A lot of reviews of Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC One, Thursdays 9pm) tend to be filled with references to the fact that the experiences these celebrities have of trying to learn about their family history is rather different to the experiences we would have. World experts and ancient documents are always to hand, nothing is off limits or out of reach.

But to concentrate on this side of the programme, especially considering last night’s show which featured Natasha Kaplinsky, seems churlish and rather misses the point. What was important last night was the story. Well, three stories, in fact – Natasha’s father in apartheid South Africa, royal connections in her mother’s family, and, most heart-breakingly, the experiences of her Jewish ancestors in Nazi-occupied Belarus.

The show opened with a short scene where we saw Natasha walking with her brother and father, Raphael. He says “I think you’ll find that your ancestors were both the victims of history, and the creators of history.” Natasha laughs off this rather grand statement, but in fact he’s not wrong.

Rafael grew up in South Africa, and Natasha knows that he had to leave in the late 60s at 24 hours’ notice; but she doesn’t entirely know why. When she gets there, she finds that not only was he heavily involved with the anti-apartheid movement, he actually led the very first student sit-in in Cape Town. The demonstration came after the government put pressure on the university to “reconsider” their decision to hire a black lecturer, and the university complied. The sit-in lasted days, gained massive publicity (much to the annoyance of the government), and was only broken up when police started firing. Natasha, understandably, is immensely proud, but also immensely saddened when she discovers that Raphael’s family did not support him. They had fled the Nazis, and felt so indebted to South Africa that they disapproved of any action against the government.

Natasha doesn’t feel she’s yet ready to face this part of her family’s past, and so turns to her mother’s side, the Charlewoods. “They like to think they’re a bit posh” says Natasha. Even the remaining Charlewood, Catherine, speaks with a perfect RP accent, despite living in South Africa, but she presents Natasha with a rather interesting silver dish, engraved with the royal coat of arms, to take back to England. At Christies, she discovers that this was simply flogged at that very auction house to pay off royal debts, but she also finds that an ancestor was a royal apothecary to George II and III. Natasha knows that her grandpa was more than capable of stretching the truth from time to time, so it was nice to find that this particular story was actually true.

Natasha’s dealings with the Charlewoods, however, a clearly a case of Natasha trying to avoid learning about her Jewish ancestors who stayed in Eastern Europe when her own grand-parents moved to South Africa. When she reaches Belarus, she learns about the terrible things that happened to her family, and ends up unable to look at a picture of a young girl of nine, who was killed at the hands of the Nazis. The lady leading her through the documents says “That’s a good lesson, isn’t it? Every piece of history should be personalised.” She means, of course, so that we never forget. There is hope, however. In Belarus Natasha meets up with Benny, a distant cousin whose father managed to make it through the war. In fact, not only did he survive it, he played an important role in one of the most effective resistance movements in Eastern Europe.

Once again, this show has proved that every family tells a story – and that they’re usually much more fascinating and affecting than anything our drama writers can come up with.