My Husbands Great Grandfather (born in 1876) was illegitimate and thanks to a newspaper report I was able to find out who his father was when his mother took him to court to get more money out of him!

I too have found references to some of my ancestors in old newspapers. Nothing of interest to others but they gave me a little insight into their lives.

In my case I had a lot of ancestors in London in the nineteenth century, one of which was deported to Australia. I searched for her in the records of court cases in a site called oldbaileyonline.org and not only found details of her case and a conviction of another more distant relative but also found that several members of my family appeared in various other cases when they were victims of, or witnessed, theft.

The details of each case are only a brief summary of events but add a little colour to the canvas of my relative's story and tell a tale of Victorian life in London.

Yes, Sheridan was surprisingly a very lovely down to earth person but I'm still not liking the format of just focusing on one ancestor. I feel cheated!

My g-g-father is quoted on that site - but only in his capacity as a City of London PC giving evidence (and I have his long service medal with Queen Victoria 1897 bar).

After 20 minutes I thought this banjo stuff better be going somewhere bloody interesting, maybe a tale of derring-do in WW1

" Severely wounded .Capt. Smith led his men out of the trench towards Vimy Ridge, inspiring his men by playing a selection of popular tunes on his banjo, witnesses recall the last sighting of Capt. Smith before he was blown to smithereens he was seen swinging his banjo with deadly force at the advancing Hun . "

This was half an hour's worth of material stretched over an hour.

Surely there were other branches of the family they could research. What about her mother's side?
As others have said, only Brian Blessed's story has felt like a proper WDYTYA

I couldn't believe the "picking up a banjo for the first time" sequence. If it was really the first time she had pressed her fingers into some steel strings she would be going "Ow ow ow" for 10 minutes. You have to harden them up with practice before you can stand it for more than a couple of seconds.

The problem is the other relatives might have just been ordinary folks with nowt interesting so not worth following.

Perhaps they've been through all the celebrities with two interesting relatives.

I'd love to trace on of my ancestors. Probably born in Russia as we can't find any trace of a birth record and there's a Russian christening cup but was fostered and adopted at the young age and siblings ended up in a boarding house. Did the parents die or did they stay in Russia. Guess I'll never know.

I enjoyed last night's episode because I really liked her. But I agree that it feels much more padded than it used to. I'm sure it's budget cuts. They didn't even show trying to find out who Benjamin's parents were and why they ended up in the workhouse or who his wife's was, let alone who her mum's family were - it felt like they didn't want to travel anywhere. But I really liked her, her parents and Professor Derek, so I did enjoy it.

If you look carefully at the 1901 census page her second cousin showed her, where Benjamin's wife Sarah Jane and two of the children were in "Birmingham", they are in Smethwick, which I guess is near enough to Birmingham, but under the surname of Brown, with a John Brown as the head of the family and Sarah Jane down as his wife. I would far rather they had explained what was going on there instead of skipping over it and having all that banjo stuff.

It did get me thinking about past episodes and wondering what would have been the most exciting activities the celebrities could have tried to emulate their ancestors. The one that springs to my mind is Alan Cumming's grandfather playing Russian roulette (sorry, I have nothing against Alan, just couldn't resist.)

Sorry but this episode was turgid rubbish. It was basically an excuse to indulge the flavour of the moment, Sheridan "jazz hands" Smith.

Splendid, I love to read stuff like this. I have suspected for some time that they have become very selective on what they present in this programme.

I have always liked Sheridan since 2 Pints, her star has risen rapidly while the other two girls have almost disappeared. However as others have said it was a bit boring just concentrating on one relative. I wish I had watched Eddie Izzard discovering Radar. When is that being repeated?

It's on BBC iPlayer

It looks like Mary Berry next week will be investigating more than one ancestor.

I know in Lancashire you come across quite a number of people who working in Russia for time in the 19th Century, often starting up cotton mills and engineering jobs. I am sure I have seen some who have had children born there, suggesting the whole family went for a few years. So it could just be that someone lived and worked in Russia for a time.

I enjoyed it and had never seen her before, never watch soaps etc. So I don't see why she is 'flavour of the month'.

I am glad I watched WDYTYA first then Castles in the Sky later on my PVR, it was OK but I would not say more than that and I am very interested in radar with shelves full of books on radar, Friend of the RAFADM and visited nearly every WWII radar station in Scotland. I am sure if could have been done a lot better.

ha ha ! excellent

I also really liked Professor Derek - he was reminding me of someone - possibly Matthew Kelly as Sqirrel in Benidorm!

I don't dislike her and think she is a great actress - she's a bit flavour of the month because she was Mrs Biggs (great!) and she's Cilla in the new biog that's due out soon? So just a bit high profile in recent years.

Plus she's she's been in super successful stuff in theatre ... (I don't know what!)

I absolutely agree - I would have been much more interested in that!

I also thought this - not for the sore fingers, but just because if you're mum and dad are musicians there is no way you have never picked an instrument!

Last weeks was the same, dealing with just one ancestor, but thankfully Sheridan's, was much more interesting - with the Banjo playing Arsonist {not guilty}.

One thing that they could have mentioned was that in the 19th Century it was quite common for music teachers to call themselves 'Professor'.