World-famous stars from iconic films including Titanic, Harry Potter and James Bond feature in the 2019 UK season of Who Do You Think You Are?

Thrilling family history stories

The BAFTA-winning BBC One genealogy show is set to head back to British screens for its 16th series later this summer with a whole new batch of famous faces from the entertainment world and thrilling family history stories promising to span the globe.

This year’s stars are film actors Kate Winslet, Daniel Radcliffe and Naomie Harris, music industry guru Sharon Osbourne, TV presenter Mark Wright and comedians Paul Merton, Katherine Ryan and Jack Whitehall, who appears alongside his father Michael Whitehall with whom he has filmed several TV shows.

Movie royalty

Kate Winslet, star of Hollywood movies such as Titanic and The Mountain Between Us, travels to Sweden in the programme and unearths a relative who was a drummer boy in the military, while Daniel Radcliffe, known to fans the world over as Harry Potter, discovers a relative’s letters from the First World War, which is sure to be an emotional rollercoaster.

Naomie Harris OBE, who plays Eve Moneypenny in the Daniel Craig James Bond films and starred in Moonlight and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, was brought up in London by her Jamaican-born mother, who emigrated to Britain as a child, and her episode takes us back to the Caribbean to find her roots.

Comedians

Jack and Michael Whitehall, who are the first pair of relatives to appear in Who Do You Think You Are?, learn about an ancestor involved in the Newport Rising in Wales in 1839, when thousands of Chartist sympathisers staged a mass rebellion.

Canadian Katherine Ryan, whose father was born in Ireland, uncovers connections to the Newfoundland fishing industry in her episode, while Mark Wright, who began his career on The Only Way Is Essex, explores his Jewish and Spanish ancestry. The TV personality is married to series 15 celebrity Michelle Keegan, who investigated her roots in Gibraltar and Italy last year, and Mark’s story takes us to back to the horrific days of the Spanish Inquisition.

Few details have been revealed so far about Have I Got News for You team captain and Comedy Store Player Paul Merton, whose real surname is Martin, nor music mogul Sharon Osbourne, but both have some Irish ancestry.

Colette Flight, of production company Wall to Wall, which makes Who Do You Think You Are?, said: ‘We’re delighted to have this incredible line-up of stars and to have captured these journeys of discovery as they explore their extraordinary family trees.’

Images: Kate Winslet by Chrisa Hickey Flickr licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license; Daniel Radcliffe by Gage Skidmore licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license; Naomie Harris credit walterIan Papetti licensed under under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license;