The BEST episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? season 16
Every episode of Who Do You Think You Are? season 16, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? season 16!
Well known faces within the British media each embark on individual journeys to answer some questions in regards to their own family history.
#1 - Mark Wright
Season 16 - Episode 8 - Aired 9/11/2019
Intrigued by family stories from his granddad Eddie, former TOWIE star and presenter Mark Wright investigates his dad’s side of the family. Discovering Sephardi Jewish ancestry and a master swordsman living in late 17th-century Andalucía, Mark’s journey takes him to Spain where he’s astonished to finds out how his nine-times great-grandfather survived the terror of the Spanish Inquisition, while a less fortunate relative was burned at the stake.
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#2 - Paul Merton
Season 16 - Episode 6 - Aired 8/28/2019
Comedian Paul Merton was very close to his late mum, and he knows that her Irish parents died when she was very young. Her father was a shadowy figure said to have been lost at sea. Paul pieces together his grandfather’s story and discovers that he was involved in some of the key events leading to Irish independence in the 1920s, and that the true circumstances of his death were different from the story that has been handed down. In London, on his father’s side, Paul traces a great-great-grandmother who was sent to prison for her part in an assault... involving a banjo.
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#3 - Katherine Ryan
Season 16 - Episode 5 - Aired 8/19/2019
Canadian comedian Katherine Ryan’s investigation of her family history leads her to a Methodist minister and his family in colonial Nova Scotia, cod traders in Newfoundland, and eventually to her English roots in Dorset.
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#4 - Kate Winslet
Season 16 - Episode 4 - Aired 8/12/2019
Oscar-winning actor Kate Winslet follows a rumour of Scandinavian ancestry on her late mum Sally’s side of the family and is delighted to find that she has Swedish heritage. But her joy turns to tears and anger when she uncovers the extreme hardships her ancestors endured, from famine to flogging and imprisonment. On her dad’s side, Kate finds a drummer boy in the Grenadier Guards and, this time, an unusually positive encounter with prison.
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#5 - Daniel Radcliffe
Season 16 - Episode 1 - Aired 7/22/2019
Actor Daniel Radcliffe discovers that the Hatton Garden robbery of his great-grandfather’s jewellery business was far more dark and dramatic than he ever imagined, while an unseen cache of his great-great-uncle’s letters reveals a heart-wrenching First World War love story.
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#6 - Naomie Harris
Season 16 - Episode 2 - Aired 7/29/2019
Actor Naomie Harris’s dramatic discoveries in this episode inspire her to anger, sadness and tears of joy. On a journey from Trinidad to Grenada to Jamaica, Naomie exposes her four-times-great grandfather’s involvement in the exploitation of so-called 'liberated Africans' shortly after the abolition of slavery, is delighted to discover the identify of her African five-times-great grandmother, and, in nearer generations, uncovers a family story of tragic poverty in Jamaica’s capital, Kingston.
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#7 - Jack and Michael Whitehall
Season 16 - Episode 3 - Aired 8/5/2019
In a first for the series, father-and-son comedy double-act Jack and Michael Whitehall join forces to investigate their family tree. They discover the tragedy that left Jack’s great grandfather (Michael’s grandfather) an orphan. And tracing their line back to Wales in the 1830s, they find out about a Tory ancestor's role in opposing the Chartist movement for wider voting rights.
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#8 - Sharon Osbourne
Season 16 - Episode 7 - Aired 9/4/2019
Sharon Osbourne is open about her less-than-idyllic childhood and her remote relationship with her mother, but as she delves into her maternal family history and uncovers the difficult circumstances of her mother’s and grandmother’s lives, she is moved by what she discovers, from family break-up to a brush with the law. Further back, Sharon is astonished to discover that her great-grandmother was born in the United States, but as Sharon digs deeper in to the story she realises it’s a case of the American Dream gone wrong. Sharon’s great-great-grandparents, lured by the promise of work in a cotton mill town advertised as paradise, found the harsh reality very different.