Who Do You Think You Are?

Anna Maxwell Martin is saddened to discover her grandfather Maxwell, whose name she adopted when she became an actor, was sent to an orphanage in Aberlour when he was five years old. “Where is that?” she asks. “Please tell me it’s in the Caribbean or Australia!” Actually, she learns, it’s in Scotland, so there’s no long-haul travel for this family tree investigation.

The single mother is keen to find out whether her ancestors’ experiences of parenting were passed down through the generations, so is disturbed to read descriptions of her great-grandfather Joseph Horn Youngson as a “drunken, callous man”. He spent time in prison for theft and domestic violence, which explains why Maxwell and four of his siblings ended up in an orphanage.

“People often assume that I have a double-barrelled surname,” Maxwell Martin says, laughing uproariously at the thought, “but as you can see, I’m not from that sort of family. However, I’m so proud to be associated with my grandfather… who had such a difficult start.”