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Anna Maxwell Martin is one of the UK\u2019s most celebrated actors, with roles ranging from a chaotic mum in Motherland<\/em> to the menacing DCS Carmichael in Line of Duty<\/em>. However, at the start of her episode of Who Do You Think You Are?<\/em><\/a> she stresses that as a mum she spends most of her time looking after her children. She notes that how you parent your children goes back to how you were parented.<\/p>\n She travels to Northern Ireland<\/a> to learn more about her father Ivan, who died when she was 24, and his family. She recalls him being a very gentle, loving caring man. She believes he actively changed the pattern of his childhood: \u201cHe talked about not being cuddled a lot.\u201d He had two siblings, one of whom died. She wonders if this cataclysmic thing that happened to her granny and grandpa went on to shape the rest of their lives. She visits Maghera in Derry, where her father grew up. Her grandfather, Robert, was the local chemist and ran a farm. The family lived in Hill View, a house on the edge of town. She remembers her grandparents being very quiet and wonders how they ended up with the farm.<\/p>\n Robert and his wife Margretta had three sons: Ronald, Ivan and Kenneth, who died as a child. Anna goes to visit her uncle Ron and cousin Alistair. She confesses to being scared of her grandpa. \u201cHe was a wee bit remote, I think,\u201d agrees Alistair. Robert was the youngest of 14. He got an education and got his qualifications in pharmacy. He got a loan of \u00a3100 from a drug company to start his chemist shop. He bought a two-acre field for the farm and built the house on it, and used the other acre to start the farm and then built it up. \u201cHe was a totally self-made man,\u201d notes Anna.<\/p>\n She looks at an old photograph<\/a> of her father and two brothers as little boys. Ron tells her Kenneth was seven when he died, her father was ten and Ron was 13. Ron remembers Kenneth being very ill and says his father went to a consultant who suggested they try an experimental drug. He got better for a bit but then died suddenly.<\/p>\n Ron recalls coming back from the funeral, sitting by the fire with his family and them not talking, then going to the Isle of Man with his father for a week\u2019s holiday and his father buying him a mouth organ. When asked if his parents changed after Kenneth\u2019s death, Ron says: \u201dObviously, it was their youngest child and he died in a horrible way, but they didn\u2019t show it. It was different times.\u201d<\/p>\n Anna goes to look at where her grandfather\u2019s pharmacy once stood, which is now a Boots. She reflects that she had got a lot wrong about her grandparents \u2013 that her granny wasn\u2019t timid and how busy they were and how central to their community they were.<\/p>\n Back in London, Anna talks to her mum Rosalind and brother Adam to find out more about her mum\u2019s Scottish<\/a> side of the family. She\u2019s particularly interested in finding out about her grandfather, Maxwell Youngson, whose name Anna added to her own to make her stage name.<\/p>\n Her brother, Adam, shows her a picture of Maxwell with his arms round Rosalind and her sister as children. Another photograph shows him with a group of masons. He worked on Iona on the cathedral. \u201cI never heard him say a bad word about anybody. He was very happy in his own skin.\u201d Adam brings out Maxwell\u2019s birth certificate<\/a>. His father was Joseph Horne Youngson, also a mason, mother Rachel White Horne. Anna notes that they both have the surname Horne. He was born in New Pitsligo, Scotland. On the back of the certificate it says he was baptised<\/a> in Aberlour in 1920 when he was six. Her mother thinks he was sent to Aberlour orphanage<\/a> with some other siblings.<\/p>\n Adam has an old photograph of Maxwell\u2019s father and mother and nine of their 15 children. He says Joseph is a bit of a mystery. Her mum points out the oldest child Joeina and says she went over to New Zealand. Rosalind has a picture of Rachel looking like she\u2019s had a hard life. \u201cI thought she was in her 70s in this picture, but she died in her 40s.\u201d<\/p>\n Anna travels to Aberlour to find out about Maxwell\u2019s time in the orphanage there and meets historian Christine White. They go to the church of St Margaret\u2019s which was built specially for the orphanage. Christine shows Anna the admissions register for the orphanage. Anna spots Maxwell and four siblings in the register. They arrived on 25 June 1920. Maxwell left on 6 November 1925, his sisters at different times. He would have been separated from his sisters when arrived aged five. \u201cThe boys were mostly trained for agricultural labour,\u201d she tells Anna, adding that there was provision made for their physical wellbeing but not their psychological health. \u201cThe reality is that the four girls had one another, but he didn\u2019t have anybody,\u201d comments Anna. \u201cHe did go on to do well and be loving \u2013 really actively loving of his children. They felt loved and looked after and safe and I think \u2013 I find that really moving when little people are able to rise up. I find it extraordinary that people don\u2019t go on to repeat the pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n Anna wonders why the five siblings ended up there. Christine shows her their mother\u2019s death certificate. She died from erysipelas, which is related to pregnancy so it might be to do with the fact that she bore so many children. She was only 46. A letter to a Cannon Jenks, who ran the orphanage, talks about the five children and the fact that the father \u201cis not much good. The man is callous and drunken and under his auspices I fear the children would have no chance. Your home might keep them from the devil.\u201d At the time it was thought that separating children from families who the authorities saw as corrupting influences was seen as necessary. Parents were expected to pay towards their children\u2019s upkeep. Anna reflects on the trauma Maxwell must have felt.<\/p>\n She meets up with genealogist Rachel King in a local pub to find out more about Joseph. Rachel shows him Joseph\u2019s birth record. He was born in 1861 illegitimately<\/a> to Mary Horne, a domestic servant<\/a>, in New Pitsligo. The minutes of kirk sessions<\/a> in New Pitsligo reveal that Alexander Youngson sent a letter to the session saying that he was Joseph\u2019s father. This is so Mary can get some support \u2013 it would have been a really brave thing for Mary to do. Joseph subsequently added Youngson to his name.<\/p>\n Anna is surprised to see Joseph\u2019s name on a ship\u2019s manifest for the Duke of Atholl which left Glasgow on 18 December 1881 and arrived in Brisbane 26 March 1882 \u2013 he was 22. She goes to Glasgow where Joseph sailed from. She meets migration historian Margery Harper on the Glen Lee. She tells Anna that Joseph would have had assistance to do the journey from the Queensland government. At that time Brisbane was in the middle of a building boom. Margery tells Anna that by 1885, Joseph was in Sydney, working on the prestigious St Patrick\u2019s college in Manley \u2013 it was a reflection of the skill that Joseph had that he was engaged on this project, but it\u2019s not an entirely happy story.<\/p>\n In an old newspaper<\/a> account in the Sydney Daily Telegraph<\/em> (26 February, 1886) about a stonemason strike at the building, Joseph is listed the strike. In Australia<\/a>, stonemasons were unionised and had the right to limit their working day to eight hours. Building constructors tried to keep costs down by hiring non-union workers \u2013 the unions fought back. The strike at St Patrick\u2019s lasted for more than four months. \u201cHe\u2019s 25 \u2013 it\u2019s quite impressive for a young man \u2013 he\u2019s at the forefront of a political ideology which is fair pay, unions,\u201d notes Anna.<\/p>\n A funeral notice reveals that Joseph\u2019s home life was not happy. His wife, Sarah, died in July 1885 in childbirth and the baby also died. A newspaper report for 1889 shows that he committed larceny \u2013 stealing items including two rings, a scarf pin and a suit. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour, but the sentence was suspended.<\/p>\n Anna noted that he seems like a desperate man. Margery says he would have found it difficult to find work after leading a strike \u2013 \u201cHe would have been a marked man.\u201d This is probably why he came back to Scotland.<\/p>\n Anna reflects that as a young man he had a lot of \u201cvim and vigour\u201d. He had a trade, a life there and a family. \u201cIt\u2019s really sad that that all went wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n