Finding Cyril, Abandoned at 10 | Who Do You Think You Are? UK | Season 1 Episode 2
Who Do You Think You Are?
40,155 views
Actress Amanda Redman unravels her family's guarded past, from a violent Indian Army grandfather to a lost uncle in Falmouth and a surprising Irish Catholic origin.
Growing up, Amanda sensed stories were being silenced. Visiting her mother Joan in Brighton, she learns more about William, the feared Indian Army NCO whose service records list reprimands for drunkenness. Social historian Catherine Hall explains how life on the Raj garrison could foster heavy drinking and rigid control at home.
Focus turns to Cyril, the brother abandoned in Falmouth at age 10 and never spoken of. Cousin Trevor traces a death certificate to Liverpool and a birth before his parents' marriage, marking him illegitimate. In Cornwall, St Leger relatives remember Cyril's daring streak: as a teen he and friends “took a train” up to Penryn, and he escaped to sea at 14 in the Merchant Navy. At the local seafarers' office, Amanda learns discharge books, not passports, served as a sailor's ID. A former girlfriend, Diane, recalls a decade-long romance and their son, Derek, whom Cyril heartbreakingly never saw after age 10.
Chasing the St Leger line to Ireland, Amanda walks the grandeur of Doneraile Court before discovering her ancestors were not gentry at all but poor Catholics from Ballyvoole near New Ross. Church of Ireland records show James St Leger born 1835 and his father John confirmed at the Protestant charter school; Roman Catholic registers then reveal John's 1812 baptism to James St Leger and Margaret Cody. Through the famine, John worked as a steward on the Dunbrody and secured passage for his family to England, leading ultimately to Falmouth.
The journey ends with a moving reunion as Amanda brings both sides together, including Karen, Cyril's Liverpool daughter. Merchant seaman records and old photos bridge decades of silence, and one revelation lands with a smile: we're Catholics after all. A powerful chapter of Who Do You Think You Are? UK that ties abuse, abandonment, and identity to real places, records, and relatives.
#AmandaRedman #WDYTYA #FamilyHistory #StLeger #Falmouth #IrishFamine #MerchantNavy
18 Comments
"We didn't ask questions"
Seems like nobody gave af about anyone else, really. How can you trust or love someone without talking? How can damage be healed? The whole "happy traditional family" ideal is bullcrap, a fantasy, a delusion. It was a prison.
"We didn't ask questions"
Seems like nobody gave af about anyone else, really. How can you trust or love someone without talking? How can damage be healed? The whole "happy traditional family" ideal is bullcrap, a fantasy, a delusion. It was a prison.
Finding Cyril, Abandoned at 10 | Who Do You Think You Are? UK | Season 1 Episode 2
Who Do You Think You Are?
40,155 views
Actress Amanda Redman unravels her family's guarded past, from a violent Indian Army grandfather to a lost uncle in Falmouth and a surprising Irish Catholic origin.
Growing up, Amanda sensed stories were being silenced. Visiting her mother Joan in Brighton, she learns more about William, the feared Indian Army NCO whose service records list reprimands for drunkenness. Social historian Catherine Hall explains how life on the Raj garrison could foster heavy drinking and rigid control at home.
Focus turns to Cyril, the brother abandoned in Falmouth at age 10 and never spoken of. Cousin Trevor traces a death certificate to Liverpool and a birth before his parents' marriage, marking him illegitimate. In Cornwall, St Leger relatives remember Cyril's daring streak: as a teen he and friends “took a train” up to Penryn, and he escaped to sea at 14 in the Merchant Navy. At the local seafarers' office, Amanda learns discharge books, not passports, served as a sailor's ID. A former girlfriend, Diane, recalls a decade-long romance and their son, Derek, whom Cyril heartbreakingly never saw after age 10.
Chasing the St Leger line to Ireland, Amanda walks the grandeur of Doneraile Court before discovering her ancestors were not gentry at all but poor Catholics from Ballyvoole near New Ross. Church of Ireland records show James St Leger born 1835 and his father John confirmed at the Protestant charter school; Roman Catholic registers then reveal John's 1812 baptism to James St Leger and Margaret Cody. Through the famine, John worked as a steward on the Dunbrody and secured passage for his family to England, leading ultimately to Falmouth.
The journey ends with a moving reunion as Amanda brings both sides together, including Karen, Cyril's Liverpool daughter. Merchant seaman records and old photos bridge decades of silence, and one revelation lands with a smile: we're Catholics after all. A powerful chapter of Who Do You Think You Are? UK that ties abuse, abandonment, and identity to real places, records, and relatives.
#AmandaRedman #WDYTYA #FamilyHistory #StLeger #Falmouth #IrishFamine #MerchantNavy