branches on your family tree.
