Emotional reunions tug our heartstrings
LONG LOST FAMILY ITV, Wednesday, 9pm
THE award-winning documentary series returns for a new series, as presenters Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell reunite more family members with their missing loved ones.
The sixth series promises more extraordinary and heartbreaking stories, with some unexpected outcomes, reflecting the difficult twists and turns of real life that’s not always “happy ever after”.
From an adoption in a developing country in the 1980s, to the shocking world of Magdalene Laundries in 1960s Ireland, to using the newest family-finding tool of DNA testing, the series explores new territory and tackles some of the most difficult social history of family separation through compelling and touching personal stories.
In seven episodes the programme scours the globe, from New Zealand and Australia, to South America and Switzerland, as well as the length and breadth of the UK.
Davina and Nicky track down and reunite family members, some of whom have been tirelessly searching for years, others who have spent their whole lives not even knowing that their relatives exist.
With guidance and support throughout, the programme joins fathers, mothers, daughters, sons and siblings as they uncover extraordinary family secrets. Although there are unpredictable turns along the way, this life-affirming series witnesses how being reunited with long-lost family, or getting the answers to lifelong questions, can transform people’s lives.
Episode one features an overseas adoption from Ecuador, and a complex search using DNA analysis.