The Secret History of My Family - Season 1

In this episode, there is the story of three pickpocketing sisters raised in 1830s Shoreditch, in the heart of London's criminal underworld, and how two of them were banished to England's theft colony.

In this episode, the true story of two Victorian mothers, Lavinia and Florence, from opposite ends of the social scale, both bought together by domestic violence.

In the 1890s Salford erupted into postcode violence after heavy press hysteria and public panic. In this episode descendants of the gang warfare group called Scuttling, give their family stories, and ask whether violence is still part of life in working class Salford.

The story of an Edwardian family locked in benefit dependency, and of a mother, accused of a shocking crime against her own child. Did the welfare given to Susan Nelson's family provide her descendants with the chance to move up in life?

More than a hundred years on, some of Susan's descendants remain trapped in patterns of benefit dependency – while others have freed their families from the grinding poverty of their ancestor. But was it government welfare or hard graft that liberated them from their past?