Tracing the twists and turns in our family tree very often involves dusty vaults, dead ends and false leads. But we all carry a key that can unlock a history long lost to us. It's our DNA. 12 New Zealanders have had their DNA tested, and that's going to help them to solve old family mysteries, uncover ancient forebears and even find a fortune or two. Stay tuned for a fascinating ride. Copyright Able 2017. Hello. Welcome to the lab. Now, one thing we're learning on this adventure is that a DNA test can reveal a lot about what our ancestors got up to. Old family stories can lead everyone up the garden path, but a simple spit test can tell us where the truth really lies. We're following two people who've submitted a DNA testing in a bid to discover what runs in their blood. Newsreader Simon Dallow and '90s supermodel Kylie Bax have had their DNA tested, and Kylie is about to discover a link to a tribe that few people know exists. I think this promises to be quite an adventure. To be able to travel the world, meet new people, experience the things that I have, it was pretty overwhelming. (HORSE NEIGHS) I'm David Mendoza. I am your long-lost cousin. Suddenly, you are directly connected to an event that is major in history. Gas chamber, gas chamber ` so many ancestors caught up in the Holocaust, clearly. The DNA analysis is complete, and we'll reveal all of that shortly. But first, let's meet the man most people tune in to at 6 o'clock to check all is well with the world. Simon Dallow is keen to know more about his roots, so let's see what he thinks he knows already. My family, we were pretty traditional, I guess ` Mum and Dad, and there were four kids. I was the second of four. Two boys, two girls ` very evenly balanced. Dad's mum died when he was young, so we didn't know much about her, and it's only the last five or six years that I've become aware a bit of her background. She was part Maori, part Jewish and part Scottish. I'm thinking I'm gonna find something unusual in there, because we get to this point where there seems to be this heritage, but then it just stops. I'm looking forward to finding something, that needle in the haystack that is quite astounding. And welcome, Simon Dallow. Hello, Richard. How are you? Welcome to the nerve centre. Sit yourself down. Thank you very much. You'd rather be on this side of the bench, wouldn't you? I very much would. Yes, well that's not gonna happen. (LAUGHS) OK, now, in your family tree, there's one or two ` may I say hiccups? (LAUGHS) That's kind of you. Well, tell me about them. Don't hold back! We discovered my father's mother, she was a Maxwell growing up,... but I discovered as an adult that she wasn't a Maxwell by DNA. Her mother became pregnant to a younger Maori man, and in the spirit of the times, another man took her in as his wife and raised my grandmother as his daughter. OK. We can't be 100% certain, obviously, without DNA evidence that this is the trail, but everything leads to this conclusion. But it's not entirely` Well, let's hope that we might be able to clear up that little story for you. Right. We've got some of your results, and if we look at the screen over there, we'll be able to see them. So you have 66% British and Irish DNA. We have evidence of your Maori ancestry with 7% East Asian and 5% Oceania markers. So it is proven? There's your confirmation. Oh, that's fantastic. OK, 10% French/German in there. French/German? Yes. We've kept a few big surprises up our sleeve, and once you're on your way, we'll reveal more of that, when you're on your way. I want you to take this, keep it on your person 24-7. OK. And I shall be in touch with you, maybe within 24 hours, to give you some instructions, or, you know, 'Go left, go right' ` something like that. I look forward to it. It's a great pleasure. Thank you so much for coming in. The pleasure is mine. Thank you, Richard. Goodbye, Simon. See you soon. Don't forget to close the door. Now, it's not going to be great news to Simon that his great-grandmother's secret liaison is adding branches to the family tree. But where it's about to lead him is going to provide quite a story. To learn more about his Whakapapa, we're sending Simon overseas to... # Waiheke Island! # I had absolutely no idea why we were going to Waiheke. So first stop 'overseas'... (CHUCKLES) was completely out of the blue. (PHONE DINGS) (PHONE DINGS) Richard! Well, hello, Simon. You should feel absolutely free to sample all Man O' War Bay has to offer. Because let's just say that it owes you. Man O' War Bay was once your family land. It belonged to your ancestor Thomas Maxwell, who built ships there in the 1830s. Now, he was very popular with the locals, and he married the local chief's daughter, and her name was Ngeungeu. Their story is going to take you to Amsterdam, where cousins Joy and Louise will pick up the tail from there. Amsterdam! Oh, fantastic. It's been one of my favourite cities for such a long time, so I was initially just very excited to be going to Amsterdam. But then there was confusion, cos I really had no idea what my connection to Amsterdam or to the Netherlands would be. Kia ora. Simon! Oh, you must be Louise and Joy. How are you? Hi. How's things? Hi. My first thoughts when I saw Joy and Louise was I expected them to be fully Dutch. Instead, I get met with this 'Kia ora' from these two ladies from Tauranga originally. So I've just come all the way across the world from Man O' War Bay in Waiheke, where I'm told that Thomas Maxwell married Ngeungeu and eventually ended up with you in Amsterdam. How does this all work? Tell me more. Have you ever seen Ngeungeu? No. This is Ngeungeu and her son James. So this is about, what? That's around 1844. OK. And she was Tara Te Irirangi, paramount chief of Auckland's daughter, who married Thomas Maxwell. OK. They lived on Waiheke Island, at Man O' War Bay. Amazing. So that's how Man O' War Bay fits the picture. Take me back again. What year did Thomas arrive? 1826 is the earliest record. There was actually an account which I had been told about and I've read, and it said that he was the first solo yachtsman that reached New Zealand. Now, whether that was true or not, he did build ships on Waiheke Island, he milled timber, and he traded up and down the coast. Mm. He and one of his sons took one of his ships that he'd built and were taking it to be delivered to its new owner, and the ship was lost at sea. With one of his sons as well? And he. OK. Oh. And that's 1842-ish? 1842. Yeah. And so how did we get down to you and to me? Having researched your family and ours, I can see quite clearly that so many of them intermarried. Your DNA cousins are my DNA cousins and Louise's DNA cousins. Opening up a whole lot more doors of discovery. A fascinating thing, DNA. Finding out more about the Maori ancestry that Joy and Louise told me about and the connection to Tara Te Irirangi, the paramount chief of the South Auckland area, was completely out of left field. It was incredibly surprising to add another waka to my whakapapa portfolio. Later ` Simon's confronted by his Jewish ancestry. Gas chamber, gas chamber ` it's just horrific. We delve into the DNA make-up of supermodel Kylie Bax. Yeah. I love it. (LAUGHS) (TINKLY MUSIC) Welcome back to the DNA HQ. Our DNA can map out where our ancestors came from, whether it's a few generations back or thousands of years ago. It shows us where they travelled, and for my next guest, it reveals where she might travel. '90s supermodel Kylie Bax has decided to take a test to see what mysteries lie in her past. She knows bits and pieces of Irish ancestors battling alongside kings, but there's always more to learn, so let's see how much Kylie knows, shall we? I was born in Thames, and that's where I spent most of my life, my early life ` in Thames. And I went overseas, travelled the world and came back, and I live in Cambridge. So yeah, I was pretty much a Thames Valley, Coromandel girl. If I was to choose a city, I would go back to New York. All my friends are there, and I think it's a big part of me, that city. My mum's mother was Scottish, and my dad's side is Dutch. And the funniest thing is that my favourite chocolate is Cadbury's chocolate, and I eat it every day. And we are related to the Cadbury family, which I was thrilled about, cos I was thinking, maybe, you know, I have a little piece of a factory somewhere and they can give me candy for the rest of my life for free. So the Cadbury family is in there somewhere. Whether it's on my dad's side or my mum's, I'm not sure. Then I heard I was related to Sarah Ferguson somehow, but I don't know about that either, so... Kylie, come in, you glamourous creature. (LAUGHS) Thank you, Richard. Welcome to the DNA Detectives and the incident room. (LAUGHS) Now, you've travelled extensively. Your career's taken you to lots of glamourous places already in your life. New York City was your first stop as a youngster, wasn't it? Yes, it was. New York was my home away from home. I felt really warm and welcomed there. I mean, I arrived in the middle of the night with the steam coming out of the ground, and I thought that was only in movies back then when I was a kid. That's marvellous, isn't it? Don't you expect to hear jazz music when you see it? I just couldn't believe it. (MIMICS TRUMPET PLAYING) Where had I come to? But it was the people that grabbed me. I worked with all of these wonderful, amazing creative people. How delightful! And now you're a businesswoman? I am. What are you doing? I'm actually involved in horses. I love horses. Do you? Do horses love you? They genuinely do. It's essential, isn't it, don't you think? Yes. It is. You have a connection with the Glynnis family and a king of Ulster or something ` could you explain that? Well, this is a hand-me-down story from my mum. The King of Ulster, there was a race, a canoe race or a boat race ` whoever touched the island first would become the king. And one of my great-great-great grand ` I don't know how many great ` grandfathers, he decided he'd chop his hand off and throw it on to the island, and that way he would be the first to touch the island, and he became king. So the flag was the red hand. Oh, of course it is. Of course it is. It all falls into place now. Right. We have some of your results in, and we're gonna take a look at those right now. OK. OK? Well, there's a couple of tiny surprises there. you're largely of British and Irish stock, as you well know. But there's 5% French/German DNA in the mix, and we have a story about that for you a bit later on, so,... you know, not gonna give it to you all at once, no, no. We'll keep you on tenterhooks. You also have 4% Scandinavian. Interesting. Mm. That's about all the information that we actually have for now, but we'll give a bit more later on. We'll catch up with you. We want you to take this, the devil's device, and we'll keep in touch with you... Fabulous. ...during your journey. Any ideas where you might be going? I have no clue. I'm excited, though. I don't blame you, actually. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. It's been a great pleasure. Lovely. Likewise. Au revoir. Now, Kylie's about to get a bite of the Big Apple, but her DNA adventure has a very chilly beginning, as her first stop is in Iceland. (WHOOSH!) Well, leaving New Zealand to go and become a model was obviously a big challenge in itself, to just actually get up and go and leave New Zealand back then. (PHONE DINGS) Oh. Hi, Richard! Morning, Kylie. Your DNA shows markers from the Yakut tribe, who once ruled the icy plains of Siberia. OK. I'm listening. I'm interested now. Now, there's very few Yakutians left, and Iceland is home to Alexandra, a passionate protector of their culture. Now, she's gonna give you a crash course in all things Yakut. Wow. Thanks, Richard. (KNOCKING AT DOOR) Hello! Hello. I'm Kylie. Welcome in. (CHUCKLES) Welcome in. Thank you. (LAUGHS) It's, yeah, my house. Wow. It's beautiful. Thank you. I love these pictures. Very nice. Yakutian. From Yakutia. That's all... Oh really? ...from Yakutia. Really? Mm-hm. That's amazing. So, Alexandra is originally from Yakutia, in the Siberian Plains. And although she's lived in Iceland for the last 50 years, she's stayed faithful to the Yakut culture. This is Yakutia. Oh! Wow. This here. Oh my goodness. Mm. This is over 100 years old. Wow! That's amazing. Mm. The first thing that went through my mind when I met Alexandra was the fact that I was so lucky, actually, to be meeting this woman. This is my bedroom. Oh my goodness! (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Oh, this is you. My picture, this was my... You sing? ...singing. Really? Yeah. She's obviously quite a unique person. She's so talented and creative and artistic. Oh, my work ` application. Wow. That's lovely. This is a... cover, yeah. A cover, yes. I cannot speak English. (LAUGHS) You can show me, though. (LAUGHS) Yeah, I will show. And she had so many things to tell me and show me, and she's proud of each and every one. In the summer, the mosquito. (LAUGHS) You got your mosquito. Ta-da! For the mosquitos? You try. Ha ha! I love it. I love it. (LAUGHS) It was amazing looking at all of Alexandra's art and artefacts. This is my favourite page. (LAUGHS) I like this page. it's full of colour. That's amazing. You like it? Yeah, I like it. Oh! And you. Yeah, this is I. (LAUGHS) Then she took me somewhere so special. She took me to her spiritual retreat, a traditional Yakut house. It's so beautiful. Yeah? Very beautiful. It is a beautiful house. Wow! That is amazing. Look at that wood. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's very old. To think my ancestors would have once lived in a house just like this. Awesome. From Yakutia, this is Jewish harp. (PLAYS HARP) The biggest vibe that I got from Alexandra was her passion. She was able to achieve so many things in her lifetime and still is achieving so many great things. So it was really lovely just to be in somebody's home and be with somebody who is quite a unique person and had quite a unique life. (LAUGHS) I don't know what I'm doing. (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Whoo-hoo. (PLAYS HARP) Whoo-hoo! Coming up ` Kylie's hot to trot. That was amazing. And Simon meets a very, very long-lost cousin. So we're only 235-odd years separated. It's not that much (!) In New Zealand, we say, 'Hey, cuz.' I don't know that expression. (LAUGHS) (TINKLY MUSIC) Tracing the twists and turns in our family tree very often involves dusty vaults, . All right, so, this is Tim. 34-year-old male. RTC. Multi-vehicle... VOICES OVERLAP I think about the car crash a lot. I know he caused it and I reacted the best way possible. But it's hard to let it go. SOMBRE MUSIC When I asked what had happened to him, the doctors said he really wore the impact ` any more and things would've been much worse. They said he was lucky ` lucky I wasn't going any faster. Thank you. SOMBRE MUSIC CONTINUES It's OK. MUSIC CONTINUES It's OK. 1 News anchorman and legal pundit Simon Dallow is in the Netherlands, where his DNA cousins have delivered quite a revelation. This is Ngeungeu and her son James. She was Tara Te Irirangi, paramount chief of Auckland's daughter. Right. OK. Yep. But the stories of Simon's ancestors in Amsterdam are just getting started. (PHONE DINGS) Richard! Greetings from Amsterdam. All right, Simon, your DNA test has revealed 2% Ashkenazi Jewish markers, so head to the city archive, where your DNA relative, Miriam, is about to help you connect all the dots in your Jewish family tree. Hello. Are you Simon? Are you Miriam? Yes, Miriam Keesing. Nice to meet you. Keesing? Yes. Oh. Hello! So, Miriam, you're a Keesing, and I know that I have Keesings in my family tree. Mm-hm. What can you tell me? Well, I've actually written it down a bit, what I know, and the funny thing is that the first guy that we can trace back to here in Amsterdam was called Simon. Oh really? Simon Keesing? He says he's from Amsterdam. So I have genuine Dutch relatives, genuine Amsterdam history? Absolutely, yes, because all the girls that they married, they were also born in Holland. Oh wow. Where does your family intersect with mine? Well, that would be in my grandfather's grandfather, Israel. He was the brother of Hartog Henry, who went to New Zealand. So their parents were our common ancestors? Yes. Tobias and Clara. Tobias and Clara. Yep. What period is that? They got married in 1781. Hey, so we're only 235-odd years separated. Yeah. It's not that much (!) In New Zealand, we say, 'Hey, cuz.' I don't know that expression. (LAUGHS) It's been one of my favourite cities for such a long time, so I was initially just very excited to be going to Amsterdam. Then you start wondering about the footsteps you've trod through this city, and you go, 'Well, my ancestors must have walked through these places.' I did feel a connection to having been here in the past, and I guess finding out that you've got family makes you wonder whether your love of the place is somehow in your genes, somehow reflecting the fact that ancestors lived here. (PHONE DINGS) Richard! Nice to hear from you. Simon, while your Jewish family tree is growing, there's a very dark side to Jewish history in this area. There was a Nazi transit camp nearby, which your relatives would have passed through, so I want you now to head for Amersfoort, where Hermien has some more information for you. (POIGNANT MUSIC) You know that Amsterdam experienced the Nazi invasion and that Jews were deported from here, but it's quite another thing to think that family members were caught up in it. That's quite new. Hello. You must be Hermien. Yeah. Nice meeting you. Nice meeting you too. I hear you've got some things you can show me. Yes. This camp was not a nice camp, but I don't think there was any camp in Germany that was nice. All of them were, in their own way, awful. This was a transit camp mainly. Yeah, this was a transit camp. I'm taking it there's a train line somewhere nearby? Yeah. That's why it was such an ideal situation. So they were labour camps rather than extermination camps. Some would have been sent to extermination? Oh no, these were not extermination. I mean it was... in Germany, we would say, 'Vernichtung durch arbeit,' extermination by labour. The statue ` tell me about the statue. It's man waiting for his execution. It's been done by a sculptor named Sieger, who had been a prisoner himself. His one fist is angry. The other fist, more or less open. 'I can't help it'. He's not looking at his executioners, but he's looking up to heaven, looking up into the sky for the last time. His body shows how, yeah, how skeleton-like` How gaunt. ...it is, and I never knew, but it seems that, if you've been really hungry for a long time, your face somehow changes, and then your ears and nose are really sticking out. These are the documents, the details of Jews who perished during the Holocaust. There's so many of them ` Keesing, Keesing, Keesing. Jacob Keesing, approximate age of death 51 ` about my age. Simon Kesnar. (SIGHS) Place of birth ` Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp, in Belgium; Amsterdam, Amsterdam. So so many ancestors from this part of the world that I had no idea about. So many ancestors caught up in the Holocaust, clearly. READS: Gas chamber. READS: Gas chamber. READS: Gas chamber. Gas chamber ` it's just horrific. (SIGHS) (POIGNANT MUSIC) As a New Zealander being in a new country, you feel so insulated from these things, and I guess that's a sense that so many people have. These things happen far away, distant in time, so they don't really impact on you,... until you have a direct connection. The Keesings came to New Zealand in the 19th century, but I'd never really put it together that, of course, they had descendants who would have been here in Europe, who would have been persecuted and died, and now,... the horror of that and the connection to my own life is just, um,... very, very difficult to process. It's so beautiful. Yeah? Very beautiful. It's a beautiful house. Supermodel Kylie Bax has been in Iceland learning about the Yakut culture that forms part of her DNA history. (PHONE DINGS) Good morning, Kylie! The Yakut were horse herders from the Siberian plains, and as an equine fan, you're going to be fascinated to know that they have their own unique breed, and it's a very close cousin to the Icelandic horse. Now, guess who you're going to meet next. (LAUGHS) I know where we're going. That's cool. I'm happy with that, yeah. (LAUGHS) So, the Vikings, they brought in these horses. They would have been Yakutian horses. So it's great to see what a Yakutian horse actually looks like. What's your name? What's your name? The love of horses ` well, that started with my dad, actually. It's pretty funny, because I wasn't riding horses ` I was learning about the pedigrees and the bloodlines rather than riding them. Mum and Dad used to call me Horse Whisperer, because I used to go out when the foals had just been born and befriend them. (MIMICS RUSTLING HAIR) If it was the wildest horse in the paddock, I was the only one that was able to touch it. So I've always had an affinity for horses, and I always feel like I can sort of speak to a horse in a sense. Aren't you beautiful? Aren't you beautiful, eh? This is Stella. So... I'm riding Stella. So, I've only been on a horse five times. Five times. OK. But I'm interested to learn how to ride one of these horses. (LAUGHS) I've never done that before. OK. Ready? (CLICKS) (CLICKS) Good girl. Good girl, Stella. I can't believe that way, way back in my DNA, my people were actually horse people. So I think there's something to say about that. I mean, obviously it is in the DNA, and this was meant to be that I am actually a horse woman, and there you go. My history comes from horses. Thank you, Stella! Thank you. That's a good girl. Yes. Wow. That's amazing. Argh! (LAUGHS) So, after the break, we're in London to take a butcher's look at Simon's family tree. No stories of princes and princesses ` pickpockets and prostitutes instead? Yeah, I think so, probably. (LAUGHS) And Kylie uncovers a right royal family scandal in Pennsylvania. Wallis Simpson was his cousin. Yeah. Really? Scandal. Scandal in the family. (LAUGHS) (TINKLY MUSIC) 1 Media man Simon Dallow has learned more about his Maori ancestry while in the Netherlands. He's also uncovered Jewish roots and family affected by The Holocaust. (PHONE DINGS) Ah. Hello, Richard. Ever heard of Daniel Mendoza? Not off the bat, no. He was your first cousin, seven times removed, and Daniel was a prizefighter with a record 27 straight undefeated fights. He became the first Jewish man to meet British royalty when he was presented to King George III. Dan was the man who wrote The Art Of Boxing and invented the sport as we know it today. Daniel Mendoza, the man who revolutionised boxing. And so make your way to London to meet your cousin Judy, who has some Mendoza family tales to share with you. London, here we come. (WHOOSH!) I've only just found out that I'm descended from Daniel Mendoza, and I've learned a little bit about his exploits, but you can tell me more? Daniel Mendoza was the big, big man` Big name. ...boxer, the big name, and he was known as The Light of Israel. That was his nickname in London, The Light of Israel, as a boxer. And Daniel sort of introduced the science of boxing. I think it was, sort of, being able to avoid the punches as much as give the punches. They just stood there trading blows originally, but Daniel Mendoza started ducking and weaving and used ringcraft, and it became a science at that point. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Discovering Daniel Mendoza was the single biggest surprise of everything. I got hooked on boxing with the Ali/Frazier fight. I still remember being about 7 years old, debating with my mates who was the better boxer, and I've kind of followed it ever since then. What I found, basically, was that Mendoza comes up in my family tree several times, because Portuguese Jews' families` Intermarried. ...were very big, and they intermarried. A rough-and-tumble time in the East End of London. Were they putting on show matches? Yeah, they were. It was quite theatrical. I suppose it became theatre, didn't it? And so there were all the Victorian East End crowds. Aristocrats were watching it. Also royalty, cos Daniel Mendoza, I was reading, he met the king. First Jew to meet the king! That's right. Exactly. Yeah, which was a big thing then, wasn't it? The younger brothers boxed as well. One of them got caught pickpocketing, a couple of my lot were picked up like that, and four Mendozas were too. (BOTH LAUGH) And ended up on convict ships out. So they were transported to the colonies. They were transported to the colonies out in Australia. No stories of princes of princesses; pickpockets and prostitutes instead. Yeah, yeah, I think so. Probably. (LAUGHS) Yeah. Ah-ha-ha! Former supermodel Kylie Bax got quite a kick out of learning about her Yakut ancestry, and now she's hitting the Quaker trail, which is taking her to Reading, Pennsylvania. I had no clue about why I was heading to America. I had no clue at all. I just would never have assumed that I'd have anything to do with America at all. (PHONE DINGS) Oh. Hi, Richard. Good morning, Kylie. Believe it or not, it's the Cadbury family that takes you to America. Oh, super! Now, you may have wondered, you know, whether you could claim a chocolate factory off the monarch. Well, we've done the maths, and if this block was, say, the size of a house, you'd be entitled to about, ooh, ooh,... ooh,... (WHISPERS) that much. Mmm. Chocolatey. (LAUGHS) Geraldine was your fifth cousin on your father's side, and she married one Barrow Cadbury. Now, the Cadburys were devout Quakers. Richard Bax, your 11th great-grandfather, he helped to found the religion in England, and in the late 1600s, some young Quaker upstarts headed... for America. They founded Pennsylvania as a centre for Quaker culture. Now, your DNA cousin Rachel is waiting to tell you what she knows of their lives. Hi! Kylie. Rachel. Hi, Rachel. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Oh my gosh, you have something similar of my grandmother. The face is very similar. That's so funny. My grandmother is on my dad's side, so it's my dad's mum, and I know that that side is the Quaker side, because we had a big history book that had a family tree with Quaker written on it. I believe, on my father's side, there are Quakers, and they lived in Pennsylvania. And I'm assuming they came here if they're Quakers to be able to practise their religion freely. Yeah. This is a Quaker state, right? (LAUGHS) Yeah. Yep. I really don't know much about what it is or anything about that side, which was my grandmother's side. OK. So, they would just meet in houses or, like, gathering places, and they didn't believe in having, like, a minister like everyone. They were also kind of pretty progressive, because they allowed women to get up and speak too. Wow! They were really quite progressive. I didn't realise that. Meeting Rachel was wonderful. First thing when I saw her, she just reminded me ` her face shape and her smile and her expressions reminded me of my grandmother. And I even showed her a picture of my grandmother, just because I wanted to show her how similar they actually look. Did you find anything else that's, like, a little bit interesting or scandalous? My great-grandfather, he's kind of a colourful guy. He came in with the circus. He was a strongman. No way! Yeah, so, he said that Wallis Simpson was his cousin. Wallis Simpson, like, from...? Yes. Really? Supposedly, yes. And his` The one that married the king that abdicated to marry her? That's what he says. We have the letters back and forth, where he's writing this woman with this name that would be correct, but we're not really sure. But yeah, he always said that was his cousin. He's got it written in the family Bible and everything. Really? The family tree. Yep. But, like I said, who knows? Scandal. Scandal in the family. Yeah. (LAUGHS) I heard rumours in the family of royal connections ` Sarah Ferguson, for one. Now the mention of Wallis Simpson in the family. (LAUGHS) I suppose she isn't royalty, but pretty close for me. Not bad for a girl from Thames. Coming up ` Simon's DNA adventure heads south. Richard! Hello from Portugal. And Kylie gets another taste of the Big Apple. It's an exhilarating feeling, actually. It's quite exhilarating. (TINKLY MUSIC) 1 I don't know what I'm doing. (LAUGHS) Supermodel Kylie Bax's DNA has taken her from Iceland to America, and now it's reconnecting her to her favourite city. I love New York ` I love the people, I love the city. I'm from New Zealand, but New York is my home away from home. It's very dear to me. You know, I wanna cry about it, because it's just so important to me. New York's my city. (PHONE DINGS) (PHONE DINGS) Oh. Hi, Richard. Hello, Kylie. Welcome to the Big Apple. Mmm. Are you ready for a juicy story? Your French/German DNA comes from your fourth great-grandmother Sarah Sage. Now, the Sages were French, but they spread out across the globe. Now, across the road from you is the Russell Sage Foundation. Russell Sage was a ratbag who was a distant cousin on your mother's side. Russell Sage enjoyed women, lots of them, so when he popped his clogs, his wife, Olivia, took her revenge by using his vast fortune to further causes that Russell really didn't like very much, such as higher education for women. And so thanks to her, not to him, the Russell Sage Foundation is still going strong 100 years on. Oh my goodness. That's amazing! What an incredible woman! I would have loved to have met Olivia Sage. She sounds like an amazing woman. I think the modelling industry actually made me more insecure about probably myself. To be in the modelling industry, to be successful in the modelling industry, you actually have to be very, very strong-willed, and, um, have a, kind of, a coat of armour from what you hear about yourself through others, and, um,... yeah. I do think I have a coat of armour and maybe too much so, and, uh.... But anyway. (CHUCKLES) I'm always a bit nervous about who I'm gonna meet. It's part of my DNA, and it is what makes me who I am today. I think I get really nervous meeting people that I don't know and family members that I've never met before. And I think that's just normal. (LAUGHS) But it's exciting too, cos I'm such a people person, and I do like meeting new people, and I like knowing things about them, so, yeah, it's an exhilarating feeling, actually. It's quite exhilarating. Simon Dallow's DNA odyssey is following his Jewish line from New Zealand to Holland and to London. Daniel Mendoza was the big, big man` Big name. ...boxer, the big name, and he was known as The Light of Israel. That was his nickname in London, The Light of Israel, as a boxer. And now Simon's in Spain to meet his DNA cousin David Mendoza to flesh out his family tree. I'm in Seville, and I'm walking down these streets to the Church of Santa Ana, where I'm going to meet David Mendoza, descendant of Daniel Mendoza. And apparently, he's holding a candle and this has some significance. Yet again, I have no idea what I'm doing, really where I'm going, but it's all part of the adventure. Hello. You must be David. I'm Simon. How are you? Hi, Simon. I'm David Mendoza. I am your long-lost cousin. Meeting David was fascinating. He had so much information to share, but it was the very first thing he told me that got me most. Our mutual ancestor, also called David Mendoza, appeared in front of the Spanish Inquisition in this church. Spanish Inquisition? Hang on. The Spanish Inquisition. Again, something that, you know, I've loved the study of history, but The Spanish Inquisition is notorious. This church is the last known location of our family in Spain. Wow. Our ancestor David Mendoza was here, we know, on the 21st of December 1698. We think he was arrested by the Spanish Inquisition, where he was reconciled for the crime of heresy. He was alleged to have been a Judaizer, secretly practising Judaism. Because it was Catholic country, only Catholicism was allowed, and not to practise Catholicism was a crime both against the church and against the state. OK. What reconciled means is you say that you don't believe what they accused you of believing, and you'll appear in front of them with a candle ` that's why I'm holding a candle. You apologise, and you light a candle, and some prayers are said, and if you get caught twice, you have a problem, and if you get caught three times, you get burnt alive. OK. So you get caught twice, you get out of town? Indeed. At Santa Ana church, our ancestor, David Mendoza, had gone before the Spanish Inquisition. And everybody who loves and studies history knows about the Spanish Inquisition. And to think that someone had been there with their life in the hands of the Spanish Inquisitors, was... a sense of great connection to a momentous occasion in history. It's possible that you and I are the first descendants here in 300-and-something years. I love the fact that you can be in a place and, suddenly, you are directly connected and mentally transported back to an event that is major in history. David's gone back and looked at the original records of the Inquisition, and it takes the whole understanding of history to another level. It puts flesh on the bones of the family tree. (PHONE DINGS) (PHONE DINGS) Richard, good morning. Morning, Simon. David's uncovered documents show that the Mendozas were Sephardic Jews. Now, your DNA results show Southern European markers, and that supports this. Now we want you to head for the Portuguese border for one final revelation. Fascinating, Portugal! Almost Portugal. This is a part of the world I really like a lot, particularly Portugal. It's the end of the road. To go there, you have to want to go there, because it's not on the way to anywhere else. And in many ways, Portugal is so much more charming because it's like that. It's not, sort of, in the middle of the tourist trade and the tourist traffic. (PHONE DINGS) (PHONE DINGS) Richard! Hello from Portugal. As you know, Simon, in the time of the Inquisition, Jewish people were only permitted to do certain jobs, as they were very much second-class citizens. Now, your family turned to the black market, ferrying supplies across the river and allowing other Jews to survive under the radar in this, a very Catholic land. It seems like there's some sort of criminal connection in the family, because we've heard about smugglers or black-marketeers. But during these times, Jews were, if not heavily persecuted, they were certainly picked upon, and they weren't allowed to engage in a whole lot of activities, weren't allowed certain jobs. And it's quite possible that black-marketeer simply meant trading under the radar, underground trading, if you like, in order to survive. That's probably the most likely explanation. The process of discovering who you are and where you come from is fascinating. It's quite mind-blowing that you can go back centuries, 400, 500 years or more, through documentation. And now, with DNA, you can confirm it. It's quite remarkable going to all these places that you find you have a connection to. These people had names and backgrounds that I know so very little about, more a sense of wonder at the connection of having passed through here previously, and then thinking, 'Hey, you go back another 600, 700 years, and so were the rellies.' Our DNA contains tiny hints that tell us how our forebears travelled. It shows us where to look to uncover traces of their lives and the stories we find to help bring them back to life. I wonder who's going to be brave enough to take the test next week. Why don't you join me to find out? Captions by Cameron Grigg. Edited by Faith Hamblyn. Tracing the twists and turns in our family tree very often involves dusty vaults,