The series - in which celebrities investigate their family histories - continues. Tonight Esther Rantzen (pictured) goes on a journey of discovery. The TV presenter believes her family history is exclusively a story of genteel middle-class respectability, but there is one tale of a "black sheep" that has always intrigued her.
Rantzen's cousin reveals the black sheep to be their great-grandfather, Montague Leverson, who, following some "financial trouble", abandoned his family and fled to America. Rantzen's investigations into Montague uncover a scandalous story of fraud, bigamy and murder.
Rantzen then goes on to investigate the origins of her unusual surname. As she traces her family back, she is stunned to learn that her wealthy stockbroker grandfather was born in an East End slum. Her investigations into the Rantzen family's rapid social rise expose a close family connection to diamond magnate Barney Barnato, one of richest men in the 19th century...
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