What to Watch Tonight: Long Lost Family

Long Lost Family: Born Without A Trace is on ITV1 tonight at 9pm.

Foundlings are people abandoned as babies, often in the first days and weeks of their lives, who until now have been unable to solve the ultimate mystery of their lives – who they are. Born without trace, with no birth record or name, they have had no way of discovering the basic facts of their identity. 

But for over five years, the team behind Long Lost Family has combined genetic genealogy with DNA technology to try to help more than thirty foundlings unlock the secrets of their past. All are searching for answers to the most fundamental questions: when’s my birthday; where do I come from; who are my parents and who am I?

Series 5 of this BAFTA award winning spin off series features five new foundlings on a quest to find out who they are; from a woman found as a baby in an open-top Aston Martin in Marylebone, to a woman left as a newborn in the matron’s room of a hospital, to a baby found on a doorstep at Christmas 1960. For the first time on Born Without Trace, the searches take us across the world with one man whose story began as a baby in a phone box in Lambeth and ends with a whole new family in Florida.

With more relatives found than any previous series, three of our foundlings discover both their parents’ identities and meet siblings on the maternal and paternal side of the family. 

As the stories unfold, the viewer is taken on an extraordinary journey through twists and turns worthy of any drama, but presenters Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell reveal information with sensitivity and compassion and always with the support and expertise of the team of social workers behind the scenes.

Episode 1 features the first international Born Without Trace search that culminates in finding the paternal and material side of Chris Mason’s birth family on the other side of the world.

On 23 December 1966 baby Chris was found in a telephone box on Kennings Way, Lambeth. Having grown up with only a few unverified details about his start in life, he has always wondered what chain of events led him to be left: ‘It’s an unnatural act for a mum to give up their newborn baby… who is she and why did she end up abandoning me?’

With the passing of his adoptive parents, and having raised four children himself, Chris felt ready to seek the answers to his biggest questions. Encouraged by his children and wife Alison, Chris took a DNA test. It revealed that he had Italian and Irish heritage, but he could progress no further as there were no close links to living relatives. Our team took up the search two years ago and it turns out to be one of the most complex and far-reaching foundling cases to date.