The Generation Frame

Father and daughter Brian and Holly from Glasgow want to delve deeper into the working-class roots of their east coast family. With Holly's wedding day looming, both are keen to discover their family heritage before Holly becomes part of a new family and embraces a new family name.

Travelling east from Glasgow to Dundee they discover a history rooted in the jute mills of the city and the harsh reality of the lives of their ancestors. With help from genealogist Elizabeth Cunningham, they learn about influential members of the family as well as unexpected links to the Highland clearances.

Born and raised in the east end of Glasgow, Audrey is proud of her Glasgow roots and the strong women who came before her. Having grown up in a relatively small family, with help from genealogist Lorna Kinnaird, Audrey is surprised to discover how large her extended family really is and that they came from far and wide. Exploring the social history of post-war Glasgow and the impact WWII had on her family, Audrey embarks on a very personal and moving journey into the tough lives of those who came before her and how the HMT Lancastria disaster changed the path of her family forever.

On the southside of Glasgow, Laura runs her own online antiques business. With a personal interest in history and Scotland's links to slavery, Laura is desperate to find out where her ancestors came from and what kind of lives they led. She has some basic information from her father, Ian, who went to Jamaica to find out more, but Laura has a personal desire to discover more about her identity. With help from genealogist Elizabeth Cunningham and expert Sir Geoff Palmer, Laura explores the realties of slavery and the effects on her family story. She discovers that had it not been for the bravery and strength of her ancestors, life today might have been very different for her.

Neil is a keen landscape photographer and scout leader living in the north east of Scotland. There has been a long-standing family rumour that they are related to notorious Edinburgh murderers Burke and Hare and Neil wants to find out the truth. With the help of genealogist Lorna Kinnaird, Neil journeys through the winding closes and underground world of the old town in the hope of finding out the truth about the skeletons in his family's closet. With rumours explored and war heroes remembered, Neil discovers long-forgotten ancestors who shaped the life of his family.

Red Cross volunteer Heather from Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, has spent many years piecing together her family tree, but she still has questions that remain unanswered. Heather knows her family have followed both ‘the fish and the farm' and now wants to piece together who they were and what their lives were like. With celebrated ancestors through the generations, she discovers there are more heroes than she first thought, and unknowingly she has been in possession of a very special war medal. The harsh reality of war shaped the lives of Heather's family and journeying to Orkney, she finds out the special role her grandmother had whilst stationed in Kirkwall in WWII.

In the highlands of Scotland, Jo wants to unearth the part her ancestors played in Scotland's social movement. She hopes to discover that her ancestors were involved in Scotland's first industrial dispute - the Calton Weavers Strike in 1787. Jo comes south to Glasgow and the place where it all happened. With help from genealogist Elizabeth Cunningham and archivist Irene O'Brien, she discovers the roots of her ancestry dating back to Ireland and her family's immigration to Glasgow. Driven by a desire to share everything she's learned about her ancestors with her father, her discoveries bring them closer together and place them firmly in the history books of Scotland.

Lauren Stewart is a young entrepreneur helping to regenerate the east end of Glasgow. Lauren's work and family life has meant she could never invest the time needed to investigate her own family history, despite admitting a childhood hobby of hunting for ancestors in the local graveyard! As she delves deeper into her past, she discovers the roots of her Italo-Scottish heritage and the often harsh reality of what being Italian in Scotland would have meant for her family over the past century. With the help of local archives and genealogist Elizabeth Cunningham, she also discovers a long line of entrepreneurs on both sides of her family and which is one of the reasons she lives in the old grain mill she now calls home.

On the west coast of Kintyre, siblings Melissa and Philip James unearth a very different family history - one of privilege and influence. The current residents of Skipness Estate, the James family live a very different lifestyle from their grandfather who bought the estate in 1936. With the help of genealogist Chris Halladay, their journey sees them unearth links to the legendary ghost story writer M R James, the upper echelons of British political society, the Great Exhibition of 1851 and even the Battle of Waterloo. But closer to home, a surprise discovery means they can finally get closure on a pressing family matter.