WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
Series return ★★★★
Tuesday 8.30pm, SBS

The first rule of Who Do You Think You Are? is: don't be boring. Joseph Maxwell, SBS' head of documentaries, says finding a warm, charming, beloved Australian identity is just the start. Sometimes you start looking into their family tree, and all you find is a bunch of old twigs. "Other times, records are really hard to find," Maxwell says. "Or there are dangers in going to those zones (hot spots in the Middle East and North Africa are currently out of bounds). Or so little has happened that we just can't find a storyline there. That's where the skill of Maxine and her team comes in."

Maxine is Maxine Gray, the executive producer of the series. She has a team of genealogists who do the significant legwork of crafting a compelling story from bits and scraps of historical information. Professor Google is always the first stop.

"We use Google to do a really general sweep," says Gray, "and try and get a general sense of where their forebears go back to." If a candidate looks promising, the production team approaches them – generally four to five months before filming begins. Then the hard work of research really begins – often requiring going back several generations before an interesting little nugget pops up.

An ongoing frustration is great gaping holes in available records. Ireland is surprisingly problematic, perhaps because for centuries the Irish were essentially non-persons. Greece is also not good. England is great: every parish has detailed records. And thanks to importing some of those meticulous British bureaucrats along with our convicts, Australian records are also good.