Stacey Dooley is on the DNA trail to reveal some family secrets

Over 26 million of us have taken a DNA test in the past decade.

This growing popularity in genetic testing has created a network of databases that can answer questions previously impossible to know about our families, ancestry and health.

Stacey Dooley is meeting people across the UK who want to discover a mystery hidden within their genetic code. Working with one of the UK’s leading geneticists, Professor Turi King, as well as top genealogists, social workers and doctors, they’ll use the advances in DNA technology to help reveal lost heritage, track down missing relatives and detect debilitating diseases before it’s too late.

In this episode, Stacey meets 75 year-old Bill, who grew up without a father. Born at the end of World War II, Bill’s mum fell in love with his dad, who was an African American GI stationed at her local Loughborough airbase. He went back to America at the end of the war and she never heard from him again – the only information Bill has ever had about his father is the name written on his birth certificate. Now Bill wants to know if analysing his DNA might be able to tell him what happened to his dad – and if he has any living relatives in the US.

Fifty three year-old Richard was very close to his dad. So it came as a complete shock when he found out after his father’s death that they weren’t blood related – and in a shocking twist that he reveals to Stacey, another man claims he might be his father. He now hopes testing his DNA will be able to solve the mystery of his parentage and reveal if he has a half brother, Brendon.

After a whirlwind romance, Charlie and Rob couldn’t believe their luck when they had son Cian just over a year later. But their world came crashing down when Charlie’s father was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease – a debilitating terminal illness without any cure. Worse yet, Charlie’s father’s diagnosis means that Charlie now has a 50 percent chance she also carries the gene, and could have unknowingly passed it down to son Cian. Only a DNA test will reveal if she – and possibly Cian – will develop the disease.

DNA Family Secrets, BBC Two, 9 pm