'I'm pretty annoyed I didn't know this,' comic says of Who Do You Think You Are? findings

Chris Ramsey has discovered his ancestors’ war records while filming Who Do You Think You Are? – and said he was ‘annoyed’ his family kept them from him

While making the BBC genealogy programme, the comedian discovered that his great-grandad Dryden Gordon Young was a war hero.

He says: ‘I had no idea anyone in my family could be described as that. He fought in some of the most pivotal battles in the First World War and was also captured and placed in a prisoner of war camp in Germany… despite this, he was still one of the luckiest men in my family. 

‘His entire story is incredible, I’m actually pretty annoyed that I didn’t know about this from anyone in the family! And I’m over the moon that the world will now hear his amazing story.'

While making the show – which airs next Thursday, July 20 – Ramsey learned that Young took part in the Gallipoli campaign, and took part in an advance on enemy positions in which the majority of his 1,000-man Collingwood Battalion lost their lives.

He engaged in hand-to-hand combat, sustaining a face injury, on a day a visibly moved Ramsey describes as ‘terrifying’ and ‘absolutely horrendous.

After the Allies withdrew from Gallipoli with a huge loss of life, Ramsey’s  great-grandfather was told he must go to the Western Front – at the time of the bloody Battle of the Somme.

And he spent the last year of the conflict as a Prisoner of War, where he was forced onto a starvation diet as supplies were so scarce.

Despite all the hardship Dryden endured, he could count himself lucky to survive compared to so many of his comrades. 

Ramsey’s grandfather Alf – pictured below with the comic as a baby – also had a distinguished war record.

The comedian says: ‘Alf was part of the Arctic Convoys that took supplies to Russia during the Second World War. The journeys were apparently horrific and Churchill called it something like "The worst journey on earth"

‘They were sometimes sailing in 24 hours of darkness due to the Arctic days and consistently getting attacked from land, air and sea. 

‘Alf was also one of the first humans to visit Nagasaki after the ​bomb was dropped. He had photos of it that were the same ones they had in the war museum!’ 

Ramsey said he took part in the programme because ‘I’ve always been fascinated with how lucky we are to exist. To even just be alive now literally every single one of your ancestors had to not die before reproductive age, it’s mind-boggling. 

‘If your grandad walked out into the road at the wrong time before meeting your grandma and got hit by a bus, you wouldn’t be here… or at least you wouldn’t be you! I absolutely jumped at the chance to find out about my past and see what makes me, me.’

He said he once tried to research his family history himself ‘and it was just miners as far back as I could be bothered to go… it goes without saying that the team on the show found out MUCH better stuff than that.’

The researchers also found that Ramsey’s five-times great-grandfather Gabriel Davies was a footguard at the Tower Of London in the 1790s and his wife Ann gave birth at London’s British Lying-In Hospital – a groundbreaking institution for military widows, servicemen’s wives, or women classed as the ‘industrious poor’  to be able could have their children rather than having to give them up.

However, demand far outstripped, demand, and there was a heartbreaking process of deciding which mothers-to-be would be admitted – which again demonstrated the luck of Ramsey’s forebears. 

Ramsey said: ‘I had no idea that those places existed, and again… if it wasn’t for that hospital and the care she got there… I might not be here today, It’s mind-boggling.’

Following the show, he said: ‘I’m weirdly proud of everyone from my past now, and I’m actually waiting for my seven-year-old Robin to be able to watch the show with me when it comes on. And I’m MASSIVELY looking forward to when he does history at school and I can send him in with this newly found family war knowledge.’

• Who Do You Think You Are? with Chris Ramsey airs on BBC One at 9pm on Thursday, July 20