Iconic pop star Boy George grew up in south London in an Irish family. George expects to find a lot of sadness in his family tree. He knows that his maternal grandmother was found wandering the streets of Dublin as a small child and put in a children's home and wants to find out how she came to be in such a dire situation. He's also heard that another ancestor was hanged in Dublin's Mountjoy Gaol and is somehow connected to Kevin Barry who was commemorated in a well-known Irish rebel song. As George uncovers the grim details of what really happened to his grandmother and his great uncle, he also delights in a new sense of his family being truly part of Irish history.

DJ, presenter and former member of boy band JLS, Marvin Humes delves into his Jamaican and his English heritage, and finds exceptional stories on both sides of the family. Deep in the Jamaican countryside, Marvin's discoveries about the lives of his black ancestors during the time of slavery turn his expectations upside down. In England, Marvin's follows the trail of his great-grandfather about whom he knows almost nothing. But Marvin's research reveals a hero, who overcame a traumatic childhood to play a part in one of the most dramatic events of the Second World War.