Vanishing Without Trace - a podcast by BBC Radio 4

In the first of a new series, Sally Magnusson goes on the trail of ancestors who vanished without trace, abandoning their families either by choice or by force of circumstance.

The mother who handed her three-day-old baby to the Foundling Hospital in London in 1758 left no clues to her own identity. Helen Warren, the baby's direct descendant, asks Tracing Your Roots to find out more about the woman who took the mother's place, the wet nurse who ensured the baby's survival, yet whose own story has, up until now, remained untold.

Ray Lee's grandfather left the family 'to go to Australia' but only recently has Ray wondered if a move to 'Australia' was just a metaphor. Was Ray's grandfather really thousands of miles away, or had he simply cut off all contact with his children? Tracing Your Roots discovers the truth behind the family legend.

And Debbie Martindale wrote to ask what became of her great uncle, a brother separated from the rest of his family as a child and never reunited. Did he go on to have children of his own, and can Tracing Your Roots reunite the family? Sally Magnusson and Nick Barratt fill some of the gaps on Debbie's family tree.

Further episodes of Tracing Your Roots

Further podcasts by BBC Radio 4

Website of BBC Radio 4