Meet The Izzards (Eddie Izzard Traces His Genetic Heritage)

This is cool on a science level, but even more so on an "Eddie Izzard is awesome" level. Two parts - one looks at the maternal line and the second looks at the paternal line. Enjoy Meet the Izzards!

Meet The Izzards Episode 1: The Mum's Line

BBC One | Comedian and actor Eddie Izzard embarks on a unique, epic and personal journey using his own DNA to trace the migration of his ancestors out of Africa and into Europe over almost 200,000 years. A simple saliva swab and the latest cutting-edge DNA science help Eddie explore the secrets of his genetic history. In this first film Eddie explores his mum's line over the last 10,000 generations, tracing her ancestral route across 10,000 miles all the way back home to Britain.

Along the way he meets some of his modern DNA cousins, from the African bush to the shores of the Red Sea, as he discovers how humans populated the globe, why he has blue eyes and how the Izzards ended up in Europe.

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Meet The Izzards Episode 2: The Dad's Line

BBC One | In the second episode of a two-part documentary, comedian and actor Eddie Izzard embarks on a unique, epic and personal journey using his own DNA to trace the migration of his ancestors out of Africa and into Europe. A simple saliva swab and the latest cutting-edge DNA science help Eddie explore the secrets of his father's family history. He traces his male ancestral route over hundreds of thousands of years and across 10,000 miles all the way back home to Britain.

Along the way he meets some of his DNA cousins among the Bakola pygmies of Cameroon, and in the Middle East he discovers how we first had sex with Neanderthals, as he finds out where the male Izzards came from.